Tag Archives: competition

A TEAM of students from the Shannon College of Hotel Management is getting ready to compete at a top continental hospitality competition. The Mise En Place Cup in Maastricht is a competition for Europe’s top hospitality schools and third year students Alex O’Sullivan, Grace O’Toole, Darragh Curran, Charlotte O’Brien and Zoe Ahern will represent Shannon. Speaking this week, Alex said, “Within our year we all compete to be on the team, by sending in different introduction videos and our CVs. “Then our mentor chooses five students who she thinks will represent the college well. We are going over to Maastricht in February of 2023 to take part in the competition.” On the assessment of the competing colleges, she added,”At the minute we have to write a paper and when we get over there we have to pitch it Dragon’s Den-style. “We have to pretend that we are pitching to a company, a hotel group, trying to sway them in a …

A GORT student is set to create a storm in the music world having being named a winner in a global song-writing competition. Jenna Coughlan, a sixth year student at Gort Community School is one of six young musicians from across the world to be included on a new album with her award winning song ‘Smoke Storms’. The recording is being released by Future Youth Records,  a non-profit record label dedicated to helping youth create and distribute music promoting social justice based in California. In previous years winners of the song-writing competition would have been flown to LA to record their track, however due to Covid-19 this was not possible. Speaking to the Clare Champion, Jenna reveals that she managed to record her song for Think Earth Vol 1 from her very own bedroom in Gort. The Leaving Cert student says, “It would have been a nice experience to over there, but at the same time it’s a busy time …

FIVE-years old Clare student artist, Kate Moran, from Nicola Art Class, Ennis, has won a top prize in this year’s 66th Texaco Children’s Art Competition for her work entitled ‘My Daisy’. Kate won a Special Merit Award for an artwork that final adjudicator, Professor Declan McGonagle said, “was imaginative and displayed a high level of skill”. With the onset of Covid-19, the competition had to be extended over a longer period this year with delays to the final adjudication process and the announcement of winners. As a result, activities normally undertaken during April and May, traditionally, the introduction of winners to the media and the formal presentation of prizes, had to be set aside as a consequence of which prizes will be delivered by hand without the possibility of an awards ceremony. 

THE national Tidy Towns competitions may be cancelled, but that hasn’t stopped the dedicated band of volunteers who have been keeping Ennis looking its best all year round. Just one of a number of initiatives underway locally has seen Ennis Tidy Towns join forces with the little ninjas of Ennis Coderdojo, asking them to develop Tidy Towns themed games and apps. The local Tidy Towns committee are looking forward to adjudicating what the youngsters come up with later this month. “If we don’t have actual Tidy Towns, we have virtual Tidy Towns,” smiles chairman of Ennis Tidy Towns Cormac McCarthy. He admits that there was disappointment in the community when it was announced this year’s contest would not be going ahead. The Ennis team, who have been hugely successful in the national contest, put in a “very strong submission” this year having worked right through the year. However, Cormac believes it was the right decision given the current Covid-19 crisis. …

CLARE’S young people are being urged to show they have the write stuff by getting involved in a new county-wide competition. Clare County Library have launched a creative writing competition for children and teenagers. “With schools currently closed and students working remotely on assignments set by teachers Clare County Library would like to offer a different type of exercise to children and teenagers aged between 7 and 15 who like to write stories,” explained a spokesperson. To enter, all you have to do is write a story up to 700 words based on ‘County Clare 2020: A Day in My Life’. Entries must be in before 12 noon on May 12. All entrants are asked to type their name and age at the end of their story and email their entry to library_mailbox@clarecoco.ie When sending entries include the words Creative Writing Competition as the email subject. The shortlisted and winning entries will be posted on www.clarelibrary.ie on June 3 and …

THE children of Clare are being urged to find inspiration in staying at home and get involved in a countywide art competition being run on social media. The brainchild of Ennis based visual artist Rachel McManus the competition is free to enter and is open to all primary school children. The Clare Kids Art Competition is already proving popular with the county’s youngsters, with Rachel already wowed by the standard of entries. The theme of the competition is ‘My Life at Home’ with primary school children asked to create a work of art based on this idea. Rachel explained the inspiration behind the competition, “We are all navigating these unusual times as best as we can. It can be hard for kids not being able to go playgrounds, play with their friends and not being able to play sport or go to their normal activities. Being told they cannot see friends and family feels strange and unfair. It’s easy to …

AN Ennis art student has drawn on his talents to be named among the winners of a video animation competition. ELVES, the End-of-Life Vehicle compliance scheme and Limerick School of Art & Design LIT have announced the winners of their recent joint video animation competition. The purpose of the contest was to help ELVES www.elves.ie raise awareness about how End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs) in Ireland should be processed properly. Mikey Cashell from Ennis was one of the winners in the competition. As the compliance scheme for the End-of-Life Vehicle sector, part of ELVES remit is to create public awareness about how people should correctly scrap their cars and small vans, once they are no longer roadworthy.  To help achieve this aim, ELVES partnered with Limerick School of Art and Design LIT to task some of its students with creating commercial standard video animations which would best convey this message. Mikey, along with fellow students Anna Dreimane and Kate Deegan were awarded runners up …

A PAINTING by a young Clare artist and student of the Ennis Art School has been brought to life as part of a new television commercial. The painting by young Laurie Hehir, aged seven, was chosen to illustrate the promotion of the closing date for receipt of entries in the 2020 Texaco Children’s Art Competition. Her teacher, local artist Carmel Doherty told us, “This is a massive achievement for Laurie, her parents are delighted and very proud of her. She’s a very nice kid, full of beans and really creative. It’s marvellous to see her art work on the screen.” Screened here and in Northern Ireland throughout the months of January and February, its purpose will be to notify young artists, parents and teachers that the 66th Competition is underway. The commercial’s storyline centres upon Laurie’s painting of ‘Bobby’, her grandfather’s Friesian cow for which she was awarded a prize in the competition last year. Focusing on the characteristics that …