Tag Archives: Duncan Stewart

THE Get Involved Awards for 2015 have been underway over the last 10 months and it’s nearing awards day at the end of this month. The Clann Credo Community Impact Prize category has now been opened out to an online vote. This will allow communities celebrate their success and communicate the great things their projects are achieving locally. The online voting will commence on this Friday and close on Sunday, February 21. The Community Impact prize fund is €5,000; 1st €3,000, 2nd €1,500, 3rd €500. The Clann Credo “Community Impact Prize” highlights how outstanding community-based projects meet local and community needs in an innovative & collaborative way. In total six projects from around the country have been shortlisted for this year’s Clann Credo sponsored Community Impact Prize. Members of the local community are encouraged to get behind their local shortlisted project by sharing information about the online voting on social media (Facebook, Twitter) and through their other local networks All members of …

THE bitingly cool winter air swept across Moy on Monday evening, as the Get Involved 2015 Scheme’s judges visited Moy Hill Community Garden and a 17-acre farm located nearby, which was purchased five months ago. The volunteers who run the community garden have made it to the last six in the Local Ireland-organised Get Involved awards project, which is a competition run by 51 local newspapers throughout the country. The aim is that the national competition will drive voluntary sustainable projects, where local people collectively play a more proactive, inclusive and coherent role in shaping the future of their local environs. Matt Smith, along with his partner Sophie, Fergal Smith and Mitch Corbett, are some of the people who helped establish the community garden before purchasing the 17 acres. The garden grows a huge variety of fruit and vegetables and for much of the year, people visit on Friday evenings to enjoy the social setting. It also features an underground …

EAST Clare Community Co-op has now opened the first half of their new LEADER funded training and enterprise kitchen, known as Sustenance. The initiative has been four years in the making with the idea being formed in 2010 and leading to the completion of a feasibility study, drawing up plans, consulting the Environmental Health Office on best practice, researching energy efficient measures and getting all relevant permissions to build it. The building and equipping is the final phase and the micro enterprise unit will open after Easter for bookings. The community kitchen is already attracting visitors from all over Ireland interested in the facility and who are looking to build something similar in their own communities. Recently visitors from North Kilkenny, who are involved in gardening and social enterprise projects through the Castlecomer demesne, were impressed with this community led project. Other visitors included Duncan Stewart who paid an impromptu visit to the facility and was very impressed.  “He gave …