Tidy Towns

The scope to improve our Town is truly wide ranging, encompassing landscaping, conservation, restoration, environmental issues, waste management, and much, much more.  The group has a number of projects in the pipeline at any one time and they can vary from large restoration projects to landscaping and everything in between.

Committee

Our Vision: To Create a Picturesque Village and develop a litter free clean green environment.

Our Aims: To Improve the overall appearance of the Village and achieve the most improved entry in the National Tidy Towns Competition 2010.

The Project Team: The Tidy towns committee is a sub group of the Oranmore Community Development association. We have eight decision makers in the committee. We meet every month and if need be more often. We were delighted to win the Endeavour Award last year. The chairperson of the group is Margaret McNulty, Treasurer Dolores Kilroe and Secretary Annabel Fitzgerald, Noleen Murren, Finnola Murphy, Margaret O’Neill, Kay Davis, Maureen Murphy are all brilliant workers and a very enthuastic bunch of people.

Team Workers: We have various team workers from different parts of the community. Most of our communication is through Email and Web Text. On Friday evenings a total of 85 texts go out as a reminder of when we are doing our next clean up. We notify our various volunteers and resident groups. We are in constant communication with Fás and the different sections of the Galway County Council. Mark Molloy in the Environment section is excellent as is the Area Engineer, Enda Gallagher, Shane O’ Hither, and Emer Dolan and if needs be we use our local councillor to push things along. We seek advice and clarity from the Community Development Association on certain issues in relation to Insurance, Traffic Management, Planning, Heritage & Cultural, and Sport Issues. The community office helps with the update of the web site and banking issues. It is a valuable resource.

What do Tidy Towns do? Being involved in Tidy Towns becomes more compelling year after year. It certainly grows on you. We are trying to instill a sense of pride and belonging in the neighbourhood.
We have commenced with the schools and this is where we have seen the most improvement. The businesses are next. Slowly but surely they are beginning to take responsibility for their surrounds. We have scheduled Community Clean up Mornings every second Saturday between the hours of 10am - 12 from February to October, and on Wednesday evenings between the hours of 7pm - 9pm from April to August. The Tidy Towns Competition is a great incentive for us to challenge the Council to get things done, and also the challenge of trying to improve on last year’s entry is always worthwhile.
This year we have transformed 3 derelict sites in the village. These buildings have been a thorn on our side for the past few years. A lot of anti social behaviour took place and it’s great to see them boarded up and looking much better.
We sourced the History of the Well. We got a sign made up to suit and enhance the nature of the project. The history of the well was translated in English and Irish and the sign was erected in May 2010.
In Conjunction with Fás, Galway County Council and the Community Employment Schemes we are currently painting the seats in Rinville Park and have sourced a maintenance program for the general upkeep of the park. We purchased the stone and sand and paid for a stone mason to train the Fás employees and built a lovely stone wall at the back of the bus stop across from Supervalu. We restored all the broken down walls around the well area and we restored the wall at the Welcome to Oranmore flower bed on the Limerick Road
We planted over 100 shrubs of Fuchsia along the inside of the wall at the Maritime Shell. This helped to cover the unsightly wall and attract wildlife.
We are lucky to have an active Fás Scheme in the village. They maintain all the flower beds and take care of grass cutting. We create the gardens and they maintain them. We give Marie Elliffe the Fás Supervisor a list of our activity plans for the season and she schedules the Fás workers to help us out.
We purchased and erected bird boxes in the nature reserve at the back of Cloonarkin and across from the church. We purchased and planted 52 large black tubs and placed them in very relevant sites in the village. It’s our intention to have them planted all year. Heathers in winter, Tulips & Daffodils in spring and various summer bedding plants, in summer.
Participation in the National Spring Clean was well attended. 18 Volunteers turned up. We covered Rinville Park, Rinville shoreline and the removal of grass and weed growth from kerbs along the Maree Road. We collected two trailer loads of illegal dumping in various parts of Rinville Park. We collected 34 bags of rubbish from Rinville Beach on (Big Beach Clean Up Day) it was a national event and everyone all over Ireland was out cleaning up their local shoreline or beach at 12 noon on Sunday the 16th May.
We donated some summer bedding plants to the residents of Oakfield Estate as they are very proactive in keeping their area neat and tidy.
Since Feb 2010 we have organized our Team up to Clean up Community Mornings. We collect Rubbish from all over the village. We usually concentrate on the village centre first and then the approach roads. On the Wednesday night litter pick up we usually start in Rinville Park or other black spots in the village.
We have established a great rapport with the students of Calasanctius College. Our Anti Litter Awareness program done in conjunction with them is a great success. We now have two lovely Anti Litter Bill Boards all designed and hand painted by the students of Calasanctius College. They have just completed painting the wall at the Bottle Bay, to promote the awareness, Do the Right Thing. We are hoping it will get a prize in this year’s best kept bottle bay competition.
The boy’s school on the Maree road has always been very proactive and has entered the schools competition for some years now. This year we provided paint and flowers for their Tidy Towns School Project competition. We wish them the best of luck.
We painted the bridge and covered over the graffiti, we relocated the baskets down on the pillars and are hoping that the flowers will be more sheltered and perform better this year. We recycled two precast concrete manhole sections and transformed them to lovely flower pots. We pleaded with the council and councillors to organize the cutting of grass and the pickup of litter on the dual carriage way. This has been done recently and we are very thankful to the council for doing it.
We have difficulty with illegal parking at the Bus stop and in Main St. We have been in contact with Galway CC and our local Councillor Liam Carroll to try to alleviate this problem. We have been told that double yellow lines and No Parking signs will be installed shortly. Our community warden Rory O Connor is very aware of the problems it’s causing.

Fundraising Activities.
We had a Church Gate Collection in early March and fundraised €716.55
We did a bag packing event in our local Nestors Supervalu and Raised €1189
We received €500 from the Tidy Towns Endeavour Award.
We received €1100 from the Environment section GCC toward our Anti Litter Awareness Program
Nestors SuperValu have supplied us with gloves, pickers, shovels, bags, and have been very supportive at Saturday Clean up and Beach patrols.
We worked with Fás who have helped us with manual labour and construction materials and we are really grateful for their continuous support.
Many Volunteers have supplied trucks, top soil, timber and skilled labour for various projects cost free. A special Thank you to: Phil Gardner, Michael Cullinan, Tony Lyons, Gerry McNulty, Tom Broderick, and the teachers from Calasanctius College Martin Mc Hugh CSPE and John Wall Art department.
We are promised €3500 from the Galway County Council towards our work with the restoration of the derelict buildings and other improvements in the centre of the village.

 Expenditure
In October 2009 we purchased 50 High Visibility Vests of various sizes with the slogan of tidy towns. These cost us €252.11. Everything we have is being used and reused.
Our committee provided all the material i.e. timber, paints, solvents, brushes that the students of Calasanctius needed to complete their projects
We ran a school competition for the best Anti Litter slogan and offered a prize of €100 to the winner. The schools entered this slogan in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. In conjunction with Tidy Towns they painted 2 large 8 x 4 Anti litter posters and these were put on a float for the local St Patrick’s Day Parade and Reused after that as permanent Bill Boards promoting Anti Litter in the Village.
The students also designed 6 other anti litter awareness posters through another competition in which our committee offered €20 for each slogan that was picked. The competition was so good that we chose 6 and these will be placed in very apt locations in the village. They will be framed and mounted and located in common litter spots.
The cost of the 52 black pots was €18 each and by the time we filled them with soil, compost and flowers the cost had risen  to €30 per pot.
We paid for a lorry load of gravel for the Dublin Rd a cost of €200
We spent €1850 on Flowers, Paint, Timber, and all the necessary materials for the various projects in and around the village
We paid €750 to Eurotec for the sign on the History of the Well
Paid for the 4 beautiful flowering tubs outside the Library at a cost of €90 each

Projects planned –
We intend to plant more native trees along the wall at the back of the well area and some planting of Holly and Fuchsia down by the Castle Road creating a habitat for wildlife across from the entrance to the Secondary School
Restoration of the walls on the Castle Road
Create a seating area at the well. We hope to fundraise or get business to sponsor benches in and around the well and Maritime Shell. Create a little amenity area also in and around the nature reserve opposite the church.
Enhance laneway between Ashbrook and the Coast Road. This is a very slow project. We have designed a beautiful planting project for this area but we have difficulty with ownership and getting permission to work on it.
Reduce and Reuse is the motto. Continue with our Anti Litter program with the schools. We hope to target all schools and get them proactive in Tidy Towns and in the Schools Competition.
We intend to run a competition for the best designed anti litter slogan for our waste bins. We want to decorate our bins and reduce the bins in some areas and increase them in and around the schools and Main St. “It is important to provide bigger and better bins in the Main Street.
We intend to run a competition for the best proposed street names for the village. Lots of the roads have no street names as was pointed out by the judges of the Tidy Towns last year. We plan to consult with the Heritage Officer in Galway County Council and Irish Language Officer to consider if there are local street names that can be considered. Also we hope that the students from all the schools will study the local village map and come up with apt names that we can propose to the council. When the names have been chosen we will get the Art students to design the name plate.
We will continue to work with the council to achieve a satisfactory traffic management policy for the village centre.
Continue with the litter patrols for Rinville Park working with schools and local residents to help keep the park litter free.

How you can help
We are constantly monitoring the Bottle Bay Centre. Cameras have been installed in the car park and hopefully we will be able to catch those responsible for the illegal dumping.
Please Note. The bottle banks are emptied every Monday morning. This is a very busy site, and please help us to keep it clean by not leaving bottles or boxes if the bins are full.
Support from property owners in the village to contribute to the overall appearance of the village and to encourage “Pride of Place”
Some unscrupulous persons are stealing the flowers and shrubs from the tubs. We urge you to be observant and report it to the community officer. We have funded and worked hard to put these in place and we would really appreciate your help in leaving them in situ.
Be a Watch Dog for illegal dumping on the Coast Road, Castle Road, Dublin Road and Bottle Bay.
Helping us to water the flower tubs in and around the village centre or those that are nearest to your premises, would be a tremendous support.
Reduce and Reuse and help to keep Oranmore a litter free zone

Oranmore has been a building site for the past few years. The centre of the village is now complete and the new buildings look bright and colourful
We have our final construction development taking place just outside the village near the bridge. It has a large volume of trucks and lorries carrying earth and rubble coming and going from the site. It is difficult to keep paint work and other buildings free of dust. All in all we are happy with our progress and feel that we are getting there. We have a good working relationship with Galway County Council & Fás and we are kept up to date with all that is happening through the Community Forum email.
Our Volunteers are increasing in numbers and are keen to get projects done.
Above all we have gained the respect of the community. So it’s onwards and upwards. A very sincere thank you, to the Tidy Towns Team, The Volunteers, The Students and all who have helped us, to improve the overall look of the Village. A special thanks to those of you that are currently watering the flowers.
If anyone is interested in helping our group we would be most grateful if you contact the community office on 091 790335

Yours in Tidy Towns
Margaret McNulty