Please spread the word and give 2 a few hours of your Saturday to make a real difference to the town.
The Spring Clean initiative is being promoted by an Taisce who are also running a photography competition in conjunction with it if anyone is interested in this the details can be found at http://www.lovewhereyoulive.ie/
We are hoping to start a ‘Cúpla Focail Club’ in Newmarket but first want to get an idea if there would be any interest. The idea would be to meet in a pub once a month and just déan iarracht, make an effort to use whatever Irish atá agaibh. You may end up speaking mostly English but that’s fine. Duhallow has a strong history of the Irish language with apparently as much as 400 Irish words in use in our everyday english. If you have always wanted to improve/use do chuild Gailge then this would be an ideal way to start. The people organising it are in no way fluent but we just want to bain trial as, give it a try. The site below is a great resource, good links and a very good online course. If you are interested or would like to help us out send us an email/riomhphoist to contact@athtrasna.com
The AGM for the community development association was held on Thursday the 16th of February in the James O’Keeffe institute. 13 people attended the meeting.
Brian Dugdale was elected as PRO and Lisa O’Donoghue replaced Sean Browne as treasurer. A number of different topics were discussed:
Tidy Towns – results were good this year. We came top of our category with 6 points up on the previous year. Town clean-up were run every Tuesday from 7pm to 8pm throughout the Summer. A regular group of volunteers turned out every week to pick up litter, sweep gravel off the paths and to assist with the preparation and maintenance of the biodiversity garden. There was a much lower turn out last year and it is felt that steps need to be taken to improve numbers. We could do really great work if we had better numbers to help out on the clean-up nights. Thanks to the volunteers who did come out each week and also to FÁS who did a huge amount of work in the town throughout the year. Thanks to the Secret Garden for their help and advice. Thanks also to Denis Roche.
Trader’s Association – We had a number of meetings last year. We ran a poster campaign for people to shop local. There was a shopping week over Easter and an article in the Corkman. The Christmas fair was very successful (specifically Brian and Jane). The venue looked great and almost 30 businesses participated. We hope to build on this success in 2012.
Christmas lights – New lights were purchased this year. We received a lot of donations from different groups. Thanks to the GAA, Darts League and traders for their donations. Thanks to Fás and Willie O’Keeffe for all the work putting up the lights.
The Newmarket Town Enhancements Grant – Members of the committee met with Helen O’Sullivan of IRD in August to discuss the possibility of applying for a Leader grant for some enhancements for the town. This grant was approved in October for the following work:
This work will be ongoing over the next 12 months.
We will need to fund raise aggressively to help to pay for this work so local support will be much appreciated.
The Website – we hope to provide more functionality and content in the website this year. We would like to appeal to people to send any photos or clippings related to Newmarket so that we can share with the community on line. We will also be creating a section for articles on the site so if you would like to submit anything for inclusion in this section please email to contact@athtrasna.com.
The more people who get involved the more we can achieve. If you just want to come along and hear what’s planned for the year ahead or if you have any ideas as to what work we could do around the town then please attend.
We want to make a real effort with the Tidy Towns this year so we hope to put together a number of landscaping projects around the town. We’ve increased our score each year for the last two years so we’d like to make it three in a row! We’d love to get a good turn out for our Tidy Up nights – which run from April to September. It’s just an hour a week – to pick up rubbish and do a bit of gardening around the place. It’s a great opportunity to get out in the fresh air and get some exercise!!
If you have any questions or want some more information just grab one of our committee members or email us at contact@athtrasna.com.
Newmarket 265
Kanturk 228
Rathcormac 219
An increase of 6 points on last year! We have a long way to beat Kilarney who won the competition with 310 points :)
Thank you to everyone who made that extra effort to make the town look great this year. And a special thank you to the volunteers who came out every week to help pick up rubbish, pick weeds and other odd jobs!
We are going to make a bigger effort next year so watch this space!
A sponsored Hike to raise money for the Newmarket Community Development association will be held on Sunday, the 21st of August. Money raised will be used to fund maintenance of the Town Park, the pitch and putt course, the camp site, the Christmas lights, paddys day parade, landscaping and other projects to help make our town a great place to live!!!
We’ll be meeting at Torc Waterfall at 10:30AM – bring a picnic! This will be a great family day out!!!
Sponsorship cards are available from Ollie and Éilis.
Further details to follow.
This year’s festival runs from the 1st to the 10th of July. The committee has been busy for the last month both planning events and co-ordinating events being organised by other organisations and groups from Newmarket, such as Newmarket Town Development, the ladies football club, Newmarket Town F.C. and the G.A.A.
Many of the old favourites will be featured in this year’s program; the Puc Fáda, the hotly contested Festival Table Quiz, the Darts tournament, the Town Walkabout Quiz, the Car Treasure Hunt and the Festival Irish Music Night.
The Festival will also be featuring some of the new favourites (with a fresh twist) from last year; the family fun day, Ladies Night, The Bike Run and an impressive closing night Fireworks display.
There will be plenty of new additions to this year’s program including a massive balloon release on the opening night, string quartet performing near the Island wood and a puppet show by Pignut Productions from Galway. Also Turbetts Funfair have some breathtaking new amusements for this year’s carnival.
All events can be found on the Events section of this site. For more information checkout the festival Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/Newmarket.Summer.Festival
Judging for this year’s Tidy Town’s competition starts over the coming weeks and we are making a huge effort to get the town looking fresh and tidy for the Summer. We meet on Tuesday nights at the Park at the West End to do a bit of litter pick up and often a bit of gardening so please come out and give us 1 hour in your week (7-8pm) to do something for your community!
If you’ve any landscaping suggestions please get in touch with us at contact@athtrasna.com or just chat to a committee member! Hope to see you at the Tuesday night clean-up hour!
Shopping in Newmarket has always been a pleasure due to the wonderful customer service and excellent value our traders have to offer. Our local business people have come together to give the local consumer a special week packed with cut price savings and special offers. The Newmarket Shopping week runs from Saturday April 16th to Saturday April 23rd. The special offers on clothing, food, fresh fruit and veg, electrical goods, every meal from breakfast to dinner not to mention beauty treatments, hair cuts and so much more. We invite you to come and see what out town has to offer.
We have been fortunate in these difficult economic times to welcome a number of new business people into our town. We thank them for putting their faith in our community and hope that this shopping week will help promote our businesses on every corner of every street. If you want value for money and a warm courteous environment to do your shopping then join us in Newmarket not just for the shopping week but every week.
See the events folder in the Gallery for the list of offers.
The Newmarket Festival Committee want to share the rules for the Soap Box race. Please see below:
Soap box entry requirements
-Should have a safety belt fitted.
-Should have a roll-over bar or high backed rigid seat fitted which will be sufficient to save pilot from injury in the event of a flip over.
- Should not exceed 1.5m in width
- Chassis clearance should be no higher than 30cm from the ground
- Wheel base from front axle to back axle should not exceed 2m
- Wheels diameter should not exceed 50cm
- Should not have any mechanical parts to increase its speed (so no catapults, pedals or jet engines)
- Must have a rigid steering system (no ropes)
- Must have a back two wheel braking system
- Must not have any smoke or fire devices fitted
- Must not have any design element to endanger themselves or the public (i.e. No sharp metal objects, mirrors or glass)
- The Soap Box MUST have a solid floor
- No part of the Soap Box must extend beyond the width of the Soap Box
- A Soap Box derived from an existing chassis is permitted provided that it complies with the rules
- Your Soap Box design must be easily accessible, so that in the event of a crash the driver can be evacuated quickly.
Please note that entries not complying with the above criteria will not be accepted to take part in this year’s soap box race.
RULES:
A maximum of four crew members per team. One person to be named as Captain, one person to be named as Driver (can be the same person if desired)
- Every sleeve top, protective footwear, gloves and knee & elbow pads (no bare arms, legs or skin). No exception to this rule. All DRIVERS MUST WEAR A CRASH HELMET!!
- No team will be allowed to compete under the influence of alcohol or medication or any other mind altering substance.
- Teams must follow the instructions of the safety officials, marshals and the Festival committee.
- All members of the team must sign a declaration absolving the organisers from any and all responsibility at scrutiny.
- All children competing in the junior race must at scrutiny and racing be accompanied by a parent or guardian, who must have signed the Permission Form at scrutiny.
- It is the responsibility of each Team Captain to ensure the safety of his/her team. Team Captains will be required to sign a declaration to this effect.
- In all matters relating to the Soap Box Race, the Committee’s / Judges decision is final
TO START: SCRUTINY:
All competitors must present their soap box on Sunday the 3rd of July 2011 between 1:30pm and 2:30pm at the church car park Newmarket. The inspection will focus on the general safety of the soap box, braking system and drivers safety clothes. To ensure you pass scrutiny, make sure you stick to the above rules and specifications:
THE SOAP BOX RACE
- Teams must assemble at the scrutiny area, A driver’s brief will take place at this time.
- Scrutiny will be completed by 2.30pm and Start & Finish instructions will be issued when signing on. In the event that a team has failed their inspection, they may request a re-inspection after rectifying any non-compliances..
- The race is open to all home-made racing carts, all of which will race against the clock, one at a time. Your SoapBox and driver will be pushed off the starting line by one/two of your crew. Once one SoapBox has got to the finish line safely (or the wreckage has been removed from the circuit), the next SoapBox will start. Your entire cart and any debris must be removed immediately after your time trial.
Happy Racing!
