Thursday 19 March 2015

Flying the flag for Waterford.

I often have people asking me “What is going on in Waterford City?” and I also tend to get asked the following supplementary, “How come you know so much about what is happening in the City?”

The simple fact is that due to the nature of my own business, bizBoost, and the various groups and committees I am involved with I need to “have my finger on the pulse” to coin a well worn phrase. I go out of my way to read ALL the local newspapers, listen to the local radio stations, attend as many Council meetings as I can, keep an eye on the social media traffic and of course I make take time to meet and network with a huge volume of people. And it is when I have the opportunity to meet with people that I take time to listen first and then answer the many questions I inevitably get asked.

Today is Thursday the 19th March and the last two weeks have shown Waterford City as a beacon of positivity and a series of one good news story after another. These stories have been covered by ALL our local media and across the various social networking platforms. But just in case you missed these here as some of my highlights of the last two weeks (in no particular order):

1848 Tricolour Celebration, covering the 6th to 9th March; over 110 guests attended a Gala Dinner on Saturday 7th March in the presence of the Mayor, Minister Coffey, Ambassadorial representation from the US, Canadian and French Embassies, and members of the 69th Infantry Division (New York). Sunday 8th March 1500 people attended the flag raising ceremony on The Mall with musical accompaniment from the Thomas Francis Meagher Fife & Drum, Barrack Street Band and the Island of Ireland Peace Choir. All of these events were organised by the voluntary 1848 Tricolour Celebration Committee.

Naming the Thomas Francis Meagher Bridge; on Thursday 12th March, in the presence of President Michael D Higgins, the Suir River crossing was formally named The Thomas Francis Meagher Bridge in a closed ceremony, in horrible weather conditions, in an area just off the toll plaza. This really was a mammoth team effort on behalf of the 1848 Tricolour Committee, and the Councils of both Waterford and Kilkenny.

Lions Club National Conference; over the weekend of 6th to 9th March the Tower Hotel hosted the National Conference of the Lions Clubs of Ireland. Over 400 delegates from all over Ireland and further afield attended this national event.
 
VLM announce flights from Waterford Airport; on Monday 27th April direct flights from Waterford Airport to London Luton will resume. The new Belgium based airline will fly 12 times in each direction every week from April. These flights replace the FlyBe routes.

President Michael D Higgins is greeted by 1500 school children; on Thursday 12th March President Michael D Higgins presides over the launch of Flag Week. A programme by the Thomas Francis Meagher Foundation to educate the Irish school children around the history of the Irish Tricolour and the connection with Meagher and Waterford City. Over 250 schools attended this event and each school received a Tricolour flag that was flown at 33 The Mall, Waterford City. This event was attended by a whole host of dignitaries and perhaps my abiding memory will be everyone, and I mean everyone, participating in a Mexican Wave!

St.Patrick’s Day on Tuesday 17th March; we were once again witness to a magnificent parade on St.Patrick’s Day and full credit must be given to those who organised the event and more importantly a big thank you to those who marched in the parade. The Waterford influence was not confined to the City as members of Spraoi also provide costumes and support for parades in Dublin and Cork.

Glanbia opens €180 million facility in Belview Port; the opening of the state-of-the-art facility by Glanbia should contribute around €400 million to the Irish economy and will create around 75 directly related jobs and 1,600 indirect jobs. Currently Ireland produces around 10% of the world’s infant milk formula but the future hope is that this will rise to over 60% with plants such as the one in Belview coming on stream.

Ballybeg Brick by Brick Appeal gathers strength; over the last two weeks we have seen an increasing number of local events raising money for the Brick by Brick Appeal and money is starting to come in to fund for many projects that will rise out of the ashes. There is so much local support for the Appeal that it you cannot fail to notice the momentum this is gathering.
 
Waterford United hosted the Irish Football Manager Martin O’Neill and Assistant Manager Roy Keane on Thursday 12th March for a club fundraiser with John Delaney also present. Over 200 people supported this event and efforts of the fundraising committee.

These are just some of my own memories of the last two weeks and I know that there are so many more good news stories out there as well.

Sometime we have to actively look for the good news and it is just such a pity that we cannot lead with good news stories ALL the time. As they say in the newspaper world “Bad News Sells Newspapers” but the good news stories make us feel much much better in ourselves and in our communities.

Waterford as a good news story had unprecedented local, regional and national news coverage over the last fortnight and just imaging if we could replicate that over the 52 weeks of a whole year. Attitudes to this City would change instantaneously and investment would flood the City, County and Region.

Good news stories do so much more for the moral fibre of the City we live in than the bad press we seem to always focus on. We are ALL responsible for finding those good news stories and promoting the good in our City, County and Region.

If we ALL ensured that we could regularly replicating the last two weeks of positive press coverage the City and County has received then Waterford City would in no time at all get back its rightful place as Ireland’s fourth City of the Republic. This in turn would lead to lower unemployment, better third level attainment, higher wages and so on. It really is a win win!

It is all about OUR positive attitude to make Waterford the very best that it can be and looking forward with a positive mindset is something we all need to do.

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose” (Lyndon B Johnson).

Thank you to Paul Dower for his photographs.


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