There is much to look forward to, in the coming weeks and months!

This unseasonably warm, dry weather, does not alter the fact that we are still in Winter! Whilst you may well have the odd Daffodil and Crocus, poking their colourful heads above ground to say “Hello”, there is every chance that we will shortly return to colder weather. Not by all accounts, such cold weather that marks February 2017 as the coldest since records began, but colder weather all the same.

Not that I wish to be too grumpy an old man, as Spring will be with us very shortly and there is much to look forward to, in the City and wider afield.

The City Council, as previously written about, have given their support to nearly 80 festivals and events. This is in addition to some excellent initiatives, such as the one that has currently been encouraging people to visit our museums on Sundays for free, up to the end of February. If this has been successful, in terms of drawing the crowds, then it might well be considered worthwhile to run again, later in the year.

Our next big City event, is of course the 1848 Tricolour Celebration, which takes place over the weekend of 3^rd to 5^th March. The event culminates on Sunday 5^th, with the now traditional Flag Raising Ceremony on The Mall. In attendance will be a significant military presence, with accompaniment from some of our very best local Waterford musicians. But, prior to this happening, there are plenty for other themed events to look forward to.

An exhibition on Thomas Francis Meagher in the Central Library, combined with an Irish Defence Forces recruitment day. A comprehensive schools’ educational programme, which will bring TF Meagher to quite literally thousands of school children, focusing on the true meaning of the Green, White and Orange colours of the Flag. A Gala Dinner taking place in The Granville Hotel on Saturday 4^th, with a not insignificant representation of overseas guests to the City. Perhaps the “Main event” will take place early, on the afternoon of Saturday 4^th. Nearly 100 re-enactors will participate, in probably, the largest period re-enactment, circa 1916, taking place in Ireland this year. During the 20 minute choreographed performance, there are sure to be many hundreds of blank rounds being fired!!!

Following rather rapidly on the back of the 1848, will be the City and County’s St. Patrick’s Day parades. The largest of these processions will snake its way through the streetscape of the City Centre and finish on The Mall. We will once again see all manner of clubs, social enterprises, commercial floats etc on display, on what I always remember, as being a rather cold day of the year. It is just such a pity that the crazy, nutty world of Health and Safety has prevented the “Madder floats” from swelling the conga line, due to incomprehensible third party public liability costs!

Guaranteed, our St. Patrick’s Day parade will take our minds of the soon to be FG leadership challenges. Which one assumes will happen, after all the Ministers have had one last jolly. A jolly to pastures green, monuments green, in fact everything green, in some far flung foreign land.

Once St. Patrick or St. Patty, as they call him in the US (why do our Yank cousins insist on calling him this I have no idea!), has gone to bed for another year, we can start to look forward to many of our tourists arriving in Waterford. They in turn can look forward to exploring and discovering Ireland’s Oldest City, The Greenway and Comeraghs.

From the end of March onwards, we can get stuck into a full programme of Festivals and Events. Then there will of course be your own favourites. I am looking forward to the likes of Sproai, West Waterford Festival of Food, Harvest and of course my particular favourite The Sean Kelly 160km Tour of Pain, Suffering, Mental Torture, Agony.......and FUN!

So, if the political rumblings of a FG Leadership challenge send you to sleep, there are so many more events on the horizon to keep you awake in the coming year.

Thanks to Kevin Pim for the video footage which is from the 1848 facebook page; www.facebook.com/1848Tricolour/videos/1340576525985437/ 

Is the art of volunteering still alive and well in Waterford?

2014 Run for Life.

On Thursday last (30^th July 2015) I was very fortunate to be involved in the launch of the Solas Centre 2015 Run and Walk for Life. Yes, there will this year be two events in one this year! Both events will take place simultaneously on Sunday 11^th October with a sharp 12:30 start time.

There will be the now traditional 10-mile run and for the first time ever there will also be a 5-mile walk. The 5-mile walk has been introduced to bring the event back to the people, if you like, and this much easier option will encourage many, many more people to get involved.

More importantly the 5-mile Walk for Life will allow many clients, their families and their friends of the Solas Centre to take part. Both routes have been designed to get all the participants back into the People’s Park, the finishing line, at roughly the same time. This will ensure that there are more people than ever enjoying the post event activities in the Fun for Life.

During the launch event there were a number of speakers and without doubt the short speech from Fiachra Ó Céilleachair summed up what the Solas Centre and its most important fundraising event the Run for Life is all about. You could have heard a pin drop as Fiachra retold his family’s story of their fight against cancer and the important role the Solas Centre played and is still playing in his family’s life. Fiachra was delighted to let the gathered audience know that he and his three children would be completing the Walk for Life in the memory of Siobhan.

2014 Run for Life.

Fundraising for bricks and mortar are of course much easier than the continuing fundraising needed for additional services required for a project such as the Solas Centre and without a dedicated band of enthusiastic and committed volunteers it would be impossible to continually set a higher and higher bar and raise increased funds to allow expansion of services. Without a committed volunteer force then it would have been impossible to service the 200 plus clients who have visited the Solas Centre it the first 6 months of 2015.

During the Run and Walk for Life dozens of volunteers will be needed to help marshal the route, marshal crossing pints and of course service water and food stations. Without these volunteers the events simply would not happen and our volunteers require the acknowledgement of us, the public, as without their tireless work ethic the continuation of Solas Centre services would not be possible.

Another organisation I am involved with, on a voluntary basis, is of course the Waterford Business Group, now in its third year of operation. In 2015 at the first AGM we increased the committee numbers from 12 to 14 and we now see 14 good men and women giving up their time and their family time for the betterment of Waterford City and the people of Waterford.

As an example of the tireless work this committee are carrying out on our behalf. You only have to look up at the buildings around the City Centre to see the riot of colour that is part of the annual City in Bloom. This operation takes months of planning and coordination and will continue possibly right up to early October, weather permitting.

City in Bloom 2015.

In addition to the wonderful floral displays around the City Centre you cannot have helped but notice the live musical acts that are playing in John Roberts Square every Friday and Saturday afternoon. These FREE musical sessions are without a doubt bringing much needed increased footfall back into the City Centre.

The Waterford Business Group also does so much more unseen work. Whether that again is giving up free time to attend meetings, representing members on strategic policy committees, lobbying on behalf of members, meeting political representatives to lobbying for increased funding for the City.....and I could literally write and fill a whole years worth of blogs with the unobserved and unnoticed work this tireless group of 14 carry out on our behalf.

I am also involved in the 1848 Tricolour Celebration committee who voluntarily give up a huge amount of their time and their family time to deliver a feast of events, every March, that celebrate Thomas Francis Meagher's "creation" of the Irish tricolour flag which was of course raised for the first time at the Wolf Tone Confederate Club on 33 The Mall, in March 1848. As a footnote the Committee also celebrated TFM's birth date on Monday 3rd August with a new Muldoon cocktail called a "Montana" - most enjoyable and refreshing! 

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday last you could not but help notice the plethora of volunteers helping out with the Spraoi Festival. On Sunday evening in particular I witnessed firsthand young volunteers soaked to the skin, and no doubt hypothermic, on Barronstrand Street doing their bit for Waterford.

From my first hand knowledge I can honestly say that the voluntary organisations I am involved with will always give far more than they are perhaps credited for. And the people who volunteer for these organisations are the unseen and unobserved heroes of many an event and festival that takes place here in our wonderful City. I suppose that key thing that we all must do is dig a wee bit deeper to see that what we are supporting “does exactly what is says on the tin”.

Summer in the City 2015.

There are some organisations, events and no doubt festivals that rely on a huge voluntary support network and yet there are some “paid people” involved in such organisations, events and festivals. And yes some of these people in particular certainly give the impression that they are doing their bit for Waterford but not on the voluntary basis they many well promote. It is up to us, as supporters, to decide who we should support and who we should not support. I suppose the trick is that we need to do a wee bit of homework to ensure that we are supporting those that actually deserve our full support. The question of remuneration does of course play its part in this process and like some very recent high profile press coverage of charity executive salaries we need on a local level to make sure we are supporting "the cause" and not the administration costs of an organisation, event or festival.  

So, the question I posed at the start does on the surface appear to be a “YES”. But you must always look a wee bit closer to see the real value of volunteers and the groups that they support.

Everyone must be a brand Waterford Ambassador!

I attended the decommissioning ceremony for the Irish Naval vessel La Aoife. This vessel is in fact twinned with Waterford City. The ceremony took place at 15:00 on Saturday 31^st January, at Forde Wharf, in the presence of the Minister of State at the Department of Defence Paul Kehoe TD, Rear Admiral Mark Mellett DSM, friends and family of the many crew members (past and present of the La Aoife) and many other dignitaries too numerous to mention.

I also spotted representation from the 1848 Tricolour Celebration Committee, Waterford Business Group, Waterford In Your Pocket as well as many of our very supportive local media.

Maybe due to the absolutely bitterly cold wind blowing right down the Suir Estuary, making my eyes run constantly and preventing me from wearing my kilt, that I failed to notice any significant representation from our 32 Councillors. I did see the City and County Mayors (we have two Mayors in Waterford) and two additional Councillors, but very few others. I understand that there was Mayoral Civic Reception held the night before but surely the decommissioning ceremony, in the presence of a Minister of State, with national TV coverage should have been attended by a significant number of Councillors and not the scattering I and many others noticed and commented on?

It was also great to see RTE South East, with Damien Tiernan and his dedicated crew fighting the elements, filming the decommissioning ceremony and managing to get the whole service from the cutting room floor to being broadcast on RTE Six One News only a few hours later. Well done to all.

You simply cannot buy the sort of publicity and branding the La Aoife has generated for Waterford City. The La Aoife has been one of the City’s greatest ever ambassadors and we owe a great big thank you to her last Captain Marie Gleeson, and her dedicated crew, who worked extremely hard behind the scenes to ensure that the La Aoife was decommissioned in Waterford City and not Cork.

We must also acknowledge the work of Councillor Eddie Mulligan who in his capacity as a new public servant and in his role with the Naval Reserve (Waterford) also worked away in the background to bring this vessel eastwards, away from Cork, for her final official ceremony here in Waterford City.

Over the last number of years the La Aoife crew have raised in excess of €35,000 for our hospital and this has been done without fuss or ceremony or publicity. We owe a huge thank you to all those who raised funds over the past numbers of years.

But what of our future relationship with the Irish Navy now that the La Aoife is decommissioned? Will Waterford City be twinned with another of the Navy’s newer vessels or will we simply be forgotten?

I do know that a number of official requests have been lodged and submitted requesting that the new vessel, Le James Joyce, be twinned with Waterford City once the vessel is commissioned later in 2015.

As we are all too aware “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray!”

So we ALL need to ensure that our relationship with the Irish Navy, as maritime City, continues and if readers are interested in continuing this relationship then please lobby your local TD’s and Councillors to ensure that the Le James Joyce does in fact become twinned with our wonderful City and we can continue to see the name of Waterford City promoted and literally carried around the vast seas that surround this island.

On Friday last I had the immense pleasure to spend some time with three Committee members of the Ballybeg Brick by Brick appeal. We got in touch with each other on the back of the Waterford Business Group organising its own fundraising night on the 28^th February, at Kilcohan dog track. The Waterford Business Group unanimously decided at our weekly group meeting to give part of the nights fundraising directly to this appeal. So coming along and support if you can.

The three committee members I met must also be considered as brand ambassadors for Waterford City. What happened in Ballybeg was nothing short of horrendous and yet only a few days later a committee was founded and action plans were being drawn up.

The appeal has been promised the earth, moon and stars by a vast number of political representatives and it will be the responsibility of those who have made these many promises to deliver and deliver within a timescale that is appropriate and suitable for Ballybeg. There are large numbers of community groups relying on a renaissance that must happen within a period of weeks and not over a period of months. The longer the rebirth of this area takes the longer it will simply be forgotten and the citizens of Waterford City cannot allow that to happen.

I saw a determination and drive in the three Committee members that tells me they will make sure Ballybeg rises from the ashes - just like the mythical Phoenix does. But this group will need help, encouragement, guidance, advice and much much more. It is everyone’s responsibility to be a part of the rebuilding process and I would urge that we make the regeneration of Ballybeg a good news story for the whole of Waterford.

In business every staff member is a brand ambassador for that business, whether they like it or not. Even when you are not at work you will always be associated with your company, business or place of work. Like the La Aoife, its crew, and the Ballybeg Brick by Brick Appeal committee we need to work very hard to create the right image and right impression if we are to flourish as businesses. This means being constantly aware how we act and more importantly how we deal with our customers.

There is absolutely no point in Waterford working hard creating a brand image of the City if once you come here you experiences something completely different. Good customer service builds your brand image and bad customer service destroys your brand image.

The businesses across Waterford need to be aware of their brand image and through better customer service we will build a better brand Waterford. In light of this the Waterford Business Group are providing FREE customer care workshops to members starting from Monday 9^th February and taking place in Lady Lane Library every Monday and Friday morning throughout the month of February. See www.waterfordbusinessgroup.com 

Finally, I often find that it is those who work hardest to make a project come to fruition that never seem to get the credit they deserve. Strange but true!