Report on AGM Wednesday 11th October, 2006

Ballykealey Manor Hotel

The chairman Michael Martin gave the following report to a select audience of sixteen.

Welcome to our 4th AGM, the last one being October, 2005.

Apologies
Maura George – on holidays

This year we didn’t get a Secretary so I’ll cover all the events except for the treasurer’s report. However, most correspondence is on the village web site and can be followed as it happens.

Sewage Scheme
I was recently advised by John Carley of the council that the upgrade for the civil aspects is completed and that it should be commissioned by mid November. It will cater for 350 houses or 1200 people. An interesting ratio of 3.5 persons per house. I enquired if this was sufficient given the amount of development taking place and he advised that there is room to expand this to three times this capacity if needed.

Local Area Plan
This has now commenced and invitations have been requested by the council from interested parties. We facilitated this by acting as an agency but no one took advantage of it. Also, this committee didn’t put a collective view to the council. I did put forward a personal view and received an acknowledgement from the council that it would be taken into account. It is really important that we keep contact with our elected representatives and council planners on this.

Tidy Towns
We got a glowing report from the judge but only an effective extra three points. This was disappointing as the village looked its best since we started. Last year we got two judging dates but this year we got only one although there was a heading for a second judging.
We wrote to the Tidy Towns with our query but got no reply. The judging took place three weeks before the National Pride of Place judging which was not to our advantage.

Litter League
We got through to the knockout stage but made no further progress. However, the village is kept pretty well litter free. Our volunteers seemed to have dropped off as the year continued and we need to rejuvenate some enthusiasm here. There is no lack of enthusiasm on those who do the littering though and sometimes I think it’s on the increase.

Co-operation Ireland Pride of Place
We played our part in this by
• Helping to present the village to best effect.
• In using the web site to advertise events.
• In helping groups with their booklet presentation and photographs.
• In having a display stand.
• In putting up bunting.
• In getting a banner

The results will be known 14th October, this Saturday and representing Ballon will be Mick O’Toole. I’m told that there will be a big screen in the bar area and some groups plan to watch the events from there. We were given a video covering the three villages and we have made copies for sale as a fundraising activity. Eileen has some copies here and they only cost 10euro.

Three Year Heritage Action Plan
This has been put together by Alison and circulated to interested parties. A copy has been made available at the Computer Centre for interested parties. This has been well received by the council.

Heritage Week
We held our second heritage talk at Ballykealey Manor Hotel and the guest speaker was John Smyth of Connaberry who spoke about the 300 year legacy of the Lecky family who previously owned this building as their place of residence. This was well attended and generously sponsored by the hotel and four local businesses. We had a free draw for the prizes which was well received as four locals won them. John’s talk with slides was well received and he sent us the following letter.
Special thanks to Alison for getting this organised.

Garda Station
We corresponded with the superintendent on the following issues.
• Appearance and garden
• Painting
• History
• Condition report
• Conservation report
• Ambient lighting

The garden was loosely attended to and a little bit of history was discovered but no progress was made on the other issues.

Tullow Engineer
There had been a promise to prepare the roadside verge below the cemetery for seeding. After many reminders a half hearted attempt was made but it was next to no use. On enquiry I was told that it was a great job and that’s all we would get. So we took the initiative, spent 1800 euro, and got a proper job done. The result was a real enhancement of this side of the village and the wild flower section got almost universal approval.
The engineer did co-operate later, after an intervention by Community and Enterprise, in agreeing to provide bollards opposite Nolan’s garage to prevent lorries messing up the verge. Unfortunately, Mick O’Toole, subsequently sought funding to tarmac the area around the community centre in preparation for the POP competition. This was agreed but we couldn’t have both. The latter seemed more important at the time so I didn’t press it. However, it still hasn’t been done.

Bagenalstown Engineer
This engineer took a tour of the area with me and was also approached by Community and Enterprise to attend to our ‘wish list’.

• He gave approval for the other wildflower garden
• He got the entrance to Forge Meadow completed
• He tidied up the graveyard entrance and painted the railings
• He will look at the possibility of providing kerbing on the roadside opposite the garda station to prevent vehicles driving over the grass verge.
• He will look at the possibility of extending the footpath from Forge Meadow to Ballykealey lane.
• He sees no chance of raising the pavement by the garda station at this time.
• He will fill in the ditch along Ballykealey Lane in stages as hardcore filling becomes available.
• He will discuss the water supply to the two original houses on the lane where temporary permission had been given to facilitate connection to one of the new houses.
• He repaired the water leakage at the mains connection to Ballykealey lane.

As you will note a much better level of co-operation; and when they saw the work we had paid to be done on the tree planting and wildflower garden they offered to complete the levelling and made a contribution to seeding and planting of the other half.

FAS worker.
We made representation for a FAS worker with no success, but, in view of the POP competition we were given one day a week by an existing worker which was a great help in getting the place tidied up. Special thanks to Maura for delegating village tasks to Tom Rogers who has been very co-operative.

Playground/Recreational facilities for Ballon

Shirley O'Neill of CCC contacted me to advise that the council has put aside monies for these facilities and I subsequently escorted their engineer Lilly Slye around the village on the 27th Sept. to show her the layout and possible locations. She will liaise with the relevant departments and then organise a public meeting to hear the views and ideas of the populace.
With this in mind I had previously written to the owner of the walled garden to see if he would be willing to sell it to the community and he replied “not at this time”

Village Enhancement projects

Apart from maintenance of previous projects we got four extra improvements made.

• A small flower bed near the school crossing. The council provided the tree and we made the bed and planted the shrubs.

• A wild flower garden on the south side of the village which has given great satisfaction.

• A wild flower garden on the north side of the village. This has a different seed mix and was planted later, but it too has given great satisfaction. A special thanks here to Carlow Stone Centre who sponsored the “Wild Flower” stone markers

• Heritage plaques for the Lecky family & Quaker graveyards. These were generously sponsored by Celtic Stone.

Web Site - www.ballonvillage.com
This continues to be well received and a useful tool for recording local events. Better use of it could be made by many of the Groups although during the POP preparation most groups were updated.
The site is recording an average of 150 visitors per day and has had visitors from countries world wide. It is very much appreciated by locals living abroad and we have received many emails of thanks from them. Recently I was talking to an eighty year old lady and she told me that she doesn’t get out much but she logs on ever day to catch up on any news and see the pictures. This little story makes the effort well worthwhile.

Work in progress
We have the following jobs in hand for early completion, funds permitting.
• Continuation of the wild flower garden on the north side together with continuation of the tree planting there.
• Planting three trees opposite the entrance to Ballykealey Manor Hotel at the road junction to Rathoe.
• Descriptive heritage notices for the two graveyards
• A tree survey – a start was made on this last Saturday with Paul Cutler and Aubrey Fennell and initiated by Alison.
• A Tidy Towns survey through Community and Enterprise to give advice on how we might best proceed.
• Improved road and tourist signage for the area
• Interpretation boards
• Tree planting on the south side

In connection with some of these Alison and Mandy met with Kathryn Wall of Community & Enterprise who gave good support and advice.

Treasurer's Report - Eileen Murphy

Income & Expenditure Account 11/10/2005- 12/10/2006

Conclusion
We are going in the right direction and continue to make progress.
A few more consistent helpers would make a huge difference. If a lot of people reliably contributed a little the village would make much better progress. The danger of leaving the work to a few people is that one day they’ll get fed up and stop. This happened in Tullow last year and they are trying to re-organise themselves.

Anyway, there have been some consistent workers, on and off the committee, who contributed greatly. We know they are so I won’t name them – but, thanks a lot.

Lastly I’d ask you to complete the attendance list and tick the appropriate boxes concerning being on the committee or giving a hand as appropriate. We’ll then be in touch for next year’s campaign.

Lastly, a special thanks to Ballykealey Manor Hotel for providing the facilities and the refreshments.

The DVD was then shown of the National pride of Place Judging Day. These are on sale through Ballon Training and Business Services at just 10 euro. Proceeds going to BIG.