Blog Archives

Dates for Cleanups and Projects June to December 2013

The following are the scheduled dates for volunteer meet-ups for litter-picking, planting, painting and Wexford Tidy Towns’ many activities, from June to December 2013. Any additional dates, or changes to this schedule, will be posted here, and on our Facebook page.

If you haven’t already, please consider joining us on one or more of our cleanups/projects – you’ll meet a great bunch of people, have some fun, and the satisfaction of helping to keep our beautiful town looking it’s best for natives and tourists alike!

1. Saturday 8th and 22nd June
2. Thursday 11th July and Saturday 27th July
3. Thursday 8th August and Saturday 23rd August
4. Saturday 7th and 21st September
5. Saturday 12th October
6. Saturday 9th November
7. Saturday 7th December

Hope to see you there!

Posted in Cleanups, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

Wexford Harbour Wildlife Brochure Launch

Wexford Borough Council and Wexford Tidy Towns, with the support of Atlantic Industries (CocaCola), have launched an informative and attractive brochure promoting the wildlife of Wexford Harbour. The purpose of the brochure is to create greater awareness of, and interest in, the wildlife that can be seen in Wexford Harbour. Lynda Harmon of Chameleon Creatives designed the brochure and the wonderful illustrations depicting the flora and fauna of Wexford were created by well known artist Dave Daly. Brochures are available from Wexford Tourist Office, Wexford Library and Wexford Wildfowl Reserve. Alternatively you can see large poster-size versions of the brochure on the “Wild Wexford” panels on Wexford Quays.

wildwexfordposter

Posted in Biodiversity, Tidy Towns News

“Neither wild nor manicured!”

Next Saturday morning (May 25th) Clonard Girl Guides along with a group from the Wexford Christian Fellowship undertake a very worthwhile project in Redmond Park. The wild meadow at the top of the park was described by the Tidy Towns’ judges in their 2012 report as being “neither wild nor manicured”! That’s about to change. Under the watchful eye of Clíona Connolly this work party will begin the process of turning this area into a genuinely wild meadow.

Posted in Biodiversity, Events, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

204 Tidy Towns Supporters sign up for GreenHome Energy Savings

Some time ago, we posted an article outlining the benefits for householders in signing up for GreenHome, an An Taisce project which shows you how to make changes to your energy and utility usage patterns, saving you money while protecting the environment at the same time.

greenhomeAn Taisce informs us that 204 households have signed up under the “Wexford Tidy Towns” banner, we are very pleased to have introduced so many people to an easy way to keep money in their pockets, and do their bit for the environment.

Click on the link to go straight to the GreenHome sign-up page. Click on the “Pre green home survey” button on the right ( under My Account ). You’ll see 42 multi-choice options – for each one just click on the option most applicable to your own home ( there are ‘not sure’ and ‘not applicable’ options for all questions, so it really will take just a few minutes ). Remember to Select “Wexford” from the ‘Counties’ list and “Wexford Tidy Towns” from the Groups list.

GreenHome is an environmental programme that aims to support and direct householders as they take actions that reduce their impact on the environment while saving money on household bills. Any individual can visit the website here to become a member and learn about ways to save money, access current environmental information, see how ‘green’ their household is and enter competitions. Participants complete a simple survey at the beginning of the programme. This is followed by four action based themed household challenges to include: ‘Slim your bin’ waste reduction challenge; ‘Energy Vampire’ challenge to find out about ways to reduce energy use in the home; The ‘Water Wise’ challenge that helps householders to find out about ways to preserve and conserve water as a precious resource and ‘Travel Green’ challenge where householders learn about environmentally responsible travel options. The GreenHome team actively engage with participants though workshops and presentations and the programme has 4,000+ online members.

As of 2011, it has been agreed that the GreenHome programme is the “preferred option” to demonstrate waste minimisation, as part of the Tidy Towns competition. The Tidy Towns volunteers can join as a group and used to demonstrate waste prevention and minimisation.

So – if you are interested in saving money, protecting our environment, and boosting Wexford’s score in the Tidy Town’s Competition, please visit www.greenhome.ie, and register your household, community group or business as a member.

Posted in Tidy Towns News

Clean up at Horse River

That’s the name we are giving to today’s posting following another day of Trojan work by Wexford Tidy Towns. Keep reading!
We returned this morning to Westgate to continue with the painting of railings and gates at An Tobar / Westgate Centre. We also collected litter from the general area surrounding: Westgate Green, Selskar, George Street, Abbey Street, Spawell Road, 1798 Street, Redmond Square, Redmond Road. And following reports of a serious litter problem, a small crew was dispatched to an area called The Knock up near Bishopswater. What a mess! Then again this area, tucked away out of sight as it is beside the Horse River, has long had a reputation as a litter blackspot. Suffice to say that it looks a helluva lot better now than it did but it will take a few repeat visits to get it properly sorted. All the pix today come from The Knock … ‘cos that’s where the camera was!

horserivercleanup
Horse River, Wexford

Posted in Cleanups, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

Wexford in Bloom 2013

wexfordinbloombaskets2013 Each July Wexford town bursts forth in floral celebration. This is all thanks to the voluntary efforts of the Wexford in Bloom organisation. They organise flower baskets and boxes for businesses wanting to bring a splash of natural colour to their store fronts. Householders can also get in on the act. The price to businesses for baskets/window boxes, including bracket, watering for 16 weeks, plus feeding the cost, is €64. For people who had baskets/boxes last year and want to have them again this year, it will cost them €53 per basket/box. Wexford in Bloom volunteers will be calling around to businesses taking orders in the weeks ahead. Please participate if you can – you will be helping to make Wexford look even more attractive and welcoming.

Website : www.wexfordinbloom.com
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/wexfordinbloomnews

Posted in Tidy Towns News

Successful National Spring Clean Month 2013 in Wexford

Wexford town has just completed its most intensive and successful National Spring Clean campaign yet. Each Saturday this month there were dozens of volunteers out at various locations litter-picking, sweeping, painting, pruning and generally making our town look more beautiful.

springcleanup2013 There was also the opening, earlier this week, of the attractive new biodiversity-friendly “pocket” park on 1798 Street, an initiative spearheaded by Wexford Tidy Towns in association with Wexford Borough Council. This is the most visible result to date of the new Biodiversity Committee.

The culmination of the month-long campaign came yesterday with a humungous clean-up at The Rocks, Maudlintown. With the number of volunteers up by at least 100% over 300 bags of waste were collected and that’s not counting out-size items such as mattresses and the like. Full credit to the Maudlintown community and St Mary’s GFC for getting out in such force. One not insignificant result of yesterday’s clean-up was that it allowed Wexford people see what a wonderful asset they have tucked away in a corner of the town.

The net result of this major Spring Clean campaign is that Wexford now looks better than ever and people are going to be more insistent than ever that it be kept that way. With Wexford-in-Bloom is just around the corner we can expect the town to look even better again as it dons it floral glad-rags!

Volunteers getting their orders at The Rocks!

springclean2013

Posted in Cleanups, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News