We have had to delay “Walking the Land” at the allotments until Saturday 26th June, at 10am. This delay is due to the contractors employed by Fingal Co Co not being able to carry out essential work on time.
All going well on Sat 26th, we hope to assemble at the Skerries Mills car park to meet for a briefing in the Mills, then walk up to the allotments site on the Golf Links Road. The positive view to take here is that we are getting very close to the openning of our own allotments for Skerries. Keep the faith for a few more weeks, we will get there!
We will be to issuing hard copy applications to people who have applied already, just to confirm that you’re still happy with the allotment size and whether you want to stay with Organic/Non Organic. Also, we will need to know your level of growing experience. This will allow us to plan the locations of individual allotments. After the briefing we will form work party’s and walk up to the allotments to help clear stones and get familiar with the fields. Please bring some of your gardening tools. We will walk the land and give you an idea of the layout of the organic and Non-Organic areas.
We are now getting much more positive news from Fingal Co Co. they hope to rectify the access problem with the field and get it ploughed and harrowed before the 26th June. Fingal Co Co have also said that the Water issue will be sorted out.
So if you can, please come along on Saturday 26th June…… The more the merrier, so we can get in there quicker.
Sustainable Skerries have been working with Fingal County Council on the allotments project since January. If you are intersted in becoming a member of Sustainable Skerries, contact us at the email address below.
Saturday 26th June 10am. Keep the date free in your diary.
We will keep you updated on developments. You can email us on sustskerries@yahoo.ie if you have any further queries.
Our World Café evening went extremely well. Topics up for discussion ranged from Food Supply Resilience, Water security, Sustainable Transport, Trees and how we can plant more Nut and Fruit trees in our open spaces, Allotments, How will we be heating our homes in a Post Peak oil world and Reskilling.
The large crowd filled the Mills Café and really got into the whole World Café concept. Absolutly everyone got involved in every topic, with a lot of very valuable ideas and brainwaves. The facilitators did a great job of sumarising the findings from each table and were greeted with warm applause. Hopefully this will be the first of many such World Cafés.
Everyone who gave us their contact details on the night will recieve a summary of each Tables/Topics findings and brainwaves.
Our thanks to the Ray in the Skerries Mills for accomodating us on the night.
Deep discussions at the World Café
We will be having our next Sustainable Skerries Public Meeting on Thursday 20th May at 8pm in the Skerries Mills. All are welcome.Sustainable Skerries have been engaged with Fingal County Council on the allotments project since January and our aim was to have them up and running from May. However, a problem has arisen in relation to vehicle access and egress from the field. We were hoping to have this rectified by now, but due to staff shortages in Fingal County Council, this has not been possible.Fingal County Council are very supportive, and want this project to go ahead.
Sustainable Skerries is continuing discussions with Fingal Co Co in order to get the access issue resolved. We will be pressing for as early an availability date as possible but realistically at this stage it looks like it will be June/July at the earliest before we can take possession.
Apologies for this, but the matter of vehicle access/egress is outside of our control.
We will keep you updated on developments. You can email us on sustskerries@yahoo.ie if you have any further queries.
What is your vision for the town and surrounds of Skerries in 20 years time.
What will it look like?, what will it sound like?, will it have more or less cars?, will it have electricity supply cuts or will we have our own resilient local power grid? What will we be eating?, will we be growing our own food from our back gardens and allotments or buying expensive GM food transported from the other side of the world?
What will our schools look like? how will our children go to school in the morning?. Will we see more trees, edible gardens and Community gardens?.
What do you think? What would you like to see?
Comment here, or come along to the next Sustainable Skerries meeting at 8pm Thursday 20th May in the Skerries Mills. We will be having an open meeting were everyone can contribute as much or as little as they like in a relaxed informal setting.
The second public awareness meeting of Sustainable Skerries went very well. Even though the weather was not the best, the meeting was well attended with a good cross-section of Skerries represented. Also attending were Trevor Sargent TD, Senator Brendan Ryan and Councillor Ciaran Byrne.
The subject of the evening was Food and Water for Skerries, and how Peak oil and Climate Change will effect our security of supply. The evening opened with the showing of a short video entitled “Deconstructing Dinner” from Cultivate.ie. This was followed by a short presentation with the subject line “Exploring Food Miles and Water Security, What does it mean for Skerries”. We then had a very constructive breakout session with a lot of lively, constructive and it has to be said, good humoured debate.
The meeting resulted in a lot of very good feedback from those in attendance. A lot of good ideas about how we can make our town more resilient and better prepared for the Post Peak Oil economy. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 13th May at 8pm.
We would like to thank the Teachers and Staff of St Patricks Senior National School for the use of their school hall.
The next public awareness meeting of Sustainable Skerries will take place on Thursday 25th March in St. Patricks Senior National School. Entitled “Exploring Food Miles”. We will show a short film on food miles and how this relates to Skerries in a practical way. We’ll then discuss how Skerries can become more resilient in a post peak oil world. Everyone is welcome.
The inaugural meeting of the Skerries GIY group was a roaring success. There were over sixty people packed into the cafe area of the Skerries Mills. We recieved support from the neighbouring GIY group in Balbriggan. We also had a guest horticulturalist from the nearby Ardgillan Castle explaining the basics of sowing seeds and transplanting. We were also very pleased to welcome Trevor Sargent, Minister for Food & Horticulture, to this inaugural GIY meeting as a guest speaker.
Skerries GIY also publisiced the new allotments which will be available from May this year, and are located just past Downside on the road to the golf club, within easy walking distance of the town. Next meeting of Skerries GIY is on Monday 8th March at 8pm in Joe Mays. Everyone welcome
Wednesday 6th of January saw the first event in the Sustainable Skerries public awareness campaign which will run for the next few months. The awareness meeting was held in St Patricks Senior School, and was very well attended by a broad cross-section of Skerries people. We were also pleased to welcome some of our local politicans.
The evening kicked off with a showing of the “Power of Community” video from “Cultivate”, ( www.cultivate.ie ), followed by a 15 minute presentation on Peak Oil and Climate Change.
Mr Tom Hussey, Fingal Co Co parks Superintendant gave us an update on the allotments and some of the logistical problems involved. He was very positive in his approach and certainly gave us all the feeling that he was 100% behind the project.
Our next Awareness Meeting will take place on Thursday 25th March at 8pm, at St Patricks Senior National School. The topic up for discussion will be Food issues for Skerries in a Post Peak Oil world. It promises to be very relevant to Skerries and should be a lot of fun.
Sustainable Skerries recently met with representatives of Fingal county Council about the possibility of both Community gardens and Allotments in the town. The good news is that the council supports both projects . The bad news is that there is no funding available to get the projects off the ground.
Despite the lack of funding the project is, however, going ahead. We are currently collating a list of all those who would be interested in using the community gardens or who would actively participate in the allotments. If that’s you, leave a comment re. this post, and we’ll add you to the ever growing list, no pun intended.
Sustainable Skerries 