It has been a busy, if not a wet, start to the summer for the Moville Tidy Towns team.
The weather, however, has not put a damper on all our activities.
Sharing our success and current plans is important to raise awareness and encourage engagement in the community.
We have put together an email directory for local businesses and will share quarterly updates with you all.
Please feel free to reply with any questions or concerns as it relates to Tidy Towns.
Here are a few Summer updates that you may find interesting:
- Gardening Competition now open: The annual Tidy Towns Gardening Competition, proudly sponsored by The Corner Bar is now open for applications (business & residents). The competition will run from July 1st to August 14th, 2022. Competition forms (both online & paper forms) are to be submitted by the 31st of July 2022. Areas partaking in the competition need to be publicly accessible. An independent judge will decide on the winner for each category. Judging will take place randomly during July or August. Winners will be unveiled at the end of August in the Corner Bar with results also being communicated on the Moville Tidy Towns Facebook page, Parish bulletin and local newspapers. Please click on this link and complete the short online application form to compete in this year’s competition
- The Gardening Competition categories are;
- Best Large estate: over 30 houses (including approach)
- Best Small estate: under 30 houses (including approach)
- Best Pensioners Garden
- Best Hanging Baskets
- Best Window boxes
- Best Vegetable Garden
- Best Pollinator Patch
- Bring your own cup campaign: Moville Tidy Towns collaborated with local food & retail businesses to encourage the use of reusable coffee cups in Moville. Through Facebook we promoted the outlets supporting bringing your own cup and provided them with a number of our Moville/Bun an Phobail reusable cups to give away. All the businesses selling takeaway hot drinks in the town support the campaign including Barron’s Cafe; Centra, Moville; Costcutters & Applegreen Moville (Faulkners); Gillen’s; Inish Adventures; Kirklands; La Mi; Norries; The Cosy Cottage and Timber & Duffy. The campaign was a big success with a lot of engagement from the entire community. Businesses can play their part by encouraging the use of reusable coffee cups and bottles in their own workplaces. If you are an outlet that sells takeaway hot drinks and we missed you out, please let us know.
- Saturday Clean-ups/Monthly Meetings: Moville Tidy Towns volunteers meet every Saturday morning from 8.30 am for community clean-up activities. You may have seen some of our volunteers out and about. We pick up any litter, weed planters/flower beds, remove invasive species and clean road signs. Afterwards, we meet for a cuppa, toast and a yarn in the Cosy Cottage. We are always looking for more volunteers and welcome anyone who can spare 30 minutes on a Saturday to help out. The committee also meets monthly to work on the many activities recommended by the Tidy Towns competition. If you have any items to be raised feel free to email them to us or you are welcome to also attend. We are happy for people to volunteer in their own time if they can see jobs that need doing such as litter picking, weeding or painting, we just ask that they get in touch to let us know so we don’t also plan to do the same task and we can support by providing paint/gloves/pickers.
- Pollinator Patches: You may have noticed a number of pollinator patches in and around the town such as at the GAA island and over bath green. These are rewilded areas mixed with pollinator-friendly plants and flowers to help insects and bees. We would love to see more pollinator patches in and around the town and if you are interested in replicating please see this great resource for some handy hints and tips. If anyone you know wonders why these areas exist, particularly as to some they simply seem to be “messy”, please make them aware that without providing food and shelter for pollinators, there is a large aspect of our ecosystem including our food sources that wouldn’t exist. We need the pollinators to create fruit on plants so without them, no apples, no cherries, no tomatoes, no peas among many other food types!
- Some summer suggestions:
- Allow staff access to taps to fill up water bottles during the day to reduce the need to buy bottles in their lunch and provide them with somewhere to have their own cup that they can reuse if they tend to go out for tea or coffee to bring back at lunchtime.
- If you are decorating your business with flower boxes for hanging baskets, consider Bidens and Bacopa or some nepeta and nasturtiums instead of the usual petunia or pelargonium geraniums. The former are favourites with our declining bee species and the latter, although brightly coloured, does not have sufficient nectar for them and detracts from plants that pollinators are needed. If you click here this webpage will help guide you. Herbs are a great option for window boxes too, pollinator-friendly as well as edible.
- Consider taking pride in the area around your business and sweeping the front and back morning and evening as well as collecting any rubbish in the immediate vicinity. This is not just in relation to businesses on the main street but unfortunately, with the weather we’ve had, things such as loose plastics which may be covering equipment or resources for sale outside could find their way onto the street. As well as being unsightly, it could make its way into the Bredagh River or into the Foyle.
- If you took part in No Mow May, consider continuing this longer throughout the summer, either mowing less, saving fuel with the high prices, or cutting on a higher cut to allow the growth of important wildflowers like Clover, Selfheal and Bird’s-foot-trefoil.
- Moville Tidy Towns Facebook: Did you know we also have a Moville Tidy Towns Facebook page that is regularly updated and provides some great information, especially pictures of the work we do. Why not give us a like and stay informed. Feel free to also share any Tidy Towns-related posts and pictures to help raise awareness and support. Click this link to jump straight to the page: https://www.facebook.com/Moville-Tidy-Towns-157643591634114
- Partnership Projects: We are always interested in opportunities to partner with locals and businesses in the locality. Past projects include pollinator patches, community clean-ups, working with students, waste projects etc. If you have an idea or need support from us please do not hesitate to reach out. In the past, we have run colouring and garden competitions so if anyone is interested in sponsoring something like this please get in touch with your idea. Recently MTT has partnered with the residents of Clarkes Place, Matthew, Kevin, James and Patrick have been busy helping us with weeding in and around the town. In April the men won the Outstanding Community Disability Service Award at Active Disability Services Awards in Dublin. We are delighted to have them on board and have been a huge help to the town. If you are interested the men of Clarke’s Place have great green fingers and carpentry skills. They can hand make and sell window boxes, planters and many other garden items. Please feel free to call up and have a chat with them to see how they can make something special for your home or business.
- On June 11th we participated in Crinniú na nÓg event. This is a national day of free creativity for children and young people under 18. We upcycled containers for making garden features, as well as producing window boxes and bird boxes on the day. A biodiversity treasure hunt went down a treat and the volunteers and children alike really enjoyed the make-and-create session at the old play park on Bath Green. We look forward to running an event again in 2023.
- Judgements in TT competitions: The Tidy Towns competition is now open for judgement and adjudicators have/will be visiting Moville to score us on our performance this year. Here are some ways you can help our performance in this year’s competition:
- Wash and Repaint your building (Boyce Paints & Moville Tool Hire offers a 10% discount for MTT related activities)
- Window displays are a lovely attraction for businesses. If businesses could confine posters to a small section of their store window or better still have a notice board inside with all this great info.
- Provide waste bins inside, provide external ashtrays/containers (where relevant) and pick up cigarette butts.
- Install window boxes/hanging baskets with pollinator-friendly plants/flowers
- Remove weeds and invasive species around your building
- Phase out single-use plastic and styrofoam materials and switch to more sustainable options
- Promote litter prevention on your social media streams
Stay tuned for the Autumn update and until then feel free to email or contact us on Facebook.
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