Gráinne Enright at Skerries Mills, receiving her award from Jane Landy (Chair of SCA)
This goes to Gráinne Enright in recognition of all that she has done to welcome and support Ukrainians who have fled the war with Russia and sought refuge in Skerries. Gráinne personally organised accommodation, summer camps, clothes, bicycles, lifts, job opportunities and countless other supports. She was even involved in ensuring that our Ukrainian guests took part in the Skerries St Patrick’s Day Parade!Gráinne also worked on the Skerries Soundwaves Committee for many years and has set up a website to provide free online Maths grinds for secondary school students https://www.brighterminds.ie Her efforts have made a huge difference to the lives of so many people. Thank you Gráinne for all your wonderful work!
Jane Landy (Chair, The Skerries Community Association)
Congratulations to Sabine McKenna of Sustainable Skerries, who has received a Fingal Mayor’s Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the community! Sabine was nominated for the award by Skerries Community Association board of directors. 230 nominations were submitted and 24 people (including Sabine) received awards. The awards were presented by the Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Howard Mahony, at a magnificent reception at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown on Thursday 1st June 2023. We believe she was also nominated by a Skerries resident. Here is the citation that we submitted:
Sabine’s passion for the environment and determination to improve sustainability and resilience in Skerries are infectious. She chairs Sustainable Skerries, leading and growing an active committee and volunteer group.
She drives numerous projects – promoting climate action, circular economy, waste reduction, biodiversity, S.L.O.W. food, and organic gardening. Her focus is always on community, promoting local initiatives and positive changes.
In 2022, Sabine secured funding for and organised a bespoke course on sustainability for 24 local participants, who became inspired to make change in Skerries. Sabine ran the inaugural Skerries Eco night with organisations and individuals from Skerries, sharing ideas and stimulating action. The follow-up event took place on 27th April, on how to further improve biodiversity.
With ChangeX funding, she organised local volunteers to plant 30 fruit and nut trees in Open Orchards around Skerries. Inspired by this, Fingal County Council funded 70 more trees in 8 Skerries locations to be enjoyed for years to come. She is also organising Skerries’ first Eco Festival, with FCC funding, bringing together groups from Skerries to demonstrate their eco initiatives and easily-adopted sustainable practices.
Sabine was an outstanding board member and secretary of Skerries Community Association for several years. During this time, she set up and ran a committee to establish Skerries Coder Dojo – a coding club for children and teenagers, established Skerries Neighbourhood Networks, and ran the online communications and a children’s Minecraft project for Skerries Soundwaves arts festival.
Her contribution to so many aspects of life in Skerries is simply incredible!
Being interviewed by Marty Morrissey – MC for the eventEnjoying the celebrations! Sabine and her guests for the evening: Jane Landy, Helen Scullion, Ernestine Woelger and husband Michael McKenna
As every year in the run-up to the Annual General Meeting (to which everyone in Skerries is invited!), the chair and the committees of the Skerries Community Association look back on the past twelve months.
We have put together reports and photographs, which will be delivered to households in Skerries over the next week or so.
It will also be available in our community centre, in Skerries Library, Skerries Mills, and in some of the local supermarkets.
And we are also publishing it here (below), for your convenience.
Will we see you at the AGM? It will take place on Thursday 15 June from 8 pm in the Little Theatre, Old Schoolhouse, Skerries Community Centre. There will be refreshments!
Click on the link below if you’d like to see the full PDF.
Cycle or walk with us for better active travel conditions in Skerries!After a summer of monthly evening cycles, now it’s time for the big one:
Join us for the SkerriesLight Up Your BikeCycle and Walk on Thursday 22 September to mark the launch of Fingal County Council’s Skerries Active Travel Consultation, as well as European Mobility Week.Early Option: Come to Barnageeragh Monument (close to the coast road, near the apartments) at 7 pm if you’d like to join us for a coastal walk / slow coastal cycle. At the White Cottages, the walkers will continue up Balbriggan Street and turn right into Dublin Road, then left up Martine Court / Millhill Park to Skerries Mills. The cyclists will take a longer route and meet them there at 7.30. 7.30 Option: You can join the growing group of cyclists and walkers at Skerries Mill Car Park at 7.30 pm for the main cycle / walk.The walkers will head across the playing fields and towards the Catholic Church to Floraville, while those on wheels will take the long way round to Floraville, where we will all assemble at about 7.45 pm for a final walk / cycle around the triangle of Strand Street, Thomas Hand Street and Church Street. Let’s make ourselves as brightly lit up as possible, with bicycle bells in good working order, to create a lively presence!
All children must be accompanied by an adult who will be responsible for them during the event.
Background: Earlier that Thursday, 22nd September, the Active Travel Feasibility Study for Skerries will be officially launched in Floraville Park from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Drop by during the day if you can!
The public consultation will run for six weeks from then. This will include face to face interviews and surveys (using paper forms as well as online). Everyone will be invited to give their views on how they would like to be able to move around Skerries, whether on foot, on bicycles and tricycles, mobility scooters, skates, private car, go-car, community car as well as taxis and public transport.
There will also be workshops aimed different stakeholder groups including school goers and older residents. Look out for more information in our next blogpost! So we hope to see many of you on Thursday night, 7 pm at the Barnageeragh Monument or 7.30 pm at the Skerries Mills Car Park / 7.45 pm Floraville Park. Let’s light up our streets and show how much support there is for active travel in Skerries!
Jane Landy, Chairperson, Skerries Community Association, and Máire Jones, Jim Quigley Volunteer of the Year 2022 (Photo: John Coleman, SCA)
Every year, the Skerries Community Association (SCA) awards the Jim Quigley Volunteer of the Year title to a group or an individual.
In doing so, the SCA honours the memory of the late Jim Quigley – a man who, like so many of us, was a “blow-in.” He and his wife Brigid came to Skerries in the 1970s. He volunteered in his local Residents Group and from there was drawn to the Skerries Development and Community Association, where his involvement lasted 22 years, ten of them as Chairperson. Perhaps the most visible legacy of his work in Skerries is the Community Centre, which opened in December 1982. You can read more about him on the SCA website.
Brigid Quigley at the 2022 Award Ceremony. Photo: John Coleman, SCA
This year, the award was made at a particularly fitting and festive occasion – in the context of the Skerries Community Centre 40 Year Celebrations (7 August 2022), and in the presence of Jim’s widow, Brigid. To great applause, SCA chairperson Jane Landy introduced the winner, and Brigid Quigley handed the award to Máire Jones.
Máire at the 2022 Skerries Water Safety Week (photo: Skerries Water Safety on Facebook)
The judges chose her in recognition of the range of her volunteering activities. She is a long-time volunteer with Skerries Water Safety (the winners of the Jim Quigley Award in 2017, by the way), she maintains the Skerries Community Association website, she is a founder member of Skerries Walking Club, she is one of the more active volunteers with the Skerries Community Garden, she is a Skerries Community Car Volunteer Driver, a Skerries Cycling Without Age Volunteer Pilot, and the Skerries Neighbourhoods WhatsApp Group contact person for The Haven. This year she has also been involved in supporting refugees from the Ukraine who have come to Skerries.
Can you begin to see why the judge picked her out of a very strong field of nominees? Congratulations Máire! Well deserved.
Michael McKenna, Secretary, Skerries Community Association
Every year, Skerries Community Association awards a prize to an individual or a group of volunteers in appreciation of volunteering work they have done for Skerries.
Your nominee can be a young person, an adult, or a group – the only thing that matters is that they are deserving prize winners!
Please submit your nomination and supporting text with the reasons why you would like this person/group to get the award so that the judges will be in a position to make a fair decision. Please bear in mind that the judge has to make his evaluation on the information in your nomination so don’t hold back on detailing the reasons and citing evidence of your nominee’s work and achievements.
He was a champion of community development; a larger than life personality who was a dreamer and a doer; an idealist and an activist. Jim was born in 1942 and grew up in Toomevara, County Tipperary. He attended school firstly in Nenagh and then Mungret College, Limerick. After moving to Dublin he worked initially in the bar trade and subsequently in sales with Eir (then Telecom Eireann). In 1970, Jim married Brigid Carolan and shortly afterwards the couple came to live in Skerries, purchasing their home in the newly built Hillside Estate. He started up the residents’ association there and joined the SCA. He drove the huge community effort needed to get the Community Centre funded and built and was for many years chairperson of the Association.
![NOTICE is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of The Skerries Community Association CLG (SCA) will be held in the
Little Theatre on Thursday 15 June 2023 at 8 pm to transact the Ordinary Business of the Company, that is to say: –
1. To confirm the Minutes of the last Annual General Meeting
2. To receive and adopt the Directors’ Report and Financial Statements for year ended 31 Dec. 2022
3. To elect Directors to the Board of Skerries Community Association CLG
4. To elect Members to Skerries Community Centre Board of Management
5. To reappoint Dempsey Mullen as Auditors and to authorise the Directors to fix their remuneration
6. To transact any other business proper to an Annual General Meeting of the Company.
Dated this the 22 May 2023, by order of the Board, Secretary.
NOTE 1. No person other than a Director of the Company retiring at the meeting shall, unless recommended by the
Directors, be eligible for election to the office of Director at any general meeting unless, not less than three (i.e. 12 June
2023) nor more than 21 days (i.e. 26 May 2023) before the date appointed for the meeting, there has been left at the
registered office notice in writing, signed by a member duly qualified to attend and vote at the meeting for which notice
is given, of his/her intention to propose such a person for election, and also Notice in writing signed by that person of
his/her willingness to be elected. [Nomination Form below].
NOTE 2. The names of candidates who have consented to stand for election to the Board of Management of the
Community Centre, together with the names of their proposers and seconders, shall be given in writing to the Secretary,
and shall be posted on the Community Centre Notice Board at least three days prior (by 12 June 2023) to the holding
of the Annual General Meeting. [Nomination Form below].
NOTE 3. Copies of the Directors’ Report and Financial Statements will be available to members at the Community Centre
and at www.Skerriesca.com at least seven days prior to the holding of the Annual General Meeting.](https://www.skerriesca.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/image.png)
