Affiliated to Muintir na Tíre, registered charity CHY 6865. skerriesca.com. info@skerriesca.com Registered Offices: Skerries Community Centre, Dublin Road, Skerries Co. Dublin
SCA Chair Jane Landy writes: Back in the chair plus arrivals and departures
It’s less than a year since our last AGM (4 October 2021) and Skerries and the world seem to be very different. An end to all Covid restrictions since March 2022 has meant that those committees who rely on holding in-person events have been able to get back to business. Back in September who would have thought that we would be welcoming people fleeing from war-torn Ukraine to our town? (See skerriesca.com/Ukraine for more.) And I find myself (an SCA old-timer) “back in the chair”, which is as enjoyable and fulfilling as ever!
It’s time to get out that bike and go for a Summer evening cycle around Skerries !
Starting and finishing at Skerries Mills car park on Thursday 26 May at 7.30 pm
The terms “herd immunity” and “critical mass” became all-too-familiar during the recent crisis.
How could cyclists achieve herd immunity, that is, immunity from the dangers of sharing the road with traffic?
The answer is to band together, forming such a large group that we become the traffic.
And so “critical mass cycles” have become a phenomenon that’s really putting safe cycle routes on top of the agenda all over the world.
EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK 16-22 SEPTEMBER 2022
EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK is the European Commission’s flagship awareness-raising campaign on sustainable urban mobility.
It promotes behavioural change in favour of active mobility, public transport, and other clean, intelligent transport solutions.
To celebrate and of course to participate, we at Skerries Cycling Initiative are planning a major critical mass cycle during that week. But we’ve no intention of waiting until September to get on our bikes. After all, it’s summertime at last!
We’re organising a series of summer “critical mass” cycles, starting on Thursday, May 26th. There will be further cycles on each of the last Thursdays in June July August and finally the big one in September.
We are aiming to double the number of participants each month and hoping to have at least 100 cyclists, scooterers and wheelers of all sorts at the first of the cycles. Do the maths! If this works we could have 1600 cyclists making our voices heard and having fun together in September.
The people of Skerries have told us time and time again that they are reluctant to cycle around Skerries because of the lack of safe cycling routes. Here is your opportunity to find out what it would feel like to cycle safely in Skerries with like-minded friends and family.
We also believe that the planners, councillors, officials and national politicians cannot continue to ignore the demands of 1000 very loud voices.
We’ve estimated that there are probably more than 5000 usable bicycles in Skerries.-So, it’s time to dust off, oil up and hop on your bike.
Be there, at 7.30pm on Thursday, May 26th.
This cycle will start and finish at Skerries Mills Bike Park- No! That’s not a typing error. Let’s reclaim our town park and our streets! See you there!
“Make Skerries Wheelie Safe”: Get on your bike for the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade!
Skerries Cycling initiative (SCI) wants you, your friends and family to dust off your wheels for this year’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade, and to hit the streets of Skerries with you and your machine decked out in your brightest and funkiest colours.
Will you join them? Let them know you’re coming here.
Kick-off at 3 p.m. on 17 March on South Strand. Assemble from 2.30 p.m. (tbc, they’ll send an email to all interested before the end)
This year, the annual report about the work of the Skerries Community Association and its committees will not be distributed to every household in Skerries. A limited number of printed copies will be available in the Community Centre, in local shops, in the week before the AGM (4th October 2021) and on request by email to chair@skerriesca.com.
Click on the thumbnail below to see the full report with turnable pages.
Skerries Community Association & Committees 2020/21 Report
And if you’d like the links to be clickable, open the PDF here:
Recognition of couple’s volunteering contribution to Skerries life.
On Saturday 9 October 2021 Skerries Community Association (SCA) and Skerries Town Football Club jointly recognised the immense contribution of Michael (Mick) and Noeleen Bolger to community sporting activity in the town. The occasion was the presentation of the Jim Quigley award for volunteer of the year and it took place in the grounds of Skerries Town FC after the weekly Kids Academy coaching session.
Every year SCA invites nominations from residents for the Jim Quigley Award which are then passed to independent judges for assessment.
This year the Judges selected Mick and Noeleen as the winners of the Jim Quigley Award for their years of dedicated work with Skerries Town Football Club. In their written comments, the judges said, “running Saturday morning coaching sessions (the Kids Academy) for up to ninety under-tens for seven months of the year is not an easy task. To do this for eighteen years coupled with involvement with other sporting and community activities including the Community Games at Mosney and the Special Olympics at Croke Park in 2003 requires dedication and commitment second to none.”
Mick and Noeleen set up the ‘ Kid’s Academy” on Saturday mornings with Skerries Town Football Club in September 2003 to provide coaching in basic football skills for five to nine year olds. They felt that children in the early years of their football life need an environment of non-competitive football to learn the basic skills. The Kid’s Academy, or KA as its better known provides such an environment.
The judges remarked that the real winner is the community of Skerries who get such wonderful benefit from the work done by people like Michael and Noeleen.
Accepting the award, Mick said that many others are and were involved in making the Kids Academy a success.
Michael McKenna presented the Jim Quigley award on behalf of the SCA and Owen O’Brien, Chairperson Skerries Town F.C. made a presentation of flowers and champagne on behalf of the club to Mick and Noeleen.
Jim Quigley Award Winners 2021 Michael (Mick) and Noeleen Bolger with Michael McKenna (SCA) and Owen O’Brien, Chairperson, Skerries Town Football Club.
Skerries Cycling Initiative’s first cycling festival took place on 22 August. It was a lot of fun and definitely something to build on it, going forward. We started off the day – a lovely one weatherwise – with a 5km and a 25 km cycles from Skerries Mills carpark. People of all ages and abilities, just as we hoped for, took part. This was to be a day for celebrating cycling as a healthy normal way of getting around, whether by you chose a simple one speed bicycle or something sleeker.
Undoubtedly the most eye catching and eyewatering entrant was Robin of Donabate’s Alpha-7 Velomobile, seen below as he chats with Brendan Grimes and Dermot Higgins.
Let’s celebrate cycling! Skerries Cycling Festival 22nd August
A festival to celebrate the Freedom Machine!
The good news: There will be a one-day Skerries Cycling Festival, even though the four-weekend Skerries Summer Festival had to be cancelled for 2021. Skerries Cycling Initiative (SCI), part of Skerries Community Association, with support from Fingal County Council and Skerries Mills, is holding its first ever cycling festival and invites you invites you to come along.
The Skerries Cycling Festival will be all about encouraging people to integrate more active travel into their daily lives so that they can enjoy the fun and other benefits of cycling.
Skerries Cycling Initiative is a committee of the Skerries Community Association and a member of Cyclist.ie, the national cycling advocacy network. We welcome the Greenway development as a means of improving active travel in the area and encouraging modal shift.
