 OK, Leonard Kenny, Cleaner Community Campaign, they launched their action plan for this year last weekend in Greenland Theatre and invited residence associations and just individuals who have an interest in keeping the town or their area of the town clean and tidy and as always they got a great response, they always do and it's partly it's about the people behind the campaign, it's also the campaign itself and we all want to sort of keep where we live and they're fairly neat and tidy but they're very proactive as well. Now, Jared McCormick is a joint chair of Leonard Kenny, Tidy Towns and Jared now joins us in the studio. Good afternoon, Jared. Good afternoon, John. Right, it's a big plan, to me it looks like an ambitious plan and there's a lot of, you've got a very meaty brochure here. It's a meaty brochure, yes it is. In essence it's about keeping the town looking well and the town is looking well but it was the idea is to keep it that way. That's right, yeah. You were talking about the town looking well and believe it or not that's probably, it is the basic part of the competition but it's not the complete part of it. There's also sections like biodiversity and how we, I know you had Angus Kennedy on here a couple of weeks ago and all the knowledge that he has about how we look after the environment and what type of flowers do we grow and how do we look after our environment so that we can have a successful pollination plan for our area. We also have a section on sustainability and sustainability as anybody who knows is there's no start and no end to sustainability. So there's a lot of parts to it. There is a lot of parts to it and I suppose you're serious about it. You have to consider all those parts. It's not just a case of organising as groups to go out and pick up some litter at weekends. It's much more than that. What you're talking about is an extremely important part of it and you know it is, I wouldn't like to, I'd really like to say that you know all our volunteers and all the work that they do and whether it's litter volunteers or gardening volunteers that is the core of what we do but it is also all encompassing a lot of other things as well so it's probably the largest community competition in the country you know so it's all encompassing basically. Okay well part of it is about the competition but the other part is just about pride I suppose in the town and pride in your environment. It is yeah I think we have about 18-20 people on our committee and we're all different people from different parts of the town different you know we're all very different but there's one thing at the centre of it we want our town to look well and that's you know when we go to our meetings we tune into that and it's a you know that sets the standard of that's why we're all there you know so and all our volunteers that help out they're all looking for the same thing they want their town looking well. You mentioned there about biodiversity and you know nature and how important it is and also a big part is landscaping the green spaces and landscaping and it's I have to say that you know Litter Kenny to me anyhow punches above its weight if you like I'm just thinking about even the roundabouts the approaches to the town roundabouts are very very important because they form your in a way they form people's visitors first impression and they all they look really good every year and I think we really you know sometimes the council takes flak for different things around the county and on this show or not this show but in the radio and media and possibly what I have to really you know if you look at what we've done there and the roundabouts in particular is they're the shining example in our town and you know the planning and then I go back 20 30 years and you know there's one man really and I don't know if I would like to name him but David Donley our town gardener is responsible his name he's responsible for a lot of that because it's his vision and it's his drive that that creates that and I think a lot of towns of large towns that do well in the tiny towns competition they may have a river going through it or they have a castle that they have some focal point but we don't in our town so I you know that we had to they had to create a full you know they had to create something that's going to catch the eye and the roundabouts was one of those in our town for sure they all they they're looking well and they always do in there yeah and each of them different yeah they each them different yeah they all have their own person that I'll be nearly I just want to highlight a couple of parts to this plan and really this is for businesses one of them is paint the town and this is initiative to just to get businesses to think about the exterior of their their building and yeah the outside and the approaches yeah like I mean I have a business owner myself and and you know every year we we're really painting our front to freshen it up and and you know as a business owner you have a painter and the painter comes in and the first question they ask is what color do you want I'm generally we just it was like me I just go a little bit cold and go panic it but I had no idea same as last year and in your heart sometimes you just want to change it but you don't know how to so I mean really this is but we're maybe going this is initiatives going since 2015 and really huge credit to Le Maison Le Maison they down in down in Grand Canal Road there they're very helpful they've been with us day one and you know they come up they're on board as they're on board they come on board so we have now we've done a little bit of promotion it's on our Facebook site and so the thing can be that if if you're in business in the town and you're looking to to paint your building and you would like a little bit of advice on it you just make a little application through go on Facebook and it'll tell you how to do that there it's very very simple the message basically ends up with me and I will put you in touch then with Anne and Claire in Le Maison and they're brilliant and what they do is they will they will get together all anybody who has expressed an interest they will pull all them together and they will try and meet them and what they will do is they will give you maybe three options for your front of your building and the thinking being that you know when you go to some towns you'll see there's a nice colour scheme there and so it's trying to create a uniform nice colour scheme that works through through the town as you go through it yeah for maybe a section of the town or maybe the overall for the town like in general I should say so rather than everybody doing their own thing yeah well it's all part of the big picture all part of the big picture but you know ultimately the owner you know the owner has the response you know they have the ultimate decision to say and what they want you know so generally the Anne or Claire will meet them and they they will give them to you know talk about what they want and what you know what their thoughts are and then they come with two or three types and out of two or three options that you can present to the painter and even Watson John Watson from Watson hire he's come on board and said he'll give a discount on the paint so you know it's a community thing it's this it's when you reach out to the to the community and you say look we're trying to improve the standards in the town and generally when you ask when we went to those three people and both they all went yes we're glad to help we'd love to help and you know so it's it's tapping into resources that are available in the form of advice and then a reduction on materials yeah it's just makes sense it takes a stress out of a lot of people you know the the the other part of this is something called the clean sweep and this is again about the exterior or maybe the approaches to businesses yeah we're just encouraging it's this very simple thing we encourage shop owners and business owners to look outside their street and you know just keep keep it you know keep keep your shop front on the pavement just and in fairness we have Glenard plant that comes in you know seven days a week we have our own community employment scheme lads who come in and they'll they'll do a litter pick through the town every day but if anybody knows that or can it can be it can be clean and then it can just needs a little bit of a clean again so it's just an encouragement to you know to business owners say to keep an eye on the outside their premises and and maybe trying to try and keep it clean that's all it is but really it's a collective effort because you mentioned there yeah Glenard plant and businesses and individuals and then you know people gathering rubbish maybe at weekends and stuff and it all adds up to the same thing it's about to keep in you know the the town and the environment clean and tidy as best we can that's right that's exactly it's it's it's a cumulative effect everybody does a little bit one of the one of the the committee has created an idea and it was through sustainability and and it was Ailish Kennedy who joined us this year and it's called the power of one and when she and I you know when she kind of presented it to us and so you know what does it mean you know and she's well if we take responsibility for ourselves of what you know in our you know in our environment and just from where we are and if enough of us do that we can make a huge difference you know so that's something that we're looking to launch now in the next couple of weeks this idea of power of one it's just a very simple idea yeah if you're listening if there's somebody listening in now and they they live in the town near the town and and are thinking well you know I don't really do anything maybe I could play a small part well what would you say where should they go to what should they check out where should they go to who could they contact or what should they do okay I suppose there's different things that people can help out with I think there's a very visual one that happens at 10 30 every Sunday morning we have one of our committee members Neil Blockley Neil is there at 10 30 in the market square he'll rain or shine and he's brilliant and he coordinates all a huge amount of volunteers going in different directions with bags and pickers yeah and and some some people will want to do their own routes some will come to Neil and look for direction someone to have someone to do it on their own bat some of them like the direction that Neil gives Neil coordinates them all and he has them on whatsapp and he spends all Sunday and he communicates with everybody and he's brilliant you know it's extremely important he just if you meet Neil and if you talk to Neil he loves it and he's very personable and he the amount of people have come and he's a great addition to you know if you're on this if you're on the square at 10 30 and a Sunday there he'll be working he has his table and so that's one option that some people if you're around the town on a Sunday Sunday morning or even through the day you can't but see the volunteers out yes yes yeah we pick Sunday because that's the day that people are kind of generally free and there's other options as well and John you know we we hope to we had an attempt at about the weather got in the way of it to try and create a volunteer system for for gardeners you know so as the weather improves we hope that we'll be able to put a message out on social media that be here in such such a time and only talking about for an hour you know it's not a big you know and it's not going to be any huge heavy lifting or anything like that just land hand in green areas yeah yeah we've picked out different green areas that maybe that it's they're just not being got that haven't really be we haven't they've been missed or we've we've identified and we would like to give it a bit of TLC I haven't been shown any love yeah basically yeah so I keep an eye out on social media whatever for info on that and I suppose Facebook is a good place to go to to keep up to date with yeah happening yeah yeah we've had Louise looks after Facebook and there's constantly stuff happening there all the time and even like if you know many gardeners out there we have last year we did our first like like a seminar or a talk and you're an expert in the talk so we've two coming up this year do you mind if I talk about them or we've one coming up now next Tuesday Angus Kennedy who no stranger to this show and so Angus has come in and he has a great show you know where he's talking about garden birds through the seasons looking at some of the sounds some of the lost sounds that used to hear that was very common in the Irish landscape and so that's able to identify so yeah yeah yeah so that that's that's coming up now choose the 18th well it's not there will be a gardening slant on it it's not fully gardening but the following one we have on the two weeks later on Tuesday the 2nd of May we've a lady called Joanne Butler who's a community gardener and she's going to come into a talk for about an hour on really and kind of designing a garden around suitable for pollinators and then working with you know the elements of of Dunnegal because sometimes Dunnegal can be a little harsh place to other areas of the country so her slant is going to be on what's suitable for our environment and how you can design your garden and what best plans to grow and how to provide food and shelter for for you know whether it's all of you know whether it's butterflies or whether it's small you know whatever is I'm not giving the talk so I can't answer exactly what that's along that line but Joanne's wonderful and very knowledgeable yes and and will give the the the right advice and the as you say the appropriate advice for for where we are so I think if people are of an interest a lot you know it's it's you know a few years ago if somebody talked to you about biodiversity and the importance of having a balance in the environment a lot of us when I use that word a lot of us a lot of me myself I wouldn't have been that sure of it but we've as a I think as a community or as a society we're learning a lot more about it and I definitely have learned a lot the last couple years and actually find it quite interesting yes I think we're learning as well that we we need we need to take responsibility and we each need to do a bit might just be a small but we need to take this seriously and and do our bit and two good talkers coming up then next week with the Angus and then two weeks time with Joanne in the meantime online to the website or your socials if anybody wants to find out about what letter Kenny Teddy Towns is doing or what's in this action plan yeah most stuff is on Facebook all those two talks everything's on Facebook for there and it's a free ticket we take it but nonetheless you do have to register yes thanks Jared thank you very much John