To All Tidy Town Groups
An update until our first meeting of the year. With the weather coming there may be more time to do some reading up!!
Pollinators
In the last day or so – two new videos have come on line which are both very good for raising awareness of pollinators which you might like to share on Facebook or just have a look at for ideas. The first is for a general audience and is very engaging
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBIKqFywxTY
The second is specifically what councils can do and while the communities are leading in Offaly we hope the Council will follow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rebs6g3X-lc
Heritage Workshops for National Schools
Please help to raise awareness of the wonderful opportunity to have heritage experts come to visit your local national school. It is so disappointing to see Offaly bottom of the national league for uptake of the Heritage In Schools programme. There are new heritage experts on the panel from Offaly so if you are involved in any way with a national school can you remind them of this great opportunity? It could be for a pollinator workshop but also for ANY aspect of heritage that they would like to explore. See http://www.heritageinschools.ie/
Creative Ireland
The deadline for the 2018 Community Creative Ireland grants is next Friday 9th March. If you have an idea but want help developing it do call the office to discuss. The idea of this programme is to explore an aspect of heritage in Offaly through engaging with art – very broad! For more details, see
http://www.offaly.ie/eng/Services/Heritage/News-Events/Offaly-Creative-Ireland-Community-Scheme.pdf
Offaly Swift Report
Last year we had presentations about the swift survey from the dedicated team in BirdWatch Ireland and many of you took part in surveying and raising awareness of our challenged swift population. I attach a link to the county report. It is well laid out so that each town with swifts has a section that they can extract and include in their Tidy Towns Application form for 2018. http://www.offaly.ie/eng/Services/Heritage/Biodiversity/Offaly-Swift-Report-2017.pdf
We hope to have a Network meeting in late March. If there are any particular areas of interest that you would like covered do email me on heritage@offalycoco.ie
Amanda Pedlow
Offaly Heritage Officer
Offaly County Council
057 9346839