Tidy Towns eager to get people with particular skillsets to join

Cavan Team collect two awards for their 2022 efforts

Cavan Tidy Towns group has once again been recognised for their tremendous efforts as they collected two awards at the recent regional ceremony.

The 2022 Supervalu Tidy Towns Awards for the North West and West region were presented on Wednesday, April 5 at a prize-giving ceremony in Kilronan Castle in Co Roscommon.

The Cavan team came first out of all the Tidy Towns groups in Cavan, and also won a silver medal nationally.

“We’re delighted," said group member Paul Lynch. "We’ve been very much at this level now the last couple of years and hopefully in 2023 we will increase it a little bit. We think we will because generally the town is a lot cleaner and we have loads of folks coming through looking for work to do.

“It was great to see the town being recognised and to see the results of Cavan Tidy Towns' work, but also the investment the county council has made in us. I really think the waste management team really deserves a pat on the back.”

Since being crowned the winner at the end of last year, the group have been committed to taking the town of Cavan to the next level.

Projects

“We have loads and loads of projects, we’re nearly inundated with the amount of projects going on at the moment.

“Last week we launched our Can We Recycle It project and distributed the designated recycling bins at the primary schools in the town. These bins were actually in the shapes of cans so that adds a bit of fun to it for the kids.”

The group has also made a huge commitment to biodiversity projects throughout the town.

“We have what you call a hydroponic planting system which is where we reuse water and we don’t use soil. The use of peat moss has been reduced in the country since two years ago with the stopping of the harvesting of peat, so we’re planting flowers at the moment without the use of peat moss. So we're experimenting with them at the moment in the Fair Green Community Garden. There’s absolutely loads going on.”

An initiative which Paul finds really interesting is their new window boxes.

“This year instead of flower boxes, we’re doing vegetable boxes so we’re planting edible vegetables like herbs and lettuce in window boxes and we’re distributing them to community groups, schools and some sports groups in the town as well. So it’s a bit of a change.”

Skills

While Cavan Tidy Towns Group has seen a huge number of volunteers helping out in recent years, they want to particularly encourage skilled individuals to get involved.

“We want to encourage proactive people to come to the community, with skills. It’s great that everyone wants to go out and litter pick and we could have between 30 and 40 people out on a litter pick, and that’s brilliant.

“But we’d love people to come to us with an interest in the environment or in biodiversity, or in healthy eating or youth groups who can specialise in these areas. Because within the committee we have a general understanding and an interest in these, but it would be nice to get a broader range of people coming to us and wanting to anchor a project or with an idea."

Anyone interested in getting involved in Cavan Tidy Towns can message their Facebook page Tidy Towns Cavan.