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Wallacedene & the garden of hope team 2009

update: table quiz dec 3rd malahide…?

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To read post number one of the journey – click here

They say the gardening team were a special bunch. I’m unsure whether some meant that with a touch of humour…. 😉 But the truth is we were are. The reality is though that that humour is so necessary. When I think to one of last years highlights, that of Gerry taking the tv remote to work rather than his mobile phone… the milage 70 odd adults got out of that. Child like, maybe, but necessary.

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With that in mind, it also summises the one thing you must bring with you on your trip and equally as important the one thing you must leave as home…

This year some of us agreed to lay amongst the random dappled paving *ahem approximately 3 metres of just pink and the white….  the laugh it got and I still smile when I see Adrian break out laughing followed by Betty asking who is that man…? as she nods toward head foreman Dermot. It lasted us the entire week…

If you were thinking of travelling across and you were on your own… you’re not. Everyone rooms in with someone. It was my room mate Padraic’s first trip. I never saw him until the Thursday 😆

On the gardeners first night that everyone was in Cape Town dinner was organised for us by one of our pink [t-shirt] ladies Rosetta. On the third night a karaoke inter team showdown was organised…. which the gardeners [jointly] won! It really is very much a case of as long as you have a name badge on you are not alone.

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After hearing some of the school children sing happy birthday followed by It’s a long way to Tipperary to Anne Marie for her birthday… the highlight of the week for the gardeners[in my opinion] has to be Sluggers annual awards ceremony [the bit in the vid where we’re all in the school desks]. There were awards for best builders bum, legs, crappest workmanship, best excuse…. the list goes on. I won one of my two medals [yet again] for best chat up line… I have to thank [?!!] Niamh for this one 😉 It was just after 6am… or at least thats my excuse… 😆   

Jees you’ve got lovely hair Elvis

The day starts generally with breakfast at about 6.15 – 7am depending. From there a coach brought us on a 20 minute jouney to the township from our hotel. Everyone is scanned in from the name badge. All t-shirts are colour coded. We had a morning break at about 10am and the lunch at about 1pm. From there is was straight through less a 3pm cuppa until 5, sometimes later. The coach then returned us to our hotels.

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During the day, people were brought on a visit to a shack. I did this in year one. One meets a family who may be getting a house. One meets their family… gets an insight. If ever you doubted why you were there… that moment disappears within seconds of this. It is such an important part.

The work is hard. It is tough. I make no bones about that. Physically and mentally. One is away from home. One misses their loved ones, naturally. But what everyone takes from this is life changing and worth every sacrafice  second of it. There are medics assigned to each team and believe me no stone in the preparation is left unturned. That said if you only came out to rub sun cream on builders legs, hand out bottles of salted water or plant one tree you have made a difference.

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I remember on our final night. The rap party as it is called. Niall told the story of a man who went to the beach every day and threw a washed up starfish back into the sea. After some days of doing this every day, a man approached and asked why he bothers to do this…. after all they just keep on getting washed back up. What difference would it make? The man replied that to that one starfish, it makes a difference.  That story is told by a man who every year I have gone has welcomed every single volunteer, individually off the plane from Ireland to thank them for coming.

To those of you who helped me out along the way… either by donation or just a helping hand while I was gone. To those of you who I had the honour of meeting while I was there and to those who are not mentioned here…. thank you, thank you and thank you so very much. I hope this goes a little to show my appreciation. You did make a difference.

I’ve uploaded all of my 2009 blitz images/ photographs here

A great overview of the entire week can be read on the official Niall Mellon Township Trust blog – click here – you should also visit here if you are interested in travelling next year.

To visit my charity website click here 

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niall mellon township building blitz 2009

update: table quiz dec 3rd malahide…?

950 Volunteers – 1 Week – 200 New Houses

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Wallacedene, Cape Town, South Africa.

My third year to travel with The Garden of Hope Team, this year was always going to be yet another amazing project. As most of you know by now, I travel not to build houses but as part of a team of gardeners to, this year, build a community playground, football pitch and vegetable and fruit gardens.

What we didn’t bank on was the rain…. and by God did it fall.

But the options were….? We did have one half day of rain stops play… we then worked through as it got worse to make up the lost hours. And in the end it did work out. The sun started shining. It was always gonna happen 😉

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I’ve had to pause here writing this post…. It’s upsetting to be honest. My voice is gone. My bones are sore. There’s a pride inside me for what I as part of a team did… and then I think that maybe I could have done more. I’ve tears in my eyes. I’ve turned on the heating and type on my laptop and I’m trying, really trying not to write a sad post. Maybe to speak of the families and children with HIV and on housing lists for over 20 years…. when the rain came down one of the guys was telling me of a man they met with a frying pan trying to keep the water from his shack. I doubt he slept that night. But the people are so happy, friendly and polite. The children still smile. To see them dancing in middle of the water feature… that was the moment I took. Maybe I’ve numbed slightly to it after 3 years…

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I heard of one lady. Originally from South Africa. She works in a pub in Ireland and for the last five years has saved her tips. This year she done the trip. She paid €5,000 to come to South Africa to work. The same as all of the Irish did. I worked with ladies in their 60’s and 70’s who laboured as myself and Colin lay cobbles. I met people who had lost loved ones so recently. Those who had no jobs to return home to in Ireland…. I’ve just thought of them too.

I’m gonna sit and have a cuppa now. The vid is done. I have some writing done here and a blog post to thank you all so much for your support. In garden terms… I think you’ll agree the volunteers made the best of it and kept the smile sunny side up… More than that – I know you will agree that our new friends in Wallacedene love it.

Thank you all for everything…. see you in a little.

to read post no. 2 of the journey – click here

I’ve uploaded all of my 2009 blitz images/ photographs here

A great overview of the entire week can be read on the official Niall Mellon Township Trust blog – click hereReblog this post [with Zemanta]

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“green house effect” launches recycling awareness campaign

Official Press Release
Repak Recycling Week launched with Dunnes Stores “Green House Effect” Installation. • Week theme is “Recycle More and Recycle Better”. • Repak target 18,000 tonnes of used packaging or 1.6 million green bin collections over the month of October. • New Recyclemore.ie Website launched. • 8th Annual Repak Recycling Awards take place Thursday 15th of October. • “Recycling Moments” Photo Competition Launched.
peter donegan & pippa o connor
peter donegan & pippa o connor

Irish Garden Designer Peter Donegan is helping launch this year’s Repak Recycling Week with a window display in Dunnes Stores on Georges Street, Dublin. The week long awareness campaign takes from the 12th-18th of October and features a series of initiatives to get the Irish public recycling better than ever.

The window display titled “Green House Effect” shows how recycling can impact on the environment and features a full size glass house with polystyrene flowers and trees, along with packaging elements that are traditionally not fully recycled. This focus of this year’s campaign “Recycle More – Recycle Better” is designed to educate people about the need to recycle from more rooms in the house and to properly clean out their recyclables. In addition materials that are not cleaned out could contaminate other recyclables making them difficult and more costly to recycle. Finally over 30% of a recycling/green bin’s capacity is being lost by people not squashing and compressing their recycling material.

This year the organization is hoping to reach a target of 18,000 tonnes of domestic used packaging for recycling or 1.6 million green bins over the month of October. This equates to a request that every household with green bins recycles on average 1.5 green bins or:
• 10 glass bottles
• 34 plastic bottles
• 5 beverage cartons and the equivalent of 63 cereal boxes
• 7 steel food cans and 9 aluminum cans

Dr. Andrew Hetherington, CEO Repak commenting on this campaign said “Ireland has done tremendously well in packaging recycling to date. Small changes in what and how people recycle can now make a big difference. Over 20,000 tonnes of waste put into green bins annually should not be there ranging from clothes to garden waste. The key to continuing the momentum of successful recycling in Ireland is the quality of materials. The higher grade the recyclables coupled with digging deeper into the household bin will help Ireland achieve higher packaging recycling targets.”

repak-recycle-week-2009
peter donegan with pippa o'connor

Over the course of the week Repak will also:
• Launch a new consumer focused website http://www.recyclemore.ie featuring multimedia and social media photos, videos, hints, tricks, posters, blog posts and tips for recycling in the Home, Office and School.
• Distribute posters and leaflets detailing common packaging items (often forgotten) that can be recycled to local libraries and colleges running recycling events.
• Produced and distribute leaflets in conjunction with Local Authorities and private contractors to educate people on how to recycle more and recycle better through their existing green bins.
• Feature new videos, pictures, competitions on Bebo, Facebook, YouTube, Pix.ie and updates on Twitter.
• Launch of “Recycling Moments” photo competition. Public invited to email colourful photos showing recycling to laura.byrne@repak.ie. Photos will be uploaded to http://pix.ie/repak and winners announced on www.recyclemore.ie.
• Announce the winners of the 8th Annual Repak Awards which takes place on Thursday the 15th of October in Croke Park, Dublin. The lunchtime awards recognise the efforts and ingenuity of its Industry Members, Local Authorities and Collectors in the area of packaging prevention, reuse and recycling.
• Major radio and on line advertising awareness campaign.
• Organise schools colouring competition and class activity program for the week.

The “Green House Effect” display features a full size glass house with specific items of packaging to highlight their recyclability. The material includes plastic wrap, aluminum take away trays, pizza boxes and steel food cans.

Dunnes Stores are long standing members of Repak contributing towards the recovery and recycling of the packaging they supply to their customers. Through participating members, Repak last year raised €29.5 million in Packaging levies to support packaging recycling in Ireland. The total amount recovered/recycled in 2008 was 713,000 tonnes up 9.5% from the previous year.

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Bloom 2007 – The Morris Minor Garden

donegan gardens bloom (2)

No Rubber Soul. Silver Medal Winner. My Garden for Bloom 2007.

I love this garden. I really do. I had no sponsor. I was advised not to do it. Nobody knew what Bloom was really and although I had won awards for garden design and landscaping, this was my first *show* garden. I don’t even think I knew what a weblog was when I did this garden so there really doesn’t exist that many photographs of  ‘No rubber- soul’ the garden. For some reason or another it became know as the Car-Den. Enjoy!

Peter Donegans garden design ‘No Rubber- Soul’ won silver in the large garden category in the inaugural year of Bloom in the Phoenix Park Friday 1st June 2007. During the 20 day deadline over 1,500 plants; 50 square metres of rolled lawn; 4 tonne of recycled compost; 5 tonnes of recycled bark chippings; 6 tonnes of recycled tree stumps one 1965 morris minor and an outdoor flat screen television.

Despite the rainfall over the bank holiday weekend over 50,000 people still flocked to see the unsponsored garden. No decking, no paving, no additives or preservatives…. Imagine sitting within two thirds of a 1965 Morris Minor, watching the television, smokes plumes through the front grill of your car and you sit back and watch nature and plant life grow around you. This is the garden that has no rubber but lots of soul. Built from 100% recycled and/ or recyclable products. Take a trip back to 1965 when men used shovels and gardens had soul.

Built to commemorate the many Irish men with initially, great intentions who promise to restore and rebuild projects but sometimes are never fully completed; it has been slightly adapted to via audio visual equipment to become an entertainment area of sorts and it should give the appearance that whilst unwillingly forgotten, the life of the garden continued to flourish around it.

….and of course there was this. genius.

Also:

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IIA net visionary awards…

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Tonight the Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Awards 2009 take place.

I have been shortlisted.

For me that is huge. In fact when I first heard, this is what I thought [click here]. But… I am a horticuluralist. And this is why I blog. *Anything* that comes after that is an added bonus 🙂 If it where a garden…. I may think different. For the moment I’m just happy to be on a list.

And just look at the others shortlisted…. I still don’t know how I even got there…..

Aedan Ryan: PuddleDucks.ie
Damien Mulley: Mulley Communications
Kieran Murphy: Murphy’s Ice Cream
Maryrose Lyons: Brightspark Consulting
Peter Donegan: Peter Donegan Landscaping

That said, for no apparent reason, I won’t be able to attend tonights function. But for whoever you are out there that did nominate, shortlist, or however it works, get me to the last five… thank you. It really is [more than you realise] an absolute honour. Have a great night and in advance congratulations to you all.

And don’t forget it is not a black tie event…. 😆

UPDATE: 21st May ’09:

huge congratulations to damien mulley and mulley communications for winning this award. Bulaidh bós mór Damien.

All award winners can be viewed at the Irish Internet Associations website