< Previous© January 2020 The Meath Coaster 30 Broadband Providers J anuary is always a good month to review your connectivity and decide if its time for a change or modification. The providers will entice you with promises, discounts, and free technology but be cautious and do your research upfront. To help you decide let me share with you two recent personal encounters with two different providers. The Good – Vodafone/Siro Dealing with Vodafone/Siro was a very pleasant experience. The staff were courte- ous, friendly, competent and efficient who despite the project being complicated and having serious problems never once were rude or unhelpful and bent over backwards to get the project done. If you get the op- tion to change to Vodafone Siro I would recommend it as not alone will the staff be helpful but the speed will beat traditional land line broadband hands down. The Not So - Eir (Formerly Eircom) The project was somewhat complicated as it involved a name change on the account, modification of the services to be provid- ed, and also some queries regarding previ- ous billing, this was due to bereavement and I was acting as the executor. Actually getting through to a person was a challenge and you were told the wait time would be from 7 to 10 minutes. You were encouraged to use the online chat service. I tried the online chat facility and found the staff there courteous, friendly, respectful, and helpful but limited in what they could do as they are apparently restricted in what access they have. I was thus forced back to the telephone waiting queue. At this stage two or more hours had been used up and I was no better off. Eventually I got through on the landline, I called multiple times to attempt the re- solve the issues and for the most part the COMPUTER PROBLEM? Contact Oliver 041.988.7526 087.797.0740 iPhones Smartphones Repair Laptop/Desktop Repair & Upgrades staff I talked to manifested business and personal attributes best described as un- professional, aggressive, hostile, passive aggressive, ill mannered, ill informed, un- helpful, and downright rude. There were exceptions – One in Eir’s cus- tomer complaints department, and one who rectified the error when they finally emailed me out an incorrect change to the plan. Of particular note was one staff member who told me they had no supervisor, no method to escalate the issue I was hav- ing, and refused point blank without any explanation to mail me information I re- quested. A subsequent call revealed that there is indeed a very simply form to be filled out to get the information. Be particularly aware of any attempts to “re contract” you when you make changes with Eir as this will lock you in for a peri- od and be aware you will be charged more than you expect for the reduced service plan. If possible change provider rather than modifying the services as the adage goes – “vote with your feet”. . § Oliver Reidy is a computer technician and has been in the industry since 1981.You can con- tact him via email at help.desk@reidyonline. com, by the telephone numbers listed on this page, and whatsapp @08779707040. This ar- ticle, and all previous articles, are available to view online at http://reidyonline.blogspot.ie/ or www.reidyonline.com/blogspot.htmHelp ensure essential blood supplies are always available by giving blood regularly Please Note Clinic Opening Times Scoil Oilibhéir Naofa Bettystown Thur 16 th January 5pm to 8:30pm Skerries Community Centre, Skerries Thur 23 rd January 4:30pm to 8pm St. Mary's Parish Primary School Bryanstown, Drogheda, Co. Louth Tel. 041 9845374 Email: office@smpps.ie Web www.smpps.ie Principal - John Weir Leas Phriomhoide - Orla Briscoe Roll No: 20205G NOTICE OF JUNIOR INFANT ENROLMENT FOR SEPTEMBER 2020 Applications for Junior Infant places for September 2020 are now being accepted. The allocation of places will begin on FRIDAY 17th JANUARY 2020 at 12 noon. Forms and enrolment policy are available on our website www.smpps.ie or from the school office (041 9845374)© January 2020 The Meath Coaster 32 News From Julianstown & District Community Association By Niamh Bn. Uí Loinsigh “May the New Year bless you with health, wealth and happiness C hristmas is over for another year with lots of very happy children who re- ceived lovely presents from Santa. I hope you managed to welcome the New Year with lots of resolutions which, of course, you will keep! The origin of making New Year’s resolutions rests with the Babylo- nians, who reportedly made promises to the gods in hopes they’d earn good favor in the coming year. They often resolved to get out of debt . Sounds familiar? Many of us are still making that resolution today. So what›s the secret to keeping it? Share it with others is the simple answer. We had a fabulous year in Julianstown with our Tea Party in the garden, then Wooly Wards Farm, together with Magician (Ni- all), Face Painting (Thanks Brenda and Jasmine) and Bouncy Castle. What a great turnout for Halloween! Super night as usu- al and then to top it all Santa, Mrs. Claus and the Elves arrived in the Lime Kiln by vintage tractor (Thanks Farmer Stephen Hoey)! The magical Mornington Gospel Choir took centre stage with some beauti- ful carols. The mince pies (Thanks Chef Robert Thompson) and mulled wine went down a treat. Many thanks to the Lime Kiln The Mornington Gospel Choir in Action© January 2020 The Meath Coaster 33 Management and Staff and Julianstown & District Residents Association for giving us all a Christmas to remember. Thanks also to Blacks Garden Centre for creating a little forest in the middle of the room and then donating one of the trees for the raf- fle. Our Committee spent most of the af- ternoon setting the scene for Santa and you have to admit that the function room in the Lime Kiln looked amazing. Our Commit- tee donated prizes for the raffle, including the 3 super hampers. The Julianstown Tidy Towns won a green flag for the garden and a couple of prizes in the Meath Pride of Place. Ballygarth children won best youth project and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for 2020. Aney View won best for litter picking and their estate, as did Preston park and Castle Grove. We have a great committee, but in 2020 we do need more help to improve our Tidy Towns marks and would you give a hand. maybe an hour or so Saturday morn- ings? Thanks to Kevin and Victor who are on the local Community Employment & Tús Scheme. You can call into the garden any Monday or Tuesday and compliment them on the wonderful job they are doing. The Clock Tower is an amazing addition to the village and this was a project com- pleted by Leo & Aisling Monahan with funding provided by a rural community development grant.© January 2020 The Meath Coaster 34 The arrival of the 2 Monster Planters The New Bespoke Archway Did you happen to call over to the Christ- mas Tree Festival in St. Mary’s Church of Ireland? The trees were just amazing and there must have been about 50 in all; they were made of buttons, toilet roll holders, tin cans, ties, chocolate, cotton balls, tools and garden gloves. In the New Year we will be putting in a new entrance to the garden on the north side of the garden and Jim Rothwell has already made the bespoke metal archway. Yesterday we took delivery of two large planters. This will add another dimension to the garden together with the 620 Daffo- dils (donated by Elmgrove Farm) planted by Kevin and Victor along the roadside should give a lovely splash of colour! We also hope to build a Pavilion so we can stage events. I can’t thank our committee enough for all the work they do throughout the year, whether it is looking after the village, planting, weeding, litter-picking, form filling, planning events, and on top of all that trying to get something done about the traffic. We thank our Councillors in East Meath and Meath County Council for helping out whenever they can and in particular the Community & Environ- ment Dept, the Heritage Dept and Christy Clarke (Area Engineer), Michael Gallagh- er and Johnny Hoey of the Duleek Office. The traffic is a nightmare and we have put the council on notice about this as we do not want to have a tragic accident in our village. Traffic Calming will happen, but when?? It is now with An Bord Pleanála. We need your help on this and we ask that you lobby your TDs, Councillors and also write to Minister Shane Ross that we need action now! If you would like to join Julianstown & District Community Association please contact .Niamh Bn.Uí Loinsigh (Chair- person) at nuil1@eircom.net United we can make a difference for our village. §Private Weight Loss Clinic Tel: 087 778 2371 info@easyweigh.ie www.easyweigh.ie 3F Fingal Bay Business Park Balbriggan K32 CV07 Book your 30-minute Assessment Only €20 Fergus O’DOWD TD Tel: 041 9842275/ 9804536 Mob: 087 2352920 E-mail: fergus.odowd@oireachtas.ie - Fergus O’Dowd - @fergusodowd Constituency Office 1 Leyland Place, Stockwell St, Drogheda Office Hours Mon-Fri 9.30am-1.00pm 2pm-5pm 085 2057786 e: preidcrashrepairs@gmail.com Mill Road, Mornington Panel beating Spray painting Private & Insurance work All work guaranteed© January 2020 The Meath Coaster 36 Scoil an Spioraid Naoimh, A Happy New Year! A s we approach the end of a busy and productive year of teaching and learn- ing, we would like to give special thanks to our volunteers, the Parents Association and Board of Management – your active support is essential in helping us to build the best possible school environment for our children. As Principal, I would like to say a special word of thanks to our won- derful staff, who excel at bringing out the best in our children every school day. A very Happy New Year everyone! Scholastic Book Fair: Books worth over €4,000 were purchased during our recent Scholastic Book Fair. Our thanks to the PA for organising a suc- cessful Fair, which provided a great oppor- tunity for children and parents to purchase a wide range of books, while also provid- ing additional funds for the school library. Bake Sale: This is arguably the children’s favourite fundraiser each year, with lots of fabulous cakes and treats making the whole school smell like a bakery for the day! Our sin- cere thanks to parents and guardians for being so generous with your donations and to PA for organising. Recycling Initiative: This year’s PA recycling initiative was a great success, with parents taking the op- portunity to donate unwanted clothes in the lead up to the Christmas season. A percentage of monies raised will go to the Laura Lynn Foundation. First Responders Training: Several SNA and teaching staff members volunteered to undertake First Respond- ers Training, which is so important for our school. St Vincent De Paul Appeal: We were happy to support the St Vincent De Paul Food Appeal again this year – thank you all for your generous donations. Unfortunately, our school community has reason to avail of their services through- out the year, so it is nice to have this op- portunity to reciprocate. School Appointment: Congratulations to Ms Orla Garry, on her appointment as Assistant Principal. Ms Garry is teaching 4 th class and is a welcome addition to the school management team. Christmas Tree Lights Ceremony: Our wonderful Choir did us proud at the “Turning on of the Christmas Lights” cer- emony in Bettystown. Well done Choir! Let’s Explore Music Workshops: We were so lucky to have Kevin from Mo-© January 2020 The Meath Coaster 37 bile Music School with us to carry out the Let’s Explore, Music Workshop with our 3 rd and 4 th Classes. He brought the children through body percussion, singing and can- nons. They got to learn new songs and lit- tle hand claps to accompany them. It was a very enjoyable workshop and a very dif- ferent way to learn to appreciate music. their new website. Quite an honour – con- gratulations to Mrs Doak and her class! Julianstown Christmas Tree Fair: Mrs Doak’s Sixth Class entered the Julianstown Christmas Tree Fair. The pu- pils cleverly designed and created Christ- mas trees from recycled materials. A lot of fun was had by all as they paid a visit to the fair at St. Mary’s Church in Julianstown and viewed exhibits made from various objects including paintbrushes, men’s ties, egg boxes, dinky cars and more… Thank you to Reverend Katharine and to all the Christmas Tree Fair committee who made the class feel so welcome! Visit by Irish Guide Dogs! Our pupils in Lionnir and Realtai were thrilled to get a visit from 2 four legged friends recently when the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind paid us a visit. The children had great fun interacting with the dogs. § Carol Service: The Church of the Sacred Heart was full to capacity on 11 th December as our whole school and family members participated in a fabulous Carol Service of music, prayer and song. Children held individual can- dles providing wonderfully atmospheric lighting for the singing. Trip to the Zoo! Our children from Realtai and Lionnir had the most fantastic day trip to the Zoo re- cently and their excitement on heading off for the day was matched by the wonderful tales they came back with! A super school trip! Winning science project features on Science Foundation Website? In June 2019, the pupils and staff at our school were very proud recipients of the SFI Discover Science and Maths Award. We are delighted and honoured to have been asked by Science Foundation Ireland to allow screenshots of our work towards the DSM Award feature as exemplars on © January 2020 The Meath Coaster 38 Please mention The Meath Coaster when replying to advertisements The View From The Kitchen Table, By Geraldine Hughes J anuary is the ‘New year New me’ time which really is optimism over experi- ence! It is a new year, this is a fact, but it never is a new me, just the old one making myself empty promises. I’m going to try, try to learn a new thing this year even if it’s just to update my sketchy techy skills- even that’s probably too grand a word for my knowledge of all things computer I stumble through life with the minimal bit that I have, but every so often a catch up is required so that I don’t find myself con- fused and alone in a world I no longer un- derstand (this kind of happens some days anyway) but I’ll try keep up while I can. All of this keeping up made me think of all the skills we no longer use. When our eldest was starting school, shoe lace tying was one of the skills needed, and the abili- ty to zip his own coat up. The coat was fine but the shoe lace tying took a little time and effort and then Hey! Velcro straps on shoes happened! Skill no longer re- quired! I remember having a headline copy in school, and labouring over lines of per- fectly formed letters, with ink stained fingers clutch- ing a fountain pen. Within a year we were all writing with ballpoint pens, and now I can hardly write at all, or spell since predictive text does all of that for us. I don’t know anyone who can read a sundial, but we can all still tell the time so how much does it actually matter when they say a lot of young people can’t read a clock? They don’t really need to, when their phone will tell them anyway. One thing I do keep up with is sarcasm and insults, so even I know if an older person calls a younger person ‘Snowflake’ that’s an insult, and when they respond with ‘OK Boomer’, that is also an insult and a bit of sarcasm and possibly a bit of eye-rolling thrown in too. In the interest of research, I googled the generational cohorts. I un- derstood I was a Boomer, so I was ready to take Snowflakey offence to being dis- missed by ‘ok Boomer’(eyeroll), but I’m actually part of generation X (disappoint- ingly we have no obvious cultural identi- fier beyond being the start of the IT gen- eration). The only bit of info I liked about this is that it was possibly Billy Idol who named us and that is a little bit rock’n’roll. The kidults are not Millen- nials as I thought, they are in fact generation Z and we can learn much from them. Language and skills evolve and every genera- tion mourns the passing of the old and criticises the younger generation for not valuing them but they have knowledge and an under- standing of the fast-paced changes of technology, the drawbacks and the opportu- nities, so off I go to tap into my inner techy (if I have one) for 2020.(my daugh- ter just asked me who Billy Idol is). § Oasis Childcare Centre Mornington Co. Meath Crèche Montessori Playgroup After School Telephone 9888135 + Purpose Built + Fully Insured + HSE Inspected + Fire Certified + Intercom Entry + Large Safety Tiled Playground + Large Car Park + Easy Drop Off and Collection + Small Groups + Dedicated Staff + 7:30am to 6:30pm ONE CHILD! ONE LIFE! 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