Monasterevin Community Facility

Wow! something historic happened tonight, almost 100 people attended the meeting tonight, facilitateded by Kildare Leadership and Kildare County Council. There were representatives of the Youth Club, Monasterevin Gospel Choir, Venice of Ireland, Recreation Centre Committee, CYMS/CWMS, Community Games, Housing Associations, individuals who have moved into the town in the last few years, all the schools, Irish Dancing and many, many more.

They began by indicating their role in the process, which was to bring togther the community, to understand the needs of the community and to put in place a plan to bring this together. They have the expertise and the experience having recently completed a projcect in Kildare Town.

The large attendance were broke up into smaller groups to focus on two key questions; Who and what needs to be accomodated in the community facility? What are the options regarding the location of the facility.

There were a lot of suggestions both for what was needed e.g. community creche, cafe, educational, drama and performance space, youth reach/club facilities, parent & toddler, meeting rooms, sporting facilities, indoor and outdoor and many other ideas.

There were a few locations mentioned, the site proposed for the recreation centre, in St Evins Park, the CYMS Hall, the old Ballykelly Football field, Moore Abbey and Mill Stream.

The next part was to accept nominations for the committee, again there were repsresentatives from, CYMS, Recreation commitee, Venice of Ireland, Housing associations, a person who has experience in an existing community centre. There was so much interest that they decided to defer the final nominations, and seek volunteers from various organisations in the town. The really want the group to reflect as many aspects of the town as possible. They may have to break the commitee into subgroups to accomodate the numbers that are interested.

When the committee is finally put together, they will meet regularly to establish the needs, and the potential locations. They will keep the people of the town informed by various means, including; newsletter, web site, forum, texts, facebook etc.

The whole emphasis is on a whole community involvement, with not such a focus on sport. There is funding available, up to Euro 500,000 but matching funding is required, either by means of a site, a property, also there is community raised funding required.

Thats all I can remember for now, if anyone else who was there can remember some of the stuff I have forgotten, please add to this post.

Sorry for the long post, its kind of a big thing, this is Monasterevin, nothing like this has happened in a long time. Lets hope that there will be a good committee, and they all pull together and can get this up and running with the cooperation of the people of the town.

There is a thread in the Monasterevin Forum for people who would like to add other information about tonights meeting. http://campbells.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=mon