November Meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group

louth | environment | news report Sunday November 21, 2004 15:59 by Sean Crudden - Cooley Environmental and Health Group sean at cooleyehg dot com Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

Two Steps Forward One Step Back?

Incremental progress with the business of the group was reported at the November meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group.

Sean Crudden, acting chairman, pictured at the pier Omeath with Warrenpoint in the background before the meeting.

A special meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group on Sunday 21 November, which started at 11.30 a.m., decided to publish a limited edition of the report on cancer in Co Louth which Dennis Pringle, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at NUI Maynooth, had presented to the group in December 2003. The report has been accessible already on the group’s website www.cooleyehg.com since early this year. It is hoped that the print version will be available before the New Year.

Negotiations, the meeting heard, are in a final phase with two or three more sponsors for the group’s website.

Fr Gerard McGinnity has other priorities that weekend and has dropped out of the panel for the group’s fifth annual winter workshop which is due to take place on Saturday afternoon 29 January 2005. At the request of the meeting Archbishop M D Hynes PhD OMA agreed to step in to speak about the theme of the workshop "Organisation and Health" from the point of view of organised religion. Other speakers for the workshop are Dr Tom Collins, Cathal Kearney, Paula Catizone, Kalichi. John Maguire of the NEHB has promised to provide a speaker on the topic from a mental health perspective. It was also decided by the meeting to invite Mr Larry Staudt to participate in the workshop.

Discussion took place on how the workshop is to be advertised. Some financial assistance with this aspect of the workshop has been guaranteed by Louth County Enterprise Board. It was decided to prepare a "flier" based on the information currently available.

The meeting agreed that the trip to Tullyvin on Wednesday 10 November to play handball was a good day out. A further trip - to the handball facility owned by Carrickmacross Emmetts - was provisionally pencilled in to take place before Christmas. Various opinions were expressed about the respective merits of indoor and outdoor handball.

It was agreed that Sean Crudden would act as facilitator for the winter workshop.

The next meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group was fixed for Sunday 9 January 2005 in The Strand, Omeath, starting at 11.30 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

Archbishop Michael Desmond ("Dessie") Hynes, secretary, pictured during a break in the meeting.

The Strand, Omeath.