Keith Shirley

Peter Heary (aka. CroppyBoy1798) has made a new video of Carlow Past and present available online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVdtJTNcrok

For those of you that did not see them in the previous post – he has old photos of Carlow and takes new photos from the same place and angle. In the video he merges the two so you can see how things have changed.

I never seem to manage to guess where the old photos are taken. The videos are well worth a look – and take a lot of time I’m sure.

Anyone that has spent more than 5 minutes with me has probably had to listen to me talk about the house we’re building and the planning that has gone into it.

In order to support our new heavenly home – we’re selling the heavenly home where we currently live. It’s a 3 year old (but in showhouse condition) 3 bedroom semi-detached house in Sandhills in Carlow.

As all the “for sale” websites only show a few boring pictures I’ve started a site purely to give people a better idea of what the house is like – and why we loved living there so much. It will be updated (hopefully daily) with articles on what you can expect in the house, in the estate and local area and things you can do when you want to get out for a while.

If you know anyone that is interested then please ask them to have a look at www.73sandhills.ie and to contact us if they would like a closer look.

Carlow Enterprise Board are promoting a new workshop for those looking for a new direction to their careers. It’s to be held at Enterprise House on 9 June 2009 and is free (but you must register in advance).

The aim is to receive practical advice on finding and applying successfully for work and looking at other alternatives such as starting your own business.

I met one of the speakers, Yanky Fackler, at Bizcamp earlier in the year and enjoyed his talk. He has recently published a book which I have yet to buy (I’m refusing to buy more until I read what I have).

The opportunity to speak with Brian McQuaid from IT Carlow’s Lifelong Learning dept should also not be missed - there are also some accelerated programs at the IT which might be interesting (although not directly in his department I believe).

Click on the pictures of the flyers for the full size version:

Carlow Chamber and the Carlow Enterprise Board have a conference coming up this Friday at the Mount Wolseley Hotel. I went to last years event and it was a resounding success. Not only were the presentations informative – but the event gave me an opportunity to network with exactly the kind of business owners I needed for my business and my career.

I’ve been asked to blog about it – which means there are some spaces left. Unfortunately it conflicts with another event I have on – The IIA Conference for the Social Media Working Group.

You can download a pdf brochure and booking form for the conference – glass-half-full-economic-conference

Let me know what I missed.

Like most people I’m good at bitching about things but don’t come up with too many solutions. If I do come up with solutions I sure as hell don’t want to get involved in politics to try and implement them. By its very nature it’s a thankless job. You can’t keep everyone happy – and I love to be loved. Awww.

I’m not well versed in who’s who in local (or even national) politics. It’s just one of those things that I should know more about but never made the time for.

With the aim of broadening my horizons recently I gate crashed one of the local political meetings. I’m sorry to say it was a big disappointment. Far from the fired up speeches about how they were going to kick ass in the next election I found it to be a very low key event. Possibly this was because it was a local party meeting rather than a public rally. There was only one candidate that I thought had the required polish. Even with that I’m probably biased as he was a boyhood friend of mine.

So it was with interest that I heard from T2 that they had developed an election info site in cooperation with KCLR. The site – www.localelections.ie - will provide all sorts of details on the elections and the candidates. Hopefully they can really get the candidates involved. I’m a bit fed up of all the junk mail that comes through the letter box but still gives me no idea of who the people really are.

Ken McGuire also wrote about it on his site -as I’m sure will a number of other local bloggers as T2 is hunting them down.

The site has a seperate Blog for Carlow and Kilkenny in addition to a blog by Sue Nunn from KCLR. The site is a bit text heavy at the moment but I’m glad it’s available. Maybe this election I’ll manage to educate myself properly.

Now I need to find out how and when I can get into the council meetings to see what goes on there.