CALL was represented at the recent “Communities Caring for Water” conference in November 2024. This event was jointly organised by LAWPRO and The Rivers Trust, and held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Athlone (very nice!).
Author: Elisabeth Salter
November, already? really?
I haven’t written a blog for a while. I keep saying that to myself and then not getting to it, not because I don’t want to write but because I’ve just been really busy. Lots of new projects underway, new collaborations with various partners, i’ve been out and about giving presentations and talking to school kids (more about all these activities soon). So that’s by way of beginning- which busy thing shall I start wth?
Food Security
In CALL we are developing some work on “food security”. We’re hoping to encourage and support locally grown food. This fits with at least two of the main themes of CALL’s activities: Local Food Production; Sustainable Living. Food Security is a genuine issue for us in Ireland.
Visiting Lough Carra Catchment Association
This week CALL visited Lough Carra Catchment Association’s public meeting. This was attended by over 30 people from the community (and beyond). There were four speakers giving updates on the progress of the monitoring and baselining studies that the Catchment Association are currently carrying out and a few other updates as you can see from their flier.
Writing funding bids
A significant part of my role as the CALL Action Officer is writing applications for funding. The idea is to increase the capacity of CALL by bringing in funding that will help us ACT across all the themes of the organisation and ENGAGE with the people in our locality (and beyond).
CALL Action Officer- What’s it like?
What’s it like being the CALL Action Officer? Remember I’m writing for public consumption…… It’s great! I started the role in March 2024, following an interview with some of the Directors of CALL (which I quite enjoyed) and before that an application. I’ve been on both sides of the interview table plenty of times but I prepared as well as I could for this interview. More on that in another post perhaps.
Blue Dot campaign interviews
I’m the Action Officer for CALL. I’m currently working on the “Blue Dot to the Sea” campaign as part of the funding we have received from LAWPRO under its Catchment Support Fund (2024). I explained a bit about the blue dot designation for water ways in my recent post “CALL’s Blue Dot to the Sea Campaign” https://callclimateaction.ie/2024/09/05/calls-blue-dot-to-the-sea-campaign/↗. I’m conducting interviews with members of the community who live and work with our rivers. How did I devise the interview questions?
CALL’s Blue Dot to the Sea Campaign
The purpose of our Blue Dot project is to engage the community connected with the rivers in our sub-catchment- the Carrowniskey and Bunowen rivers and their tributaries. A key aim is to help these rivers be as ecologically pure as they can be.
The Blue Dot project involves a few different angles: I am carrying out recorded and anonymised interviews with people who live with these rivers, organising some public events, attending knowledge sharing sessions, and visiting some schools and colleges to talk about the project and its findings.
CALL Action Officer Calling
I’m elisabeth salter, I’ve recently taken on the role of CALL’s Action Officer. C.A.L.L. is Climate Action Louisburgh Locality. CALL’s geographical focus is the locality…
Heritage Water Day Louisburgh 25/08/24
We had a great day, avoiding the worst of the rain: starting at Louisburgh Town Hall. For the outdoor activities we headed down to the Bunowen river by the bridge for a demo of Electrofishing by Inland Fisheries Ireland and a demo of kick sampling by our Community Water Officer. It didn’t rain too much despite the awful forecast. If you were put off from coming because of that weather forecast, you missed out!