LAMA All Ireland Community & Council Awards
Release Date: 14th February 2020
PRESS RELEASE
LAMA All Ireland Community & Council Awards
Over 100 community organisations have been chosen as finalists for this year’s All Ireland Community & Council Awards, which are presented by IPB Insurance and LAMA. The event recognises communities and councils across Ireland whose hard work remains widely unrecognised. The awards take place in Croke Park on Saturday the 15th of February 2020. Over 400 attendees are expected to turn out to this year’s highly anticipated event. Hundreds of leading community organisations from across Ireland entered this year's event, which boasts over 19 categories.
Now in its 14th year, finalists include: Longford County Councils Primary School’s Pilot Digital Project under the best education/training Initiative category. This pilot digital project reached our communities via digital initiatives through primary schools.
The Primary School’s Pilot Digital Project was unique to County Longford and was led by Longford County Council’s IT department through funding received from the Department of Rural and Community Development. With the rollout of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) anticipated in 2020, Longford County Council wanted to create awareness in our communities about the NBP and broadband technology, what it is and what new possibilities it will present for our families and businesses.
Broadband Officer Longford County Council – Ms. Christine Collins stated “Through our initiative we wanted to champion an understanding, adoption and use of broadband technology in everyday life in County Longford and help create a vision of what County Longford could be like when all homes and premises are connected to high speed broadband (HSB). To achieve our objectives, we created an initiative that could reach out to nearly every family in our county and so we created an educational video, brochures and competition for our primary schools.”
An awards ceremony was held on Thursday 2nd May in Aras an Chontae, Longford County Council. Longford County Council were honoured to have Minister of State Seán Canney T.D. with responsibility for Community Development, Natural Resources and Digital Development to present the awards to the winning primary schools along with the Cathaoirleach of Longford County Council, Mr. Luie McEntire, as well as the Cathaoirleach from each municipal district.
Longford County Council is delighted to be shortlisted for the All Ireland Community and Council Awards.
Speaking about the finalists who have made the shortlist for this year’s awards, Event Manager Michael O’Donoghue, said: “We anticipate this year’s event will be bigger and better than ever, with many unsung heroes being recognised for their outstanding contribution to their communities. Competition remains high with so many inspiring projects deserving awards. With over 400 people attending this year’s event, it’s set to be a night many will remember as they continue to carry out inspiring projects that positively impact people and their surrounding communities.”
On the announcement of the finalists IPB Insurance Chairman George Jones said, “IPB is proud to partner with LAMA in presenting the All Ireland Community and Council Awards. The awards are an important national platform to acknowledge the valuable contribution made by local volunteers and communities in partnership with their local authorities right across the country. The vision, variety and social impact reflected by the initiatives shortlisted is hugely encouraging as we welcome almost 150 All-Ireland finalists to the awards this year from all 31 local authorities across the country. I would like to wish everyone nominated the best of luck on the night and continued success with their endeavours into the future”.
