The Christmas Miscellany will be held in the Teachers Club on December 12 at 11.30. As usual, this will be a seasonal event with stories, carols, singing and Christmas bonhomie ably chaired by Carmel Uí Loingsigh in her own inimitable style.
Entry is free. Just bring your singing voice and join in on the Carol singing! When the session is finished we are promised lots of Christmas fare with a seasonal lunch Christmas punch is promised, so use public transport!
This is the group of intrepid members who did the Lacken Walk in October led by Norah Walsh.
Dublin South is a vibrant branch and the recently expanded committee is an ideal launching pad for developing new activities.
The branch currently organises a monthly Drop In for members in the Ballyroan Youth and Community Centre. Members are invited to call in for a cuppa and a biscuit (free) and a chat. Frequent speakers are invited to address members on topics that members are interested in, like nutrician, health insurance and so on.
Currently there are 4 Book Clubs going. If necessary, Committee will cover the cost of a room to facilitate a Book Club. Pilates is a weekly event and golf a seasonal delight! Walks and cycle trips are facilitated for the more active among us! A miscellany takes place about 4 times a year, in the Teachers’ Club to cater for members’ interest in the Music and the Arts. Doreen Fitzgerald and Carmel Uí Loingsigh are the organisers of the Miscellany and they always bring us an interesting and eclectic show.
Bridge takes place on Thursday mornings in the Club and there is normally at least one outing a year. Nationally there is a golf outing arranged and I believe a bridge weekend is also in the offing.
WE hope to rejuvenate our website! I encourage the organisers of the various activities to take plenty of pictures from now on and submit them to the secretary for upload to the website, so that we can capture the various activities pictorially.
John O’Brien has taken up the position of General Secretary of RTAI. Billy Sheehan has retired from the position. We wish Billy well in his retirement.
Pictured is the new General Secretary with President Mary McCarthy are staff members Siobhan Desmond and Patricia Byrne
On a sunny day in May, Dublin South won the RTAI Golf Classic in Mountrath. The team of Matt Reville, Susan Maher and Marty and Emily Nevin secured first place with a score of 91. In second place was a team from Tipperary, while Kildare secured 3rd place
Plans for the 2024 event are being finalised. Hopefully our branch will again be represented by a number of teams.
It doesn’t seem like it, but it has been 7 years since Billy Sheehan replaced the indomitable Denis Desmond as General Secretary of RTAI.
Billy is now retiring and we wish him all the best in his future endeavours. At our May General Meeting the branch made a presentation to Billy to mark the occasion of his retirement.
Pictured is Eileen McAuliffe, National Executive, making a presentation to Billy on behalf of Dublin South.
Dublin South RTAI is alive and well and in rude health following the extensive lockdown necessitated by the covid pandemic. We are resuming all of our activities, with immediate effect, although a few activities, like our Drop-in, are still curtailed as the BCYC is still closed to all activities bar Meals-on-Wheels. We hope that will change in the near future.
Golf lessons will resume shortly and our Secretary, Deirdre Lohan will be in touch shortly with a full update on the current range of activities available to members. Walks and cycling trips have resumed. It has also been suggested that members might like a “refresher” or beginners course on the uses of a tablet. We can organise such a course if there is sufficient interest.
We welcome suggestions form members on proposed new activities. Please feel free to reply to this blog with your suggestions or you can also contact us on our Facebook page, Dublin South RTAI, with your suggestions.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Our main method of communicating with members is by email using a Google Groups system.
In recent times, many members who used eircom as their service provider have moved to other platforms and have omitted to inform the Secretary of this change! While our Secretary is good, she can’t be inspired to intuit new email addresses!
Members also complain that they don’t receive messages! If you are not receiving messages, please check your Spam or Junk folder, as bulk messages are often put into such folders by some systems. Once you resurrect a message from Spam a few times your system will adjust to your needs and save future messages from that source in your inbox.
Please let us know what you think of us. Post messages to our Facebook page. We value your opinions!
With the Covid lockdown showing no signs of easing, members are restricted to their homes to an alarming and indeed, exhausting extent. You can only do so much walking and gardening. Leisure pursuits such as reading and watching the tele only pass so much of the day.
Bearing all of the above in mind we wracked our brains to come up with an activity that is good for our brains. Finally we hit upon it! BRIDGE! So many members play bridge and now that physical bridge is no longer available, and won’t be this side of Christmas 2001, we decided to form a Virtual Bridge Club, creatively called RTAI Bridge Club!
The club meets virtually on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Registration to play starts at 8am and the tournament commences at 10am. RTAI members are invited to join the club. Each member can also bring in a non RTAI person to partner them if they so wish.
The standard is a mix ranging from beginners to A players. We have established a website, www.bridgewebs.com/rtai to which the results are posted each week. Currently I am the general dog’s body who acts as TD, puts up the results and administers the website.
We do need an influx of new members so if you are interested in joining the club please contact this site or send a message to any member of committee. You are guaranteed a pleasant morning of bridge on the BBO platform every Tuesday and Thursday morning without fail. And you also get to meet fellow members and you can exchange a bit of chat and banter at the table in a relaxed manner! I look forward to welcoming many new members to the club. All that you need to send me is your name, bbo username, grade, mobile, email address and CBAI number. It’s free to join!
While registration was brisk and we ended up with 80 members registered, actual bridge was sluggish and we rarely managed to get more than three tables per session. Regretfully, after going to the expense of setting up a website and organising registration it was decided to cancel online bridge. This type of response didn’t merit a member of committee devoting two mornings a week to sitting over a computer setting up a tournament and then being forced to cancel same due to a lack of participation. Indeed, when individual members request new activities, it doesn’t encourage already hard pressed committee members to participate and to give freely of their time and expertise.
Activities are a two-way street! Committee doesn’t mind establishing new participative activities, but the support has to be there and to be consistent. Ní neart go cur le chéile!
Once again, we had a wonderful presentation of the best talent that our members can put on. We had music, singing, pageantry and story telling of the best.
Our sincere thanks must go to Carmel Uí Loingsigh and Doreen Fitzgerald, who organise the miscellanies and who source the presenters and look after the room and food. We owe them both a great debt of gratitude for the wonderful work they do throughout the year. Without the hard work put in by Carmel and Doreen, we wouldn’t have a miscellany. This year more than 100 members crowded into the Club to listen to and to participate in the festivities. Joe Johnston was ecstatic with the wonderful carol singing!
Below we present some pictures of the event and our sincere thanks goes out to all the performers.
Dublin South RTA 