Will you pop up in Boyle this year?
It was heartening to see a number of new shops opening in Boyle this week, showing the belief that local business people have in their home town. With Christmas fast approaching, some more entrepreneurs with a business idea should look at having their own opening, with a pop up shop to gauge the public’s interest in their product(s). Boyle is an ideal location for a pop up business especially in the run up to Christmas. A pop-up retail space is a venue that is temporary. The shops, while small and open for a short period of time, are used by people to build interest in their product or service, and seed their product with customers thus giving them an idea if it will work in the area going forward.
Town Team window graphics now in place
The Boyle Town Team commissioned and funded window graphics are nearing completion with the windows on Mullaneys and Mc Donagh’s having been completed this week and all looking well. The erection of the graphics on vacant premises by the Town Team is in addition to the power washing of monuments around the town, the funding last year of features for the Christmas lights, funding plants for Tidy Towns, assisting in the Christmas shopping promotion and organising of the Fall in Love with Boyle weekend. The Town Team are presently working on a number of other projects which will be of great benefit to the town.
The good and bad of Facebook
Facebook has it’s pluses but it also has it’s minuses. While this blog has highlighted the need for Boyle businesses to have an on line and social media presence, there is a duty of responsibility on Facebook administrators to ensure they manage their pages properly and that includes not facilitating negative and derogatory comment or photographs that casts aspersions on our town or on certain individuals. Here on Boyletoday.com, we will not allow such to grace our pages. For example, most of last Saturday night and early into Sunday morning was spent by this writer monitoring and deleting derogatory and on occasion libellous comments posted by a number of people against a certain individual on Boyletoday’s Facebook page. The said people commenced an orchestrated campaign early that evening against a person whose photograph had appeared on the page and tried to use Boyeltoday as a vehicle to post unsavoury comments about the individual. The comments were deleted and the conversation not allowed to continue. Separately, Minister Denis Naughten, on a recent visit to Boyle, said that it is vitally important to show the town in a positive light on social media and the internet, which is something Boyletoday.com strives to do on a daily basis. The publication by individuals of photographs that show the negative aspects of our town, while encouraging discussion on same, may increase viewers but does absolutely nothing to improve the Boyle we all love and continually try to improve.
Positive reaction to Courthouse plans
There was great reaction to the news here on Boyletoday.com during the week that the model railway will hopefully be again on show to the public next summer. With stripping out work having commenced on the Courthouse, it is hoped funding will soon become available to fit out the courtroom for the railway which is sure to be a novel attraction for the 2017 tourist season. Boyle Courthouse is one of the most prominent buildings in the town and an ideal location for housing the railway and perhaps a local museum of some sort. In addition, it would be great if the jail, exercise yard and keepers house, which is located behind the courthouse and which had some restoration work conducted back in 1987, could form part of the intended plans, thus putting on display another historic link with our past.
Important Roadshow in Boyle
An important roadshow will take place in King House this coming Tuesday 25th. Held under the auspices of Roscommon Public Participation Network and Roscommon Leader Partnership, the roadshow will offer a one stop shop for any general queries the public may have on any of the programmes offered by either body. It will commence at 7pm and run until 8.30pm.
There’s no smoke without fire (part 2)
This was the heading we used last week on the subject of the alleged closure of mental heath centres in the county including the two in Boyle. Our belief was, and still is, that a war of words is taking place between the HSE, service users and staff with our belief seeming to have been proven correct yesterday (Thursday) following comments by Senator Maura Hopkins and Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice. Senator Hopkins has said that “statements from the HSE and the experiences of people within the mental health services do not match up” . Deputy Fitzmaurice has said he is aware of hostel users being advised by Roscommon County Council that they are currently on the housing list! It would seem that the chance of closure of the facilities is as real as it was this day two weeks ago and is most certainly not “a storm in a tea cup” as was suggested by one uninitiated local “commentator” at the time.
Filling the vacant units around Boyle
One thing we have plenty of in Boyle are vacant premises. Like other small towns, the economic downturn has sucked the commercial life out of town centres, and unfortunately Boyle is no exception. But thankfully there is light at the end of the tunnel and efforts are currently being made to address the rate of unocupancy that is blighting the centres of Boyle and other small towns. In our haste to fill the vacant shop units in Boyle or indeed anywhere else, owners or landlords should take time to sit back and study a tenant before they take them on board. If they had been located somewhere previously, it is important to find out exactly why the tenant left that location. Had the previous landlord any problems with the tenant who left? What were the reasons for the departure? Armed with this knowledge, the owners of the vacant premises can make an informed decision as to whither it is best to take the tenant on or to wait for someone else.
Weather looks good for Run Walk n Roll
With fine weather promised for Sunday, this year’s Run, Walk n Roll will hopefully be another great success. Starting from the Crescent at 3pm it will take the usual route (see Boyle Sport section on this webisite). Organiser Damien Regan, family and friends are to be commended for the great work they put inot ensuring this event takes place every year and who to date, have raised €158,000 for cancer research. The former Terry Fox run is always a great family day out and a chance for many to have a nice stroll around our town while chatting to friends. Registration opens in St. Joseph’s Hall at 1.30pm.
And finally….!
An elderly man walks into a pharmacy and takes out a little brown bottle along with a teaspoon and laid them both onto the counter.
The pharmacist came over smiled and asked if he could help.
Of course said the old man.
“Could you please taste this for me?”
As it was a senior citizen, the Pharmacist obliged.
He picked up the spoon and put a tiny bit of the liquid on his tongue and swirled it around.
Then with a stomach-churning look on his face he spat it out on the floor and began coughing.
When he finally was finished, the man looked him right in the eye asked, “Now, does that taste sweet to you?”
The pharmacist, shaking his head back and forth with a venomous look in his eyes yelled, “HELL NO!!!”
The old man replied, “Oh thank God for that! What a relief!
“My doctor told me to get a pharmacist to test my urine for sugar!”
