Richard Wynne

The Castlebar Information Age Project

The Build Up

Spurred on by local Telecom Eireann employees who recognised the potential this represented to our town the Chamber gave me the task of organising the bid for Castlebar. First we organised a public meeting at which we were to put together a committee from all sectors in the town not just business people, this was done so the committee would have a better grasp of the communities real needs and wants.

This night proved to be very successful and a committee was formed. The next task was to hold a public information night and inform the townspeople about what it was we wanted to do and to enlist as much help as possible. Over 350 people turned up at this meeting we were utterly amazed at the amount of people who: (a) recognised the potential and (b) who wanted to help out

We then wrote to every businessperson in the town, also every club, association, voluntary group, sporting clubs included. We got loads of ideas and plenty of pledges of support. This was very encouraging, and helped us to form a plan, which was later used as a blueprint for our submission.

We then started the public awareness campaign this lasted for nearly three months. The entire town was survey at least with three different surveys, about computer ownership, access, literacy and so on. Then we started to publish ads in the local papers and also on the local radio about what we were doing and what the information revolution is all about. We contacted the Local camcorder club who made a 45-min video of the project and the local deflector operator obliged us by broadcasting it into everybody’s home.

We designed a logo, printed T-shirts and car stickers we met with residents association and clubs to inform their members about the project.

Our Project co-ordinator was appointed Mrs Regina McGarrigle who by trade is a teleworker and provides a professional editing service from her home in Ballynew, she was provide with all the relevant information and started to compile the submission.

We then opened up our Public Information Age Office in Ellison Street; this was to demonstrate to the public all about computers, email the world wide web and how it could affect people in their daily lives. This was achieved by the enormous generosity of the local business people. The office space was provided free of charge and the computers were sponsored by business as well. The staff were also provided by the Chamber of Commerce and FÁS on a joint approach.

The day came for the judges to visit Castlebar and I can say it was one of the proudest of my life.

We had asked for people to turn up on the mall at 5.00 PM and this was a gamble because we could not guarantee the weather and we were not sure what the turnout would be like. When I walked out of the Co. Council offices and saw the crowd it was amazing. The Gardaí estimated afterwards that there was close to 5000 people on the mall not bad for a population of 7,500. The business people in the town shut up shop early on the day so they and their staff could attend, and they weren’t even asked to do this.

We came a close second needless to say we were all bitterly disappointed that we didn’t win outright.

But we shook ourselves and continued on now we had prepared a blueprint for our town and with our £ 1 million prize and we would spend it wisely for the benefit of Castlebar.