An opportunity to check our goals for the year ahead. All suggestions, ideas and offers to help are appreciated. ✔️

Received €5,000 grant from The Community Foundation of Ireland to implement a project to devise an action plan.✔️

• 5 Holly Trees (from MCC in 2021) to plant in Johnstown Wood Estate. ✔️

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• Inspect planted trees and check stakes and ties.✔️

• 3 Replacement tree posts are required in Bailis Downs Estate. ✔️

• Replace one failed tree in the Bailis Downs Estate. ✔️

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Collaboration with Wild About Navan to participate in the Heritage Keepers 5 week workshops hosted by Burrenbeo.

Our application was submitted February 20th. ✔️

Low-level tree branches often hinder pedestrian movement along pavements and therefore between September and February each year there is an opportunity to rectify this.

A small project team of volunteers is needed to prune any branches identified as needing removal. Resident groups should contact us for support and we will coordinate with Meath County Council to take away any debris collected potentially in March.

Work carried out at Athlumney Hall, Bailis Downs, Athlumney Wood, The Priory, and The Boyne Estates.

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In preparation for Pride of Place 2023 MCC host a free one-day sustainable gardening course Saturday 25th February in Buvinda House hosted by Horticulturalist Aoife Munn.

Committee to approve proposed 2023 plan and budget.

• One flowering cherry tree has been donated to us to plant as part of the Metges Road Avenue project. ✔️

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We’re included in the current round of the Tesco Ireland Community Fund in Navan. If you’re shopping in this store over the next few weeks, we’d really appreciate if you’d vote for us using your blue token.

Thank you 

March 1st, 3 volunteers attended Seminar at Trim Castle Hotel and a tour with the winners of Irelands Tidiest Town 2022.

March 5th, 3 members attended a Biodiversity Tour of Dalgan Park with ecologists and botanists hosted by Wild About Navan.

• Inspect tree ties and replace any missing stakes. Read More

• Organise clearance via MCC of any tree pruning debris carried out by Res Assoc last month. Read More

Opportunity to meet with Wild About Navan, MCC Transport, Maintenance, and Heritage departments to discuss plans for the Johnstown/Navan area and explore opportunities to support each other.

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A brief recap of Thursday's meeting with the Council Heritage and Transport, and with Wild About Navan.

(These are not formal minutes, only our notes)

• We've permission to clean St Martha's bridge and host flower baskets.

• There's no date yet as to when Bothar Sion water pipes will be dug up.

• MCC will clear up the main road pavement weeds this month without weedkiller, we then need to organise volunteers to cut them all monthly and the MCC road sweeper will clean up - so much easier and very quick.

• The Bothar Sion grass bank project with Cllr Yemi and Wild About Navan is likely to only be information stands/QR code signs since although the grass looks scruffy it is extremely valuable in biodiversity terms.

• MCC will help with any long grass from our summer meadows but we'll need to employ a grass cutter.

• The full calender month of the Council's adoption of 'No Mow May' is unlikely since it's subject to the speed of grass growth. Metges Rd South and Johnstown Roundabout are included.

• We'll arrange to edge the verge / pavement kerb of Metges Rd South in March/April, MCC will clear away our debris piles.

• There may be a future potential opportunity to remove the Johnstown roundabout grass and swap it for flowering clover.

• We have 30 trees from MCC during National Tree Week.

• We requested the removal of several redundant road signs - 2 huge ones on Bothar Sion and those that reference the school on the back road.

• We're encouraged to participate in August's Heritage Week - the Sunflower Trail perhaps being the easiest.

• We requested that stencils for dog owners to clean up be tried again on pavements but this time at estate exits. It might remind owners who forget poo bags to go back and get them.

• We would need to talk with OPW about the Athlumney Riverside trail. The Council boardwalk and no entry sign could/should be removed (and probably doesn't have permission to be there anyway). We could seek a grant to employ a contractor to remove the wire fence buried within the trail path. To have anything more would mean creating 'inclusive' and 'safe' paths that has no current funding.

I met with our ecologist Fintan Damer today and walked the different areas under consideration to be part of the Johnstown Biodiversity Community Action Plan.

His favoured areas are:

1. Athlumney Riverside Trail.

2. Metges Road hedgerow, woods, and drainage channel, incl IDA

3. Overview of our pollinator project sites.

4. Include Navan RFC and Walterstown GFC grounds.

Actions:

1. The first survey will be in April, the second in June and we've no direct required involvement.

2. We've to provide an update to the foundation in July and a final report in March next year. 

We have donated a dozen spare packets of Irish Native Wildflower Seeds and the MCC wildflower plugs to Colaiste na Mi Secondary school to assist in their garden project.

An opportunity to make the bridge sparkle again with the help of Rochfort Property Maintenance and water from Navan RFC.

We've joined in with the River Boyne project groups to help do our part on April 1st to raise awareness of the river's health.

Several native trees donated by MCC for the community were planted by residents to extend last year's tree line on north Metges Road.

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Delaying the first cut of the year to estates lawns and home gardens until the end of April will help increase biodiversity at a time when it's needed the most.

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Deliveries have been made to the 4 local schools asking staff and students in Colaiste Na Mi, St Stephens NS, Ard Ri NS, and St Mary's Special School to commence germinating 800 sunflower seeds. 

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With the support of Meath County Council volunteers began clearing the weeds along the 4km of cycle paths through Johnstown without the use of chemicals. Volunteers are scraping the heads off weeds with shovels whilst the council uses their road sweeper to collect and clear the debris. The plan is to repeat on a monthly basis.

Managing the pavement weeds without the use of chemicals safeguards public health, pet's, pollinators and insects, and even the wildlife in the River Boyne.

Please stop using chemicals to control unwanted plants.

Read about our action plan

In April we can sow the remaining wildflower seeds collected from the autumn harvest.

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• 5 new fruit trees have been provided by Wild About Navan to plant in the Johnstown Wood Estate.

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Simply leave the lawnmower in the shed to allow lawn flowers to appear. We expect to see more dandelions, daisies, buttercups, clover, wild garlic, and more but first, they need to grow. 

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We'll be engaging with Navan Cycling Initiative for their events.

More information biodiversityweek.ie

We'll be promoting the 5-day challenge to get children (and their parents) more active and to help reduce the dependency on cars.

May 20th information https://pollinators.ie/media/world-bee-day-2021/

An opportunity to apply for the MCC grant to make further improvements to the neighbourhood. 

All ideas and suggestions are welcome.

Our application was entered for Best Large Town.

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The workshop collaboration with Wild About Navan attended in February has led to a workshop to gather like-minded individuals being hosted at the Solstice Theatre.

30 planters packed with pollinator-friendly herbs, fruits, and flowers were installed 23rd June.

Placed on display in late June these need 150Ltrs of water each week via portable water containers and a supply of harvested rainwater. If you're free to help get in touch.

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The vote count of Blue Tokens in the Tesco Ireland Community Fund in Navan is due shortly

Our appeal to the public to reduce the frequency of lawn cutting to ensure that insects have food, shelter, and safety. This is important to the food cycle and will benefit birds and insects, and increase biodiversity in a space that would normally be barren.

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To greatly reduce water waste and to speed up watering the sunflowers we ask local pubs to collect their used drinks bottles. Each flower is going to need one and in 2022 we collected over 600 bottles that were washed and recycled at the end of the project.

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An unannounced visit is expected from the Judges to see our entries for 2022 to 2023.

See our Entry

We have the opportunity to present Johnstown to visiting Judges to see our entries for 2022 to 2023.

See our Entry

Sunflowers will be planted in June if they have grown sufficiently tall to survive attacks by slugs.

Our Public sites do not have local water sources and if any volunteers can be found living locally to these we'd love for you to help us. 

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It's easy to let estate grass lawns grow long but they need to be presented well throughout the year.

We need volunteers with petrol lawnmowers who live close to any of the current sites to get in touch. The aim is to maintain a neat perimeter around these areas and to remove any litter or problem weeds.

2023 Sites may include: Johnstown Wood Elm/Chestnut and Birch, Spireview Lawn, and Spireview Parade.

https://www.heritageweek.ie/ 

Not implemented last year (2022) due to the cost of living crisis and cost of energy. We placed this year's lights display on 10 tree trunks at the Maple estate opposite the Johnstown Shopping Centre.

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7.30pm 12th December

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A public collection via Core Ireland together, sponsorship from Smiths SuperValu and Malones Toyota Navan, and Students from Loretto Secondary School ensured that families and individuals in disadvantaged circumstances do not miss out.

Read the write-up in the Meath Chronicle

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