By Kathleen Mullane

Well, Sarah O’Connor and Alannah Scanlon, who are travelling in April to Calcutta with The Hope Foundation, spoke at both masses over the weekend on their forthcoming trip. They have to raise €2,400 each which will help to run the orphanage for a year. Envelopes are provided at the Church doors and you are asked to kindly hand these in with the basket collection at the two masses next weekend. All support for the girls will be greatly appreciated.

Congrats to Emily and Anne-Marie Pierse of Gortnagross (daughters of Caroline and Donal) who, at the weekend, qualified as lifeguards. Well done to them – and incidentally their cousins from Listowel are in “Ireland’s Fittest family” on Sunday evenings and doing well.

This weekend Saturday/Sunday 24th/25th November the church-gate collection will take place in aid of Athea Colbert Community Hall. As I’ve stated on many occasions the hall belongs to the people of Athea and is such a marvellous asset to our community, so you are asked to please support “Your Hall” – every day we are listening to the statement ‘Athea is finished’ –  “No it’s Not” -yes our Post Office is gone but you can do many payments at Collins’ Shop now – the people of Athea will keep it alive, unlike many small towns we have “a shop, a Credit Union, a Doctor, a Pharmacy, a Hairdresser, a Beautician, a Garage, a Sports Hall, a Butcher’s, a Printers, two Takeaways’, what more can one ask for. And with the Tidy Towns doing great work in our community “we are Far From Finished” – so let’s all pull together and be grateful for what we have. Incidentally Glin have a fabulous ‘Fairy Path’ area for the kids – so colourful and different – maybe we could all have an input into putting extra colour and attractions into ours – it’s with everyone’s help in the Community that all aspects of our village can be improved and don’t forget to pick a weed, or pick up a bit of rubbish!

The Community Games committee are looking for extra help and more parents to join their group. There are so many games and various things that young people can compete in, for example – handball, soccer, futsal, basketball, writing, art, gymnastics, athletics, photography and much more. In the past I remember big crowds up at the pitch taking part in the running, long-puck, long-jump etc. – it would be great for all the children to get involved in the various Community Games competitions and hopefully the parents will be there to help out and the kids could put aside the mobiles and X-boxes for a bit.