Over three Saturdays (16 February, 23 February and 2 March) we worked to clean Annadale Road, removing briars and ivy on the approach to town.
On 23 February a team worked on the Glenbeigh road, digging out dead trees and planting seven new trees on the greens beyond the football field. 
We also used FixMyArea to report damaged road signs and a dead swan on the river bank. The gory details are recorded on www.fixmyarea.com

On Valentine's Day a group from KTT attended a meeting organised by SKDP regarding the Government's 'Putting People First' proposals. There was a fantastic turnout at the talk and the auditorium was full to capacity.

Under the Government proposals, Socio-Economic Committees will be established to manage and distribute the funding instead of SKDP. SKDP is worried that this will seriously damage its structures and dilute the communities' ownership of local development initiatives. At the moment there are layers of committees involved in local development through SKDP, and these would no longer exist once power moves to the proposed socio-economic committees. It is hard to see what benefit communities would get from having these structures torn down. Good local development happens when there is shared understanding and consensus in the community - the Socio-Economic Committees just won't work without it.

Other countries in Europe have distributed funding using the 'top-down' approach that the Government is now suggesting. However the EU Commission has officially endorsed the 'bottom-up' local development model that we have in Ireland because it is far more effective.

After the meeting the attendees from community groups left wondering 'who is really going to benefit from the proposed changes?'

The Government proposal and the local development network response are available through the following links:
ILDN Response to Alignment Proposals
Putting People First - Policy Document

On 12 February KTT held its AGM at St. Michael's Church. Thanks to all those who attended.

At the AGM we all agreed that:
We want to attract new volunteers from all age groups.
We look forward to welcoming back our volunteers from St. Mary of the Angels in 2013.
We want to improve our communication and planning.
We are grateful for the contribution of our sponsors, especially Supervalu.
We want to work with the group that takes care of the grounds St. James's Church, as it is really impressive.
We want to plant trees along the Crow's Road.
We want to create community seating using parts of the tree that was felled in St. James's recently
We want to start the Inter-Estates competition in Killorglin this year, and we really want to get a donation of prizes!
We want to launch our heritage walks during the Heritage Weekend – Fri 19 - Sun 21 April. 
We want to hold our Spring Clean Day on Saturday 20 April, during the Heritage Weekend.

NEWSFLASH...
On Saturday 2 February the KTT volunteers volunteers rallied in the Fair Field and proceeded staged an assault on the local Garda barracks.
Armed with mops and brushes.

We washed down the Garda Station because the walls and windowsills look very dirty. Unfortunately we were not able to make much of an impact because the paintwork is peeling away in chunks. The local Gardai have put in several appeals to the OPW to get the building repainted and we are hoping that the OPW will take action soon - it's a very impressive building in the centre of the town, and it needs a bit of TLC!

We also cleaned the pavements in the Square and removed old bottles and cans from drains along the street. 2012 was so wet that moss has developed everywhere. Chunks of moss are constantly falling from rooftops onto the pavement, making it really hard to keep the place clean. Thanks again to all the local business owners who are cleaning outside their premises each day - with a bit of dry weather things should improve!

On Tuesday morning, 29th January 2013, Susan Vickers of An Taisce visited the Woman 2000 group at the Seanscoil in Killorglin to talk about the EPA's GreenHome initiative. She spent some time talking about the need to examine how wasteful we can be at home regarding energy, water and our rubbish. And how costly these behaviours are. She explained why it was so necessary to stop and think - how is our behaviour contributing to the damage of our environment? What sort of world are we leaving to our grandchildren? And, the good news, she explained how any household can make big savings each year by adjusting our behaviour.

The group spent some time discussing different ways to reduce the amount of rubbish that actually goes into our bins. Susan gave us an in-depth insight, with the aid of some neat demonstration capsules, into all the stuff that can be recycled and how so called 'rubbish' can be big business these days. She also touched on composting of organic waste.

She then did a brief inventory of all the things we could easily and without expenditure do in our homes to reduce our energy consumption and lessen the amount we spend on bills - for example, turn down the thermostat by one degree, close the curtains, and turn off appliances at the socket when not in use.

She also showed us some fun gizmos that can be attached to our taps to reduce water consumption without losing power of flow. And also how we can reduce the amount of water we use when flushing the loo by adding a Hippo bag to the cistern.

She finished by inviting us all to participate in a household survey to find out where we are on the usage/wastage scale with a view to seeing how we could improve on this over the coming months.

It was an enjoyable and informative session and we thank Susan for coming along and showing us how we can easily save some money - and perhaps a contribution towards saving the resources of the planet while we're at it!