2014 was a very successful year in which we consolidated our main activities, we gained some new volunteers and lost a few but overall the number of volunteers is still over 70.

The number of clients we call on the “Good Morning Drogheda” phone service has stabilised at between 70 and 80, some clients go into care while others unfortunately pass away but we also have new clients signing up for the service. We made 16,800 calls phone call in 2014.

Our Care and Repair Service had their busiest year undertaking 408 jobs, yet again Halco Hire continue to supply us with the gardening equipment but we also purchased our own lawn mower, strimmer and hedge cutter with a small HSE lottery grant .We welcomed some new volunteers, others left but we still have a nucleus of 10.

Failte Isteach: We had more students than last year (average 30 per week) and the same number of teachers (16). Most students are from Eastern European countries.

Computer Classes: We had approximately 75 students and 10 teachers, not as good as previous years but still going along nicely.

National Senior Help Line: We still have 21 volunteers manning the lines two afternoons a week. Towards the end of 2015 this service will be relocated to Dublin, the 13 national centres including ourselves will be closed.

Our Office here in the Haymarket has been very busy with all manner of problems and queries including the local property taxes, the water charges and medical cards. One piece of advice to all couples.”If you have utility bills please make sure they are in both of your names” saves lots of trouble in the future.

Fundraising:
• Flag Days in March & June
• Church Day Collection in June
• Easter Raffle and Coffee morning
• Bag Packing in April, June, October, November and December
• Carol Singing in Scotch Hall in December
• Golf Classic in July
• And for the first time we had a bucket collection at Bellystown Races .It wasn’t very successful but will plan again for 2015.

We had Sean Dowling a CE worker with us for one year; we would like to thank Sean for his contribution.

We continued to be a key part of the Louth Age Friendly Alliance with two of our committee on the sub group.

Five of our clients spent a week at the Lions Club holiday in Trabolgan, they had a great time

Our chairman did a Video for the community conference which we also attended

We continued to have quite a number of articles and stories in both local newspapers, so thank you to them for all their coverage.

We had stands at the “SOSAD” open day and gave a presentation to the Senior Citizens group in Duleek

We had a workshop organised by the NI Arts Council as our input into the Drogheda public art project.

We cannot possible run all these activities without the help and commitment of all our volunteers, so to all our Volunteers we would like to say a heartfelt Thank You

Oliver O’Connor – August 6th 2015