Are the Council Promoting Ennis

ulinbac

Hi Everyone,

Just in relation to the thread on Ennis being a Ghost Town. Is the Council doing anything to promote business in the area? On Monday walked through the Temple Gate Car Park. There were 10 cars in the car park. I have never seen this in the town.

As far as I know all they have done is raise car park charges, hooray for another disincentive to come spend money in town!!! Local business' will have no choice but to close or raise prices.

Hawk Wing 2

The idiots in the councils idea of promoting trade and business in this recession is to raise parking charges and charge boom time rates

barney4001

thats why people go north to shop

omahaid

Ennis is one of the nicest towns in the country (I say this as someone not from Clare and having lived in a few towns around the country) but it's being run into the ground by the council for some bizarre reason. The increase in the parking is a disgrace, they should have free parking (or at least the absolute minimum).

Whats the point in raising rates when shops are closing down?

Carry

omahaid wrote: »

... but it's being run into the ground by the council for some bizarre reason...

The bizarre reasons (nothing reasonable in it) are the members of a council in a rural county. They are basically farmers voted in by farmers with no imagination whatsoever and nothing else in mind as to keep the status quo and get even more out of it.
Their idea of improving business in town and in the country is simply the same as in agriculture: milk every cow to death, don't ever dare to think beyond your own field (as if they could), and pour loads of shite on same just to get quick returns without thinking of the essentials and the consequences.

Just happened to listen to a local councillor (FF) whose stuttering comment on massive redundancies in a local timber processing factory was just that he wants to promote more timber processing thingies in the area, because it's locally very important, blah, blah. Knowing well that he makes a fortune to grow timber in acres of his land. Of course he wants timber processing facilities. It's his money!

Sorry, I'm royally pished off at the moment.

But yeah, that's the trouble in this country and this county: There are no people in decision-making positions with a vision and with competence.

CptSternn

Carry wrote: »

But yeah, that's the trouble in this country and this county: There are no people in decision-making positions with a vision and with competence.

Our government was comprised of :

A minister of defence who never was in the military
A minister of foreign affairs who never lived outside the country
A minister of finance who didn't have a bank account
A minister of agriculture who never worked in the farming industry
A minister of social welfare who never had to avail of any of the services in his life
A minister of health who wasn't too healthy

But like the council here they all knew the right people which is why they were put in those positions.

There is another thread here on this - check out the link to the article to the Clare Champion - the country council voted down the idea of lowering rates for businesses. Currently local shops are paying the same rates they did during the boom, which is insane since tills are down 30% across the board in the county. This combined with the upwards only rates shows the council have no clue what is going on or how to sort it.

maiden

The council are doing NOTHING for this town! The rates are ridiculous, car parking going up, what next.

An article in yesterdays paper said there are 70 vacant shops in town!!! 70!!!

Ive said it before, we need to get this town back on the map, we need beds being slept in, restaurants full etc.

I ran an idea by friends recently, and am thinking of approaching the Ennis Chamber for help with it, basically its an idea for a weekend festival in Ennis. The Gospel Rising festival brought much needed money to the town last year as did the Ennis Book Festival, so if choirs and books can work maybe my idea may.

I know its only one weekend but its a start!

Balagan

But is there a weekend when there isn't a Festival in Ennis? There seems to be a load of PR hype around some of them and precious few extra people in town. Sometimes the only outward sign there is a Festival on are the banners saying so.

graflynn

I'm happy to pay for parking if it goes towards the upkeep of the town - you know paying for the people who have clean up the puke and litter from Saturday & Sunday nights.

Plus, I like to NOT have to circle 2 to 3 time for a parking spot.

Don_Corleone

maiden wrote: »

I ran an idea by friends recently, and am thinking of approaching the Ennis Chamber for help with it, basically its an idea for a weekend festival in Ennis.

the chamber these days are a joke only interested in running events that they can make money from to pay the mortgage on their shop and pay their ceo's crazy boom time level wages.
They made more out of the white collar boxing before xmas than the charity it was done to support did (clare crusaders) which i think was a disgrace.
The charity needed that money far more than the chamber did.

They do very little that actually helps business in ennis

Balagan

Carry wrote: »

The bizarre reasons (nothing reasonable in it) are the members of a council in a rural county. They are basically farmers voted in by farmers with no imagination whatsoever and nothing else in mind as to keep the status quo and get even more out of it.
Their idea of improving business in town and in the country is simply the same as in agriculture: milk every cow to death, don't ever dare to think beyond your own field (as if they could), and pour loads of shite on same just to get quick returns without thinking of the essentials and the consequences.

Just happened to listen to a local councillor (FF) whose stuttering comment on massive redundancies in a local timber processing factory was just that he wants to promote more timber processing thingies in the area, because it's locally very important, blah, blah. Knowing well that he makes a fortune to grow timber in acres of his land. Of course he wants timber processing facilities. It's his money!

Sorry, I'm royally pished off at the moment.

But yeah, that's the trouble in this country and this county: There are no people in decision-making positions with a vision and with competence.

Bit of scapegoating going on here. Not nice. This pinning blame on one sector of society, although historically very common in troubled times, is always to be avoided in a civilized society and hopefully, though battered, lied-to, conned, and blinded by the boom and now it's end, we will still hold on to being civilized.

ulinbac

Balagan wrote: »

But is there a weekend when there isn't a Festival in Ennis? There seems to be a load of PR hype around some of them and precious few extra people in town. Sometimes the only outward sign there is a Festival on are the banners saying so.

Hi Balagan,

I rarely hear of a festival in Ennis. The last one that comes to mind was at the end of the summer. Even then many people never knew it was on until the day it started and by then its too late. If there is there needs to be broadcasting on the likes of today fm/2fm and Spin SW etc. Also, Ennis is so easy to access with the motorway to Limerick and almost to Galway. Think the councillors need the sack. Remember the rubbish in Ballyalla, nothing was done until a petition was started on FB.

Something similar to Galway may work, they spend weeks promoting the festivals they run throughout the summer. Even if they were out at attracting jobs, the amount of free industrial park units is beyond believe, it would bring in temporary employment at least!!!

Balagan

I exaggerated the amount of Festivals it seems although I thought there were a lot more than on this website!

http://www.visitennis.ie/contents/?PG=festivals.html

maiden

Well the weekend im thinking of is a singles weekend! Yeah, yeah ye can laugh now!

Seriously if Lisdoon can do it for a month, why cant we do it for a weekend? A trendier version of the lisdoon one. They 25 to 55 age group.

Many people dont like to go to pubs cause all they meet are people way too drunk etc so have different events on during the day like:

bowling, horse riding, golf, ceili in cois na habhna, Ennis has loads of things they could do! You can sign up for you want and opt out of others!

And of course at night we can have events in the pubs and restaurants, where a single can happily meet other (drunken) singles!

Make Ennis the singles capital of Ireland or another idea, go after the pink pound!!

maiden

''They made more out of the white collar boxing before xmas than the charity it was done to support did (clare crusaders) which i think was a disgrace.
The charity needed that money far more than the chamber did.''

Is this true?? Seriously they made more money than the charity??? This cant be common knowledge, this is wrong on sooooo many levels, surely this has to be investigated!!!!

CptSternn

I was looking ta joining the chamber last year when I was trying to start up a business here. The problem I had was first off they charge €250 a year to be a member. You can pay €1250 a year and they will give you some promotion and a few benefits, but who has that kind of money to throw around?

The bigger issue I had was the chamber is basically a group of cronies which run everything for themselves. They have one guy who does graphic design, one printers, one web designer, etc. If you have a business that falls along the lines of a service they already have a member which they provide in Ennis, expect your business to fall second to the one already there. It doesn't matter what your prices are or if you are a member, all the business from the chamber and other members, and all adverts and promotion go to the select few who have been in town the longest.

Even if you pay the €1250 you won't be able to break through or get any real benefit from being a member. I spoke with two current members who are experiencing this right now. It's an old boys club and new members often get sidelined.

ulinbac

Really like Maidens idea of a singles weekend or week and make Ennis the main spot for it. If arranged properly it would get people from al over the country! So many people are sick of only meeting people when pissed.

It would be a mad version of speed dating. Also, would book out hotels, B&B's, people would buy clothes and restaurants would be jammed. Don't know about the ceili bit though . Maybe an adventure day in the burren like rock climbing would be another thing. Anyone else got any ideas about it?

A way to promote it would be through internet dating sites aswell as tv and radio. Guessing ti would be something similar to what Galway do for the gay pride weekend.

Clareman

Personally I think Ennis has all the ingredients to be 1 of the top big small towns in Ireland. I think I've voiced my thoughts for what to do with the town a few times (pedestrianise Abbey/O'Connell St., Market to move to Moran's car park, buskers at different spots, closed buildings to have marketing materials in the windows), but I'd also like to make use of a number of the advantages we have.

Some of the things I'd do would be
There's a natural amphitheatre in the Abbey St. car park, have a stage (back of lorry) setup and have different arts each week, play 1 week, trad music, rock music, opera, poetry.
Glór is disgracefully underused, why not have it as the non-pub venue of choice in the town?
Ennis was the Information Age Town, have multi-media displays around the town, all they would have to be would be 40" TVs with a powerpoint presentation running, although I would like to see a big screen where the o2 ad is in the square at the moment.
Cusack Park is in the centre of town, have GAA "festivals" rather than just the odd game, I'm really looking forward to going to see the match tomorrow followed by going watch the rugby in a bar.
The Fairgreen/Lees Road are 2 fantastic sports facilities, why not use these to promote something?
Ennis is an ISLAND, have something to promote water sports/events, I'm thinking seeing that a Clareman (not me ) invented the submarine why not have something to promote this?
Some of the best fishing in the world is in Clare, why not have a competition/event based on this?
With all the hotels around, good roads now, train station along with the airport just down the road why not turn Ennis into the Conference Centre of Ireland?

maiden

I have soooo many single friends in their 20s, 30, and 40s. I think Ennis has the potential to be the 'Singles Capital of Ireland' Sure what harm could it do!
Organised properly is could be HUGE!!

maiden

Is there any committee, business etc involved in promoting Ennis without thinking of lining their own pockets??

Who are the 'Visit Ennis' people??

Balagan

www.visitennis.ie is a production of Promote Ennis, a local community initiative that is a partnership between Ennis Chamber, Ennis Town Council and Shannon Development. Promote Ennis is developing a strategic marketing initiative to boost visitor numbers to the town. It has also recently produced a superb printed guide to the town. Copies of the guide can be ordered from info@visitennis.ie

Over 70 local buisinesses are currently partners of Promote Ennis

dr.fuzzenstein

Clareman wrote: »

Personally I think Ennis has all the ingredients to be 1 of the top big small towns in Ireland. I think I've voiced my thoughts for what to do with the town a few times (pedestrianise Abbey/O'Connell St., Market to move to Moran's car park, buskers at different spots, closed buildings to have marketing materials in the windows), but I'd also like to make use of a number of the advantages we have. ?

Some good ideas and actually a lot of them have been around for as long as 10 years or longer.
What might surprise a lot of people to hear is that the most viciously and vehemently opposed party to exactly those ideas are the existing traders, some of which have been fighting the pedestrianisation of Ennis since I came here first (1993), they are dead set against the idea and have fought against it with everything they have.
Yes the council are inept and charge silly, stupid money for "services" that they supposedly provide, but remember that some of the traders are even more "rural minded" and conservative than the council members.
Ennis is a small rural town that has been run by the same farmers and cronies for the last 30 years and will continue to be run by them and their offspring.
I don't foresee any radical change in the foreseeable future (or ever).
There is no shortage of great ideas and plans, but change will come slowly and only in small pieces.

CptSternn

Balagan wrote: »

www.visitennis.ie is a production of Promote Ennis, a local community initiative that is a partnership between Ennis Chamber, Ennis Town Council and Shannon Development. Promote Ennis is developing a strategic marketing initiative to boost visitor numbers to the town. It has also recently produced a superb printed guide to the town. Copies of the guide can be ordered from info@visitennis.ie

Over 70 local buisinesses are currently partners of Promote Ennis

The printed guide is nice, but the website is horrendous. It looks about five years behind the times, the organisation looks like it was slapped together piece-meal, and has the worst layout I have seen in a while. No social media linking, no video or interactive content, it's droll at best.

Combine that with the fact the content is well dated - many businesses listed are closed or have changed details. If anything it gives a bad impression to anyone who visits the site, especially if you live here and can see all the improper business info sure.

CptSternn

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Some good ideas and actually a lot of them have been around for as long as 10 years or longer.
What might surprise a lot of people to hear is that the most viciously and vehemently opposed party to exactly those ideas are the existing traders, some of which have been fighting the pedestrianisation of Ennis since I came here first (1993), they are dead set against the idea and have fought against it with everything they have.
Yes the council are inept and charge silly, stupid money for "services" that they supposedly provide, but remember that some of the traders are even more "rural minded" and conservative than the council members.
Ennis is a small rural town that has been run by the same farmers and cronies for the last 30 years and will continue to be run by them and their offspring.
I don't foresee any radical change in the foreseeable future (or ever).
There is no shortage of great ideas and plans, but change will come slowly and only in small pieces.

+1

Couldn't have said it better. It's ironic actually, that the businesses that need to be saved fight so hard to keep any real change from happening, change that would more than likely save their business.

I think the list Clareman posted is brilliant. I'm surprised the council has never even tried any of those things, with the exception of the pedestrianisation.

Palmach

Balagan wrote: »

Bit of scapegoating going on here. Not nice. This pinning blame on one sector of society, although historically very common in troubled times, is always to be avoided in a civilized society and hopefully, though battered, lied-to, conned, and blinded by the boom and now it's end, we will still hold on to being civilized.

Try your pomposity on business people tearing their hair out to keep their head above water. The vitriol directed at the powers that be is well deserved.

Clareman wrote: »

Personally I think Ennis has all the ingredients to be 1 of the top big small towns in Ireland. I think I've voiced my thoughts for what to do with the town a few times (pedestrianise Abbey/O'Connell St., Market to move to Moran's car park, buskers at different spots, closed buildings to have marketing materials in the windows), but I'd also like to make use of a number of the advantages we have.

I think it is a good list but first and foremost are the two Rs , rent and rates. get them down and business can breathe again.

Rita Mc Inerney

Hi All,

As CEO of Ennis Chamber I would be very interested in helping anyone in anyway we can with an idea for a weekend event in Ennis. Please feel free to contact me on rmcinerney@ennischamber.ie

We currently assist Ennis Fleadh Nua, Ennis Street Festival, Ennis Book Festival and Ennis Trad with their promotion as well as conferences and events that come to Ennis. We also organise the Ennis Fashion Festival each year as well as managing the Visit Ennis website which is part of Promote Ennis - a partnership with Ennis Town Council and Shannon Development.

Ennis Chamber constantly strives to promote Ennis on behalf of the town and our members. In this regard we raise issues, conduct briefings and provide submissions to various government agencies and authorities such as Ennis Town Council.

In addition we offer a range of services to our business members - check out www.ennischamber.ie for details. We also sponsor a Community Employment Scheme which provides participants to assist groups like Caring for Carers, Carers Ireland, the Clare Volunteer Centre, Seeking Vision, Eire Og GAA and Shannon Chamber. We are a non-profit organisation supported by our members and our events - we receive no funding from any other source.

The Clare Conquest White Collar Boxing Event in November 2010 was a joint venture we initiated with the Clare Crusaders. Both organisations shared the workload and the profits evenly. I would again like to thank all of the boxers who trained so hard and fundraised, the Ennis Boxing Club and the other trainers, the businesses who sponsored on the night, and all of those who attended. It was a great success and went a long way to supporting both organisations equally. Clare Crusaders and ourselves are looking forward to another successsful event Clare Conquest in 2011.

Ennis Chamber is always eagar to work with individuals and groups to assist our great town and county.

And for the record, I earn a little more the average industrial wage and work more than the average working week!

Regards, Rita Mc Inerney

Balagan

Palmach wrote: »

Try your pomposity on business people tearing their hair out to keep their head above water. The vitriol directed at the powers that be is well deserved.



I think it is a good list but first and foremost are the two Rs , rent and rates. get them down and business can breathe again.

The vitriol I reacted against was that which was directed at all farmers. It was out of line.

Beruthiel

Rita Mc Inerney wrote: »

As CEO of Ennis Chamber

Hi Rita, welcome to Boards.ie

Could you please drop an e-mail to darragh@boards.ie or dav@boards.ie to verify that you are who you say you are?
IE, that someone hasn't just decided to use your name for their own agenda.

Thanks,
Beruthiel

Palmach

<snip>

Palmach

Balagan wrote: »

The vitriol I reacted against was that which was directed at all farmers. It was out of line.

Ok fair enough.

Clareman

Palmach,

Comments like that directed at other members are not welcome here.