Our Spring Plenary meeting was at Rosegreen Community Hall on a beautiful sunny evening, but the crowds still came. It is always a lovely venue there with a great community spirit. The sandwiches were delicious too!
We called the Plenary ‘Let’s Strengthen Our Voices Together!’.
To entertain us, whilst we visited the interesting and varied community stalls that were set up by PPN member groups, networked with each other and enjoyed the finger food offered, we had the talented Cahir Men’s Shed, playing their wonderful music. The 10 men then adjourned to the hall kitchen and helped to consume some of the food on offer!
The guest inputs informed us about strengthening the youth voice in the PPN (Comhairle nan Óg council members, both from Coláiste Dún Iascaigh in Cahir. seen above and their coordinator, Pauline Strappe), developing your voice around diversity creatively (One Town, One Voice) and how to ensure the community voice influences local policy making effectively (Tipperary County Council).
A coach from America, Ray Pifferer, also spoke at this well-received Plenary. He believes that to support under-represented leaders, they need, not just a mentor, but also, a coach and a sponsor, to ensure they have the resources they need, both inside and out, to develop.
The PPN 2023 workplan, along with the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the county council and the two new Secretariat reps were all unanimously ratified.
To round the evening off, we had a raffle with especially handmade local crafts as the prizes, made by Martins Punculis, a Secretariat member.
We will be emailing the presentations from the night around to the people who attended the meeting, along with an online feedback form. Please fill the form in, it is simple to do yet very valuable to us in the planning of the next Plenary meeting in November. See you there!
Please contact Ruth on 087 4567111 or email her on coordinator@ppntipperary.ie to find out more about the PPN voice and how to be part of the PPN community.