Paul successfully defends his Irish Universities' Title. · PDF filePaul successfully defends his Irish Universities' Title. ... team of four ambitious 4th year marketing ... no...

Paul successfully defends his Irish Universities' Title.

Save Your Energy DkIT Engineering School & Engineers Ireland will host a meeting on Wednes-day night next 25th. February at DkIT. Experts from Siemens Ireland will show how electronic control and energy moni-toring using a Building Energy Manage-ment System can effect real and sus-tained economies in commercial and large properties.

This presentation by Jean Malone and Tony Kelleher will include a real life case study using the Siemens Ltd. Dublin Headquarters with the main focus on its energy saving potential.

Date; Tonight, Wednesday Feb-ruary 25th

Time: 7:00 pm for Talk com-mencing 7:30pm. Everyone Welcome. Contact;John Quinn Secretary North East Region Engineers Ireland

Daniel [email protected]

Issue 19. February 23 rd 2009

Early Perspectives – Christy McAreavey Remembers: Christy kindly agreed to recall his time in the college. When we met up, he was then helping two lads for their phase four exams, he feels that he still has to prepare for the tuition, and does it on a no fee, no gift basis! After officially retiring in September 1990, he took some time off. The housing boom spawned the summer courses in 1990 when the old fashioned system with four periods was still operating. In 1996, the part time teaching came on stream it was a blessing, his last cheque from the college of about €16 came fortnight before his eightieth birthday three years ago.

His father came from near Ballynahinch Co Down who married a Dundalk lady, Cecilia Watters. Cecilia was a sister of the broth-ers, Patrick and John Watters whose monuments are near the Windmill Bar on Quay Street. The family lived where the Windmill Bar now is. Prior to working in the RTC sector, Christy spent some years with the ESB in Dundalk. The ESB gave a great training; the disadvantage afterwards, was that the work was relatively easy com-pared to the specialised training. Training took place in Kevin St. A fur-ther maths course came up in Bolton St, one Paddy Gallagher was a brilliant maths teacher, after seeing Paddy working out various problems Christy remarked “sure I should have known that myself”.

The job came up in Dundalk in September 1970. Having been in Water-ford since the previous Christmas, the move to Dundalk was easier. The job was to be coming up and once in the system it was easier for the CEO, all the details would have already been checked. The job was purely electrical service to the four years of apprentices. In the first and third year they did house exams, in second year the Department junior exams and in the final year, the senior exams. The senior trades sylla-bus was close to City & Guilds “Course C” exam. At the time there was 12/13 weeks per period, it took awhile for the section to grow, initially it was just senior apprentices and then once the first and second years were in place they came back for the final two years. The teaching was very enjoyable. The Post Office technicians did a stan-dard electricity and lab course.

The Head of Electrical Apprentices was Peter McDonnell (R.I.P.) (who died in 2001); he had worked in the Old Louth Hospital and in the Technical School in Chapel Street before moving to the college. John Minogue (R.I.P.) and Pat Malone worked with the fitters and Pat Herr in Carpentry. Christy’s wife Hazel Hughes (R.I.P.), and Hazel’s sister, Winifred was married to John Minogue and another RTC connection; their brother Jimmy Hughes worked part-time with the fitters. Tony Rice came later from the ESB. There was a grade difference for apprentice lecturers in the early days but those issues got resolved through the Union. Those that joined the section later included Peter Hartigan, Gerry Woods Gerry Grey, Nigel Clinton, Eimear Rice, Eimear McGrath and Ciaran Carraher.

Peter (Pete) McDonnell managed the courses, “he handed me a timetable and that was fine by me”. The Christmas parties were great; there was one common room. Christy admits that he “really enjoyed the college”. He taught twenty-four hours at one stage. One of the bright sparks in those early days was one Gerry Woods. It has remained a source of debate whether Christy set an exam question on Kirchoff’s law involving four variables but one Frank Carney was on hand at the mathematics end.

Apprentices were taught by Mairead Ni Choiseog from liberal studies. Charlie Reeves of Rawson’s boot factory came in for a number of hours each week for about three years. He gave the apprentices some business skills, how to handle finance and to prudently organise loans and what to do to keep on a level footing. Later on one or two students came back to recall how Char-lie’s ideas saved them a lot of time and money. Compiled by Seamus Bellew, Historical Editor.

[email protected]

Inspiring New Videos From Stanford 27/01/2009

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program has bolstered the resources available on its e-corner website with addi-tions to its range of videos. The series 'Get Creative, Get Inspired' presents experienced Silicon Valley commentators and entrepreneurs speak-ing about some of the ingredients for success in innovation and technology. Divided into bite-sized portions of 1-5 minutes each, they give perspectives from entrepreneurial thought leaders. The featured speakers include: Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO the top California design consultancy, who advocates young innovators developing the right state of mind; Anna Patterson, founder of search engine Cuil, who talks about motivating unpaid volunteers in the early stages of a start-up; Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla, on putting green technologies to the 'Chindia' test - ensuring they're cheaper than the status quo in those countries; and serial entrepreneur Steve Blank on rethinking the product design process. All the videos are available from Stanford University's e-corner website. http://ecorner.stanford.edu/index.html

The Postgrad Ireland Fair which took place in the RDS on Wednesday the 20th of February

The Newstalk Student Enterprise Finals in Sligo.

Submitted By Emma Brabazon

The weekend of the 8th of February saw a

team of four ambitious 4th year marketing

students collectively called Ad Lib Consul-

tancy, embark on a long road trip to the

semi finals of the Newstalk student enter-

prise competition in Sligo IT with only a

dream of a trip to the Caribbean and a

strategic management text book under

each arm. Having made it through the tough regional finals we had been looking forward to our

semi final competition weekend ever since. The format of the competition was that we were

“locked” in a room with a case study for three hours, no internet, mobile phones or any other ac-

cess to the outside world, not even a carrier pigeon in sight. In the semi-final round we were

really unsure as to what the judges were really looking for so we decided to stick to what we

knew and took a really creative blue ocean strategy based approach to solving the company’s

growth issues. At this stage our approach really paid off, the judges said that we really blew them

away in terms of both content and presentation skills and style. After we presented we were qui-

etly confident but as we waited for the others to present we could not help but be nervous. At this

stage we were competing in a group which was ourselves, IT Tralee, Dun Laoghaire IADT and

Athlone IT. After what felt like a life time the judges returned and announced that we had won

this stage. We were ecstatic, exhausted but delighted. The final was the following day so another

early morning followed, same format but a different result. We came a close second but still man-

aged to steal a quick photograph with both Denis O’Brien and Sean Moncrieff. We were ex-

tremely proud of both ourselves and our college for all their support. As I speak on behalf of both

myself and my team I can say that it was one of the greatest if not the best experience of all out

academic careers and are truly upset at the thought that we cannot try again next year. I would

highly recommend taking part in this and other student enterprise competitions to all students’

particularly first and second years as we would really love a second run at this competition. We

really genuinely loved every minute of the competition and I can also say that we have never

learned so much so quickly. At this stage I would really like to thank all those who helped us get

as far as we did in the competition including our mentor Colin Cooney, strategy expert Maeve

McArdle, presentation guru Paula Reilly, master of Blue Ocean Strategy John Sisk, Mary Larkin,

Ronan Lynch and of course Cathal Kearney.

Major Educating for Entrepreneurship Conference held at Dublin Castle

A major conference took place on Tuesday 17th February in the Dublin Castle Conference Centre on the theme Educating for Entrepreneurship. The con-ference was organised by HETAC (The Higher Edu-cation and Training Awards Council) in partnership with the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire and Dundalk Institute of Technology through the Regional Development Centre. Attended by over 150 delegates, the conference explored how to encourage and facilitate entrepreneurship in higher education and was addressed by a number of keynote speakers to include:

Dr Tony Mendes –Executive Director, Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership, University of Illinois, USA who has developed a broad range of pro-grammes and initiatives at third level to have entre-preneurship recognised as a mainstream field of study. The University of Illinois is recognised as one of the top universities in the USA for entrepreneur-ship education. Dr Thomas Cooney, Research Fellow, DIT has researched, presented, and published widely on the topic of entrepreneurship. He is also a mentor and consultant to a number of Irish SMEs. Dr Steven Collins – Entrepreneur and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, TCD. Co-founder of the Irish gaming technology company Havok, bought by Intel in 2007 for $110 million. TCD recently announced that Sony, Toshiba and IBM will fund a new research centre headed by Dr Collins into the Cell Broadband Engine, one of the most powerful processors in the world. The morning session was chaired by Eoin O’Driscoll, Chairman Forfas.

The conference also heard from a number of frontline educators who provided details of case studies to include Professor Pauric McGowan, Director of Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship (NICENT) and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Business Development at the Uni-versity of Ulster. The conference focussed on the issues and inputs required to build entrepreneurial ingenuity, innovation and risk-tolerance into students across all disciplines in higher education and training programmes.

The conference: Explored innovative approaches from industry and academic perspectives towards developing entrepreneurship in higher education in Ireland and abroad, Discussed successful models of best practice highlighting the cultural and other challenges in championing and embedding entrepreneurship in different disciplines within higher education .Provided a platform for key stakeholders to network and ac-cess local, regional and national educational providers across Ireland to maximise the opportunities for national participation

The Dundalk IT-Led collaborative Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) programme Accelerating Campus Entrepreneurship (ACE) which aims to create the entrepreneurial graduate outlined its initial findings from major research conducted over the past six months to include:Preliminary findings on its extensive survey of the Entrepreneurship education among 22 HEIs in Ireland ,The views of 296 first year students in the part-ner institutions on starting a business, The enterprise education and skills required by industry as outlined by over 30 enterprises , The results from 44 postgraduate interviews on the opportunities in the Third Level for commercialisation of research.

The (ACE) Initiative is a joint collaboration of Institute of Technology Blanchardstown, Cork Institute of Technology, Sligo Institute of Technol-ogy and National University of Ireland Galway and is being led by Dundalk Institute of Technology. The project aims to provide innovative ap-proaches to entrepreneurship education to ensure students from non-business programmes take enterprise related modules with the student gaining experience of what it is like to run and operate real businesses and in this way promoting self-employment as a real, attractive and viable career option.

The project addresses this by embedding entrepreneurial education in non-business disciplines through a four-targeted approach as follows:

Targeted Action 1: Pedagogies, Teaching and Curriculum Development.

Targeted Action 2: Cross-Faculty Multi-disciplinary approach.

Targeted Action 3: Embedding Technology Entrepreneurship into Engineering Education, leveraging of non-curriculum activities from incubation/technology transfer offices.

Targeted Action 4: Educational Organisation and Culture Change towards the development of more Entre- and Intra-preneurial approaches.

As outlined by Irene McCausland, Manager Regional Development Centre: “ the process of embedding entrepreneurship requires a fundamen-tal organisational and cultural change complemented by the use of new cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary pedagogical methodologies. This process requires a re-orientation of traditional models and the development of the new staff skills and competencies. The active involve-ment of industry and entrepreneurs will assist in embedding these innovative approaches”.

The afternoon session of the conference was chaired by Paula Fitzsimons, national co-ordinator for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for Ireland. Minister for Education and Science Batt O’Keefe also addressed the conference.

DkIT Ladies Soccer reach League final DkIT women’s soccer team qualified for the league final after defeating Maynooth 2-1 in the semi-finals which took place in Dundalk last Wednesday. This was the 4 th year in succession that DkIT and Maynooth met at the semi-final stages of the league. DkIT lost the previous 3.

The game started well for DkIT with some good play from Emma Singleton and Ashling Kerr to set up a chance for Amy McCarthy to shoot but the Maynooth goalkeeper saved well. Maynooth eventually settled down and came more into the game and some nice passing resulted in a great opportunity for them to score but the Maynooth forward blasted the ball wide. DkIT were struggling to match Maynooth in midfield. Both teams de-fended very well for the remainder of the first half, shots from either team were few a far

between and the score at half time was 0-0.

DkIT made a couple of substitutions at half time with the intention of attacking Maynooth from the very start of the second half. This tactic didn’t seem like a good idea when after only 3min of the half Maynooth took the lead. Maynooth quickly attacked the DkIT defence and a mix up between the 2 defenders saw the ball roll to the Maynooth forward and her shot went over the goalkeepers head into the net, 1-0 Maynooth. Soon after conceding the goal DkIT almost fell 2 behind when another Maynooth attack brought a good save from Una Pear-son. Those opening moments were soon forgotten when in the 51 st minute the referee awarded DkIT a free-kick on the edge of the Maynooth penalty area. DkIT de-fender Francesca Fernandes took the free-kick and the ball flew into the top corner giving the goalkeeper no chance, a wonderful goal to level the game 1-1. DkIT controlled the game for the next 25min and could have scored on a number of occasions, Niamh Reid the closest with a powerful shot that went over the bar. Maynooth to their credit tried very hard and on the odd counter attack caused DkIT some concern. DkIT, with some of the players who played in last year’s semi-final, sensed victory and in the 70 th minute got their reward. Ashling Kerr passed the ball to Mary Beth Wynne and she hit a shot even the unbeatable Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin Van De Sar wouldn’t have got, 2-1 DkIT.

Such was the determination of DkIT in this game it is testament to the Maynooth defending that the score finished 2-1. The girls now face Sallynoggin in the final on March 4 and on this display they have every chance of lifting the winner’s trophy.

Photos; Top to Bottom.

1. DkiT attack Maynooth goal.

2. 2.Mary Beth Wynne in action on the pitch

3. Half time team talk.

Equestrian Inter varsities 2009 By Orla Carey (Team Captain)

The Equestrian Club Intervarsity' finals took place from the 6th to the 8th of February 2009 in Broad Meadows Equestrian Centre in Ashbourne Co. Meath. Hosted by Trinity College . accommodation was arranged in the nearby Marriot Hotel. The hotel was beautiful with a four star rating and all mod cons. We arrived at the hotel on Friday evening and the hotel was already buzzing with students checking in and moving through the hotel. The lobby was full and there was some familiar faces from the tetrathalon, which is the warm up for the inter varsities. The atmosphere was electric and is was clear we had a good weekend ahead. A captains meeting was called and the rules and regulations and plans for the weekend were laid out. On Friday night there was a fancy dress arranged for the students, the theme was “anything but clothes” there was some very creative and amusing costumes such as fig leaves and balloons! On the Saturday morning we were up early to begin the day of show jumping and dressage. A shuttle bus had been arranged to take students safely to and from the equestrian centre. DkIT had no entrants for

the dressage and had only one individual show jumper Iris Brazil, who unfor-tunately didn't make it into the second round but performed very well. En-tertainment for that evening was a race night followed by a disco, which again was a big hit with the students, you could tell be the sore heads at the breakfast tables the next morning. Sunday morning was the day for the Prix Caprilli. DkIT had a team of three Sarah Duff, Orla Carey and Alice Minto and one individual competitor Re-becka Brennan. We woke to a country covered in a sheet of snow and even though the arena was indoor, it was decided by the organising committee that it was too dangerous to transport students by shuttle bus on the icy roads and so the competitions for that day were cancelled, much to the dis-appointment of all the DkIT competitors as a lot of training had gone into this competition. After a Captain’s meeting, it was decided by a show of hands that the awards should still be awarded and it would be given to the team who per-formed the best in the show jumping . There was a black tie ball later that

evening and the award went to Trinity college. The meal was followed by a disco. The DkIT Equestrian Club would like to take this opportunity to thank Horseware for their sponsorship of Horseware jackets for the team and we would also like to thank Mr Richard Macken and his team in Print Express, Dundalk Shopping Centre, Dublin Road, Dundalk. For the excellent job they did on printing our logo on the jackets and the very generous discount he gave us.

David enters Green Party’s Viral Video Competition.

3rd year Creative Media student, David McConnon has entered a viral video competition on an environmental theme. The Green Party called on student and emerging filmmakers and anima-tors to harness their creativity and take part in a competition to create vivid viral spots to promote the green message.

David would appreciate if students, staff and alumni would view his video as the more views it gets, the better it does. His video is titled Time to Change and carries the following messages. Time is short - global warming, pollution, waste. Time to change with energy efficiency,

sustainability and WILL power. Will power is a renewable energy.

Written and animated by David Mc Connon. Music: Royalty-free music purchased from www.premiumbeat.com (1): Maze of Life by Djridü and (2): Nowhere Land by Nationalfred. Video producer: David Mc Connon

The 70-second video can be viewed at:

http://tinyurl.com/bojurt

Special Needs Five-a-Side Soccer Tournament hosted

by DKIT Students

Submitted by Andy Kelly.

On Wednesday 25th February 2009, 3rd year students from the Community Sports Leadership programme at Dundalk Institute of Technology will host a special needs Five-a-Side soccer tournament in the JJB Soccer Dome, Dundalk. This event is the product of a Sports Development Initiative project where students were tasked with putting forward a proposal to organise and run a sports development event.

The event will bring together 16 teams consisting of 112 competitors from various special needs centres in the Louth, Cavan, Monaghan, Meath and Dublin regions. The tournament will begin at 11am and finish at 2pm. During this time, each team will be given the opportunity to play 6 games with the possibility of progressing to the finals, to play 2 further games. After the final, a presentation will be held, where the winners will receive a trophy to mark their achievement, along with a Republic of Ireland jersey signed by members of the current international squad.

Mr. Packie Bonner, former Irish international goalkeeper and current Technical Director of the FAI will be present to welcome the teams to the competition and sound the initial whistle to commence the tournament. Also attending the event will be members of newly promoted League of Ireland side Dundalk FC, along with Mr. Mick Neville Regional Development Officer for the FAI in the Louth Region.

Meeting with Irish students; Intercultural Communications in Action

Written By Hu Na (Anny) On 2nd and 9th February, 2009, our class met students

from the Intercultural Communications Course Year 2 in

S243 on both occasions. We were divided into groups

and I was with a group of 5 Irish people. They were

Lynne, Ciara, Eimear, James and Stephanie, a Polish stu-

dent named Johnny, and Vicky and Yolanda，other stu-

dents from my class. Because of the different cultures,

our task was to introduce ourselves to these students and

try to learn from them about their culture. And also give them some information about our culture. I felt

very relaxed communicating with my Irish peers. During our hour-long meeting on both occasions, we

talked about the education, the Spring Festival, part-time job, their family lives and a special topic: the

modern family and the single mother. There are many differences between China and Ireland which inter-

ested me a lot.

Education

They told me that children in Ireland start to

study in primary school when they are only 4-

years-old. It is different in China, where chil-

dren start at 6 years old. Another major differ-

ence in the education system is the length of

the school day in high school. Chinese high-

school students spend nearly 15 hours per day in their school from 7am to 10 pm. But Irish students only

spend 6 or 7 hours per day. Instead of doing a lot of homework, they can spend much time developing their

interests. This surprised me.

Festival cultures Furthermore, we exchanged information about Festivals with our Irish friends. For exam-

ple, we told the Irish students about a traditional custom; grandparents put money in red paper bags and

give them to their children as gifts for the Spring Festival to wish their children good luck in the next year.

Part-time jobs As for the part-time job, many Irish parents’ idea surprised me. I got the impression that

parents want their children to have a part-time job. Actually, money is not the most important thing. They

think their children should learn to make money by themselves to be able to afford to spend money on par-

ties or drink after their 18th birthday. Their parents hold the view that the children will never know how to

manage their money unless they realize how difficult it is to make money. So, many Irish students have

their part-time jobs. In my opinion, it is such a good and meaningful idea that each parents should have as

well as the children. Continued on next page.

Parents’ view in China

However, in China, parents seldom let their children have a part-time job that until they have graduated

from college because they think it is a waste of time. But with time going on, their minds are changing

gradually. They are beginning to realize that it is

very useful and even necessary. At least my par-

ents agree with finding a part-time job because

they think I should learn to live independently.

Daily life

We wanted to find out something about Irish fam-

ily life. We learned that just like the Chinese fam-

ily, there is a generation gap in Irish families but

it is not serious. Irish parents give their children

enough space and freedom. We also discussed their daily food. Potato plays an important role in Irish peo-

ple’s dinner. As for fish, I didn’t know why I couldn’t buy some fresh fish in Ireland until today’s meeting.

They told me Irish people especially young people don’t like fish and they also seldom have some seafood

even though Ireland is surrounded by sea and is a rich source of fish.

Modern family and single mother

During our discussion, we talked about the modern family and single mother.

What surprised most me was many Irish people experience premarital sex. Some of the girls who are preg-

nant may go abroad to have abortion, as abortion in Ireland is still illegal while others have to give birth to

the baby and bring them up by themselves. Things are same in China as well as other countries. Times are

changing, attitudes are changing. People are becoming more and more open. But no matter how much we

have changed, we still should respond to ourselves and the children. In our group we agreed it was not a

positive change; but one which can also have a negative effect on the society.

Conclusion

Although our meeting lasted one hour from 12 till one o’clock, I still felt time flew quickly. I welcome the

opportunity to meet and talk with Irish students. In my opinion, it is a good opportunity to practice and en-

hance my English skills because we had to communicate through English. At the same time, we can also

help each other to learn about another country, it may help us to adapt to the life here more quickly. We

had a meeting in last semester, compared with that one, this session was more useful because I am more

familiar with Ireland and nearly every student studying in Foundation course can feel their progress in Eng-

lish. I do love this experience. We are looking forward to the next meeting!

I would like to thank the Irish students in Intercultural Communications and their lecturer,

Mairead McKiernan.

*The Gravy Train Riders*

The gravy train is in the station now,

It's engine's turning over, ready to run.

The riders are gathering with eagerness.

They're expecting to have lots of fun.

It's not at their expense they ride this train.

For others will have to foot the bill.

They see this for them as a given,

Riding the gravy train's their ultimate thrill.

Feasting on the finest food and drink.

They gorge themselves to the very last.

While others have to tighten belts,

They have no wish to abstain or fast.

But this train is going nowhere now,

The wheels have come right off.

The fine food and drinks are all gone,

There's absolutely nothing left to scoff.

The guard is in the carriage now,

And he is checking for their tickets.

While outside the station, those laid off,

Are protesting in line with pickets.

But what will happen to the train's riders?

Will their past catch up with them now?

Or will they get away with it again?

And end up smelling of sweet roses somehow?

But what will happen to the train's riders?

Will their past catch up with them now?

Or will they get away with it again?

And end up smelling of sweet roses somehow?

But the masses know what they have done,

There's lots of disquiet and civil unrest.

Can our leaders get some control of this?

As now they must face their biggest test.

We must be very wary of these riders now,

And keep these gravy trains from our tracks.

If our leaders cannot take the proper steps,

Should we lay the lash across their backs?

For too long now we've been taken for fools,

By those in whom we've placed our trust.

We should learn from our colonial friends,

And put the needs of our families first.

Never again should a gravy train ride,

Nor freeloaders be allowed to flourish.

A civilized nation is the one where,

Truth and trust and values are nourished.

Pairic Duffy 13 Feb 2009

If anyone was interested in putting music to these words contact [email protected]

Last Issue’s Caption Competition.Last Issue’s Caption Competition.

...and so, our two disappointed gentleman realised a game of headers 'n' vollies would have to be post-poned... until they could find an actual football. Aidan Shields This is one wheel NCPS won't be able to clamp Fra. Liam Murphy Listen Fra; You are going to have to stop singing 3 wheels on my wagon. Ok?

Pairic Duffy

And this week...... Send in your photos for the captions page to [email protected]

And you should have seen where the clamper landed! Eileen Murphy