The Annual DkIT Sports and S o c i e t i e s A w a r d s f o r 2009/2010 took place in the Park Hotel Dundalk on Thursday 25th March 2010, w i t h B r o a d c a s t e r , Ad venturer , Lecturer , Motivational consultant and World Record holder Ian McKeever, being the main guest speaker. The event which was organised by DkIT S p o r t s a n d S o c i e t i e s Office, and sponsored by AIB and Sevens Coaches, saw over 250 guests attend the Black Tie event, which acknowledged and recognised students, staff and individuals for their involvement and con-tribution to student-based sports and societies in DkIT.

More photos and winners inside Volleyball Society

Most Improved Sports Club - GAA Club Committee Members along with Sportsperson of the Year—Marie Greenan

Greenan named DkIT Sports Person of the Year, while Madigan and Carroll were named Society Persons of the Year

DkIT Sports and Societies Officer, Diarmuid Cahill was the host for the evening and he opened the evenings proceedings by welcoming everyone. He spoke about enthusiasm, commitment and sheer hard work by all DkIT’s Sports and Societies committee members over the past year and that the night was about acknowl-edging their hard work. He stated that enthusiasm is often neglected as a force. Yet without it there would be few achievements. He then went on to welcome DkIT’s Table Tennis Club – winners for the third year in a row of the Intermediate All Ireland Championships, DkIT Student Paul Fitzpatrick – Irish Universities Indoor 2km Champion, DkIT Women’s Senior Fencing Team – winners of the Sabre Varsity Championships and DkIT Senior Hurling Team – win-ners of All Ireland League title and Championship run-ners up.

DkIT President Mr Denis Cummins then said a few words and thanked all in attendance for being involved in student activities in DkIT and for the buzz they cre-ated around campus. Fr Emlyn was then called upon for grace.

After the meal had finished there was a short video presentation by the DkIT Fit 4 Life Society and DkIT Media Society on the Sober and Crazy Project they h a d b e e n r u n n i n g d u r i n g t h e second semester where four students Sean Doherty, Killian Farrelly, Niamh Kelly and Sarah McManus went alcohol free for a period of over four weeks (including Rag week and St Patrick’s Day), where they had to take part in various fitness regimes and fitness tests, where they had to be breatha-lysed every morning and where they were followed by a TV crew throughout the four weeks.

Mrs Linda Murphy, DkIT Academic Administration and Student Affairs Manager then carried out presentations of framed photos to the various All Ireland winning teams. The next speaker was Ian McKeever – the main speaker for the evening.

Diarmuid introduced Ian as “someone who led by example, and among his many achievements he holds the world record for the 5 peaks of Britain & Ireland set in 2004, he created the world’s largest mural, made up of 1.6 million coins – all to mark the Euro changeover in 2001. In 2005 he staged the world’s longest unbroken DJ performance, lasting 78 hours in Dublin and in 2007 he also set a new world record when he climbed each of the highest mountains on the seven continents in a record time of 155 days, and that in 2009, despite never having rowed before in his life, he attempted to break the oldest record at sea by trying to row across the North Atlantic in less than 55 days. A record that was set in 1896 by two Norwegians.

Ian’s speech was both enthralling and riveting as he spoke about how he carried out the 'Seven Summits Challenge' in a new world record time of 155 days which was compounded by the remarkable fact that he had never been to altitude prior to the challenge and survived coming off Mount Everest completely blind for five days! How he had to contend with snow blindness on the descent of Mount Everest, being robbed in Moscow, suffering frostbite on Mount Elberus and narrowly avoiding tribal warfare in the jungles of Indonesia. How his tremendous resilience and determination knocked an incredible 32 days off the existing record of Daniel Griffiths, which had stood previously at 187 days. Ian then went on to talk about how he guided his 10 year old godson Sean to the highest point in Africa in 2008 and how this led to him writing a book called Give me Heroes which celebrates the lives and touching stories of 15 very humble, very ordinary, yet very different Irish heroes.

Above: Ros Madigan Media Society and Fidelma Carroll Mature Students Society,

winners of Best Individual within a society

After Ian had spoken the various awards were presented to recognise and award the achievement of certain individuals and clubs.

SOCIETY AWARDS WINNERS Best Media Production by a Society: Chinese Student Society Best Event: Fit 4 Life Society – Sober and Crazy Best New or Improved Society: DJ Society Best Overall Society: Media Society Best Individual within a Society: Ros Madigan (Media Society) and Fidelma Carroll (Mature Student Society) SPORTS AWARDS WINNERS Best Administrator within a Sports Club: Blaine Healy (Men’s Rugby) Best New Sports Club: Surf Club Most Improved Sports Club: GAA Club Coach of the Year: Shane D’Arcy (Hurling) Sports Club of the Year: Kenpo Club Sportsperson of the Year: Marie Greenan (Camogie Club) On the night some small individual awards were also presented by to individuals for running of the clubs and achievement within that club.

Individual Activity Awards Winners 2009/2010 Archery Club Guo Xingsheng Christian Union Society Amie Boyd DJ Society Keith Brady DJ Society Chris McGrath Equestrian Club Rebecca Brennan Fencing Club Emma Foy Fencing Club Brian Nordon Fit 4 Life Society Sandra Gaffney Fit 4 Life Society Amy Fitzpatrick Fresher's Gaelic Football Damien Wheelan GAA Club Marie Greenan GAA Club Ronan Lynch GAA Club Sean Doherty Hip Hop Society Gabriela Marsella Irish Dancing Society Shi Hui Irish Dancing Society Di Zhu Irish Dancing Society Ying Zha Irish Dancing Society Santhosh Wilson Kenpo Karate Club Patrick Phillips Kenpo Karate Club Diarmuid Moloney Ladies Gaelic Football Siobhan Jordan Ladies Rugby Club Keri Doyle Mature Students Society Fidelma Carroll Mature Students Society Andrew Mc Keon Media Society Ros Madigan and Iarla O’Neill Media Society Men's Gaelic Football Cathal Kearney Men's Gaelic Football & Fit 4 Life Society Daniel Luby

Men's Rugby Club Blaine Healy Men's Soccer Club Johnny McGailey Photography Society Tim Wang Pool Club Fearghal Cotter Pool Club Shane Smith Salsa Society Luke Bermingham Surf Club Peter Carroll Society of Young Surveyors Helen Hughes Table Tennis Club Nagendra KC Traditional Music Society Niamh Quigley Volleyball Club Sunil Kumar Irish Colleges Table Tennis All Ireland League Winners Nagandra KC (Captain), Marc Lambert, Darren Mc Mahon and Oliver Adamson (Coach) Irish Universities Indoor 2km Champion 2010 Paul Fitzpatrick Women’s Fencing Team 2010 - Women’s Sabre Varsity Champions Emma Foy (Captain), Carrie McEneaney, Alex Lolies, Gillian McGrath and Marcos Simpson (Coach) 2010 Div 3 Hurling League Winners & Fergal Maher Cup Runners Up Michael Walsh (Captain), Philip Mc Govern, Cian Dunne, Peter Durnin, Darren O’Hanrahan, John Shiels, Daithi Watters, Noel Kirby, James Connolly, Eoin Marsh, Derek Horan, Padraig Kelly, Padraig Keogh, John Lawlor, Edward Kirby, Sean Doherty, David Deane, Johnny Brady, Darren Brennan, John Kelleher, Adrian Wallace, Danny Maguire, Mark Wallace, Gavin Kerrigan, Malcolm Doyle, Kenneth Boyd, Christopher Smyth, Chris Gallagher, Michael Doherty, Vincent Walsh, Niall Cleary and Shane Darcy (Manager)

Ian McKeever, Diarmuid Cahill and Denis Cummins at the DkIT Clubs and Societies Awards

Niamh Quigley of DkIT’s Traditional Music Society winner of the , Individual Activ-ity Award. Niamh is pictured with Denis Cummins and Ian McKeever

Winning DkIT Table Tennis Team Darren Mc Mahon, Marc Lambert, and Nagandra KC with Coach Oliver Adamson

Best event by a Society - Fit for Life Society ‘Sober and Crazy’ event. Pictured with President Denis Cummins

The DkIT Fencing Club

DkIT Badminton Club

Guest Speaker Ian McKeever and DkIT President Denis Cummins with DkIT’s Break Dancing Society

Photography Society

Salsa Club

Some Interesting Statistics About the DkIT Website

According to http://www.alexa.com/ (a traffic monitoring website, owned by Amazon) DkIT is the most visited 3rd-level Institute in the Irish Republic, apart from DIT and the universities. We're well ahead of CIT, LIT, WIT, GMIT. Traffic Ranking in Irish Republic: UCD: 101 DCU: 141 TCD: 187 UCC: 191 UCG: 247 DIT: 295 NUIM: 302 DkIT: 1,115 IADT: 1,307 ITSligo: 1,647 ITWaterford: 2,716 GMIT: 3,258 ITCork: 3,468 ITLimerick: 3,556 ITAthlone: 4,054 ITCarlow: 4,326 ITLetterkenny: 5,795 ITBlanchardstown: 10,116 ITTralee: 15,965 ITTallaght: no data 37% of DkIT's traffic is directed towards Moodle, with 24% going to Webmail. 75.5% of traffic for DkIT was from the Irish Republic, and 4.3% was from the UK. 0.00047% of global internet users accessed DkIT's website in the past 3 months. Our website ranks 276,942nd in the world! Thank you to Philip McGuiness, lecturer in the Department of Computing and Maths for submitting

the article to DkItimes.

Student Union Elections 2010

James Clarke

David Branagan

Election Results

David Branagan and James Clarke were returned as Vice-President and President respectively.

David is a third year Event Management student from Skerries while James is a second year BAAF

student from Dundalk.

There was a record turnout of more than 2100 for both elections.

Levelling the playing field in Students’ Union Elections? The recent Students Union Elections at DkIT were one of the most visible examples of democracy at work or were they? During the days leading up to polling day, I attended the hustings and listened to the candi-dates set out their stall in the Whitaker Theatre and also as they individually made their way around the lec-ture theatres. During the hustings, one candidate for President expressed the view that lack of funds should not disbar any candidate from running for election but he stated that the level of sponsorship received by some candidates from local bars and nightclubs meant that those that perhaps didn’t have the connections had much less chance of being seen, never mind heard. Rumours abounded that some candidates had €10,000 to spend with stories of €4,000 euro bungee jumps having to be abandoned due to weather! One candidate who was speaking to students during a lecture emphasised he/she had not signed any contracts with nightclubs in advance of elections and if he/she should be elected, he/she would therefore be in a position to make independent decisions about entertainment in consultation with students. This he/she claimed was not the case for all candidates. The debate regarding corporate donations to political parties continues worldwide but appears to have been missing from the DkiT Students’ Union Elections. Perhaps it is time to draw up clear policies based on fairness and transparency in electioneering for these paid positions, in what is a very depressed employment market. Below is text taken from the IADT website outlining the rules of the election and documenting the strict guidelines regarding the use of posters and flyers and amounts of money that can be spent while electioneering. Noteworthy also is a clause that emphasises that candidates cannot make unrealistic promises to the electorate. If you are interested in how Cambridge conducts it Students’ Union elections, you can check it out at this link. http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/elections/ All food for thought I think. Editor. The opinions expressed here are those of the Editor and do not reflect the views of Dundalk Institute of Technology. Replies can be sent to editor@dkit.ie

IADT Rules of Election.

Written by Anna Wallace Wednesday, 24 February 2010 Accessed online on March 31st. Rules of the election. By running for this position, candidates and their supporters agree to follow the election rules stated here. 1. Maintaining a Fair Environment · Candidates and their supporters must not create an intimidating or uncomfortable environment for other candidates, or students. Candidates and members of their campaign team (if they have one) are also re-sponsible for fair conduct for the duration of the campaign. Any incidents that go against these rules have to be reported to the SU office. · You must not deface, tear down, cover up or in any other way interfere with the other candidates posters. If a candidate is caught doing any of the above, this will mean immediate disqualification. · You cannot make promises that do not have a realistic basis, e.g., you cannot promise that you will make IADT get the students a swimming pool if you do not have any plans to back this up. If the Returning Officer is in doubt about any of your claims, they can ask for a detailed run-through of how it would work. If it is seen to be a case of ‘false promise’, you will be asked to remove it from your manifesto and election mate-rial. · Candidates and their supporters may not exceed €20 for out-of-pocket spending and fair market value of donations of materials, professional services. Candidates must submit all receipts and proof of fair market value to Students Union. · Candidates can print out 40 A4 and 30 A3 sheets. It’s up to the candidates to decide their allocation of posters/manifestos. · Any candidates who cannot fully commit to fulfilling their duties for any reason as laid out in the Constitu-tion must make the student body fully aware of this, i.e., in hustings and manifesto. 2. Early Campaigning Candidates and their supporters must refrain from the following campaign activities until campaigning offi-cially begins: distributing printed or electronic campaign material to the public, advertising candidacy by chalk, poster or other method designed for public viewing, or, making speeches or statements to student organizations Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 February 2010 )

Cultural Studies Students organize an Ice Cream Day and a gig with The North

Strand Kontra Band Help Raise Funds For Aware Cultural Studies students at DKIT are running a pair of charity events in aid of AWARE. The aim of these events is to spread happiness, while collecting funds and raising awareness for the AWARE charity. The two events are: An ICE CREAM DAY is being held on the DKIT college campus on Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th April. Angelito Ice cream will be sold on campus for a subsidized price to raise funds and spread some happiness. Representatives from the charity will be present to promote awareness and there will also be some fantastic music to cheer up everyones day. The Angelito’s ice cream has been kindly donated by Martin Food Equipment Ltd., Dundalk.

THE NORTH STRAND KONTRA BAND have agreed to play a one off gig in The Spirit Store. It will be the bands long awaited debut gig for Dundalk. The gig runs from 9pm until close on Friday 16th April and features The North Strand Kontra Band PLUS very special guests Eugene O'Hanlon and Black Water Gut. All proceeds go to the AWARE charity. What better way to put a smile on people’s faces than to give them some great music! Tickets are priced at a reces-sion busting €13 each and are available from http://www.spiritstore.ie AWARE is a national voluntary organisation providing support through depression. The organisation undertakes to create a society where people with depression are understood and supported, are free from stigma, and have access to a broad range of appropriate therapies to enable them to reach their full potential.

Public Service Agreement 2010-2014

Inform yourself before casting your vote.

Public Service Agreement;2010 – 2014; Sectoral Agreements Institutes of Technology

• The completion by 31 August 2010 of all elements of the review of the academic employment contract currently in train.

• With effect from the start of the 2010/11 academic year, the provision of an additional hour per week to be available to facilitate, at the discretion of management, all educational activities in the Institutes. This usage to be informed by the outcome of the review referred to above.

• Flexible delivery of new courses specifically targeted at unemployed individuals.

• Implementation of redeployment schemes for academic, administrative, technical and support staff across the Institutes and between Institutes and the wider public service as appropriate with effect from the start of the 2010/11 academic year.

Public Service Agreement; General Agreements.

2010 – 2014 1. This Agreement will ensure that the Irish Public Service continues its contribution to the return of economic growth and economic prosperity to Ireland, while delivering excellence in service to the Irish people. This will be done by working together to build an increasingly integrated Public Service which is leaner and more effective, and focussed more on the needs of the citizen. The Parties to this Agreement recognise that to achieve this, in the context of reduced resources and numbers, the Public Service will need to be re-organised and public bodies and individual public servants will have to in-crease their flexibility and mobility to work together across sectoral, organisational and professional boundaries. 2. The Government acknowledges that public servants have made a very significant contribution to-

wards the recovery of the economy over the last 2 years with over €3 billion saved from the potential public service pay and pensions bill: The general round pay increases under the terms of the Review and Transitional Agreement due in 2009 were not paid; A general moratorium on recruitment and promotion was applied to most of the Public Service, and incentivised early retirement and career break schemes introduced; A pension related deduction of an average of nearly 7% was applied to all the earnings of all

public servants; and most recently - A reduction in rates of pay and allowances took effect on 1 January, 2010. 3. The core concern for Government is to restore the public finances and to reduce the deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014, in part by achieving sustainability in the cost of delivering public services relative to State revenues. To help achieve that goal, the Government intends to restructure and reorganise the Public Service significantly in the coming years, having regard in particular to the Government Statement on Transforming Public Services, the Government decisions already taken on rationalising State bodies and the recommendations arising from the Reports of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes. Local Government Efficiency Review Group and the National Strategy for Higher Education. This Agreement will enable public service numbers to reduce substantially over the coming years in accordance with a new Public Service numbers policy, which will facilitate a progressive reduction in staff numbers across the Public Service by end-2012 and will be implemented by Employment Control Frameworks.

4. In order to sustain the delivery of excellent public services alongside the targeted reduction in public service numbers over the coming years, the parties accept that efficiencies will need to be maximised and productivity in the use of resources greatly increased through revised work practices and other initiatives. The parties will work together to implement this Agreement to deliver an ongoing reduction in the cost of delivery of public services along with excellent services to the public.

Public Service Commitments

Reduction in Public Service numbers 5. To facilitate the necessary reduction in numbers of public servants, the moratorium on recruitment to and promotion in the public service and other employment numbers control mechanisms will continue to apply until numbers in each sector have fallen to the appropriate level specified in the Employment Control Framework for that sector. In addition, where the circumstances require it, the Government may offer voluntary mechanisms to exit the public service, whether generally or in specific sectors, bodies, locations or services. 6. The Government gives a commitment that compulsory redundancy will not apply within the public service, save where existing exit provisions apply. This commitment is subject to compliance with the terms of this Agreement and, in particular, to the agreed flexibility on redeployment being delivered. To that end, the redeployment arrangements referred to below will include opportunities for re-skilling and re-assignment as a key method to retain and secure employment in comparable roles in the public service.

Redeployment in the integrated public service 7. Flexible redeployment is necessary to sustain the commitment to job security within the public service. The parties have agreed appropriate arrangements to redeploy staff within and across each sector of the Public Service. If it is not feasible to redeploy within the sector, cross sectoral redeployment may take place, within a geographic area where possible, having regard to the arrangements agreed in respect of non-commercial State-sponsored bodies. 8. In order to help in the integration of the public service, barriers to a unified public service labour market will be dismantled, including through legislative provision as appropriate. To the greatest extent possible, there will be standardised terms and conditions of employment across the Public Service, with the focus initially within sectors. In that context, the Parties have agreed to review and revise contractual or other arrangements or practices which generate inflexibility or restrict mobility.

Reconfiguring the design and delivery of public services

9. The parties agree that public bodies and management and individual public servants will have to work more closely across sectoral, organisational and professional boundaries when designing and delivering services. The greater integration of the Public Service will not be achieved through the creation of a single organisation. Instead, the focus will be on having fewer organisations in total, working more closely together, to deliver cost effective public services. The Parties are committed to engaging at a national, sectoral and local level to achieve specified and measurable outcomes in relation to cost containment, service integration and reconfiguration as well as to engaging staff in progressing change. 10. In order to maximise productivity gains, both from how work is organised and from streamlining procedures, processes and systems to allow for shared services and e-government developments, a substantial commitment to the redesign of work processes will be necessary. The parties will co-operate with the drive to reduce costs through organisational rationalisation and restructuring and by service delivery organised in different ways or delivered by different bodies.

The aim is to minimise duplication of effort, reuse data within the public system and reduce information demands on the citizens and business. The introduction of new or improved technology, service provision online and electronic funds transfer will be regarded as the norm. Processes and service delivery will be improved by better collation and re-use of data and personal information and by centralising transaction and certain sectoral data handling support functions. Inter-operability and standardisation of specifications and systems (hardware and software) will be mandatory both to achieve cost savings and facilitate integrated approaches. More risk-based approaches in inspection and enforcement activities will be adopted, with fewer but better targeted inspections through co-operation agreements, joint inspection teams and the merger of inspectorates and higher penalties for non-compliance. 11. There will be a greater sharing of resources through the use of shared services within and across sectors. 12. The parties are committed to public service modernisation as set out in previous agreements.

Performance and Skills 13. The parties agree that, in order to ensure a high performing, high productivity Public Service, appropriately skilled personnel from outside the Public Service will be recruited to secure scarce and needed skills at all levels. Merit-based, competitive promotion policies will be the norm. There will be significantly improved performance management across all Public Service areas, with promotion and incremental progression linked in all cases to performance. Performance management systems will be introduced in all areas of the Public Service where none currently exist.

Sectoral agreements 14. The parties agree that there will be full cooperation with the arrangements made in the agreements for each sector which are appended to this document. The parties further agree to work further to develop new collaborative approaches at a local, sectoral or public service level, including cross sectoral redeployment within the parameters agreed, to deliver significant cost efficiencies while pro-tecting the quality and effectiveness of services provided to the public.

Public Service Pay Policy 15. There will be no further reductions in the pay rates of serving public servants for the lifetime of this Agreement. This commitment is subject to compliance with the terms of this Agreement. 16. The position concerning public service pay, including any outstanding adjudication findings, will be reviewed in Spring 2011 in accordance with the statutory requirement under both the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts of 2009 to review the operation, effectiveness and impact of the Acts before 30 June 2011, and every year thereafter. In addition to the criteria set out in those Acts, that review will take account of sustainable savings generated from the implementation of this Agreement and of the agreements in each sector. Those savings will be independently verified by the Implementation Body. In the event of sufficient savings being identified in the Spring 2011

review, priority will be given to public servants with pay rates of €35,000 or less in the review of pay which will be undertaken at that stage.

Public Service pensions 17. As announced in Budget 2010, the Government has decided to introduce a new single pension scheme for all new entrants to the public service. Consultations on the new scheme have started between the parties and it is agreed that these consultations will conclude in time for legislation to be enacted to allow for the introduction of the scheme on 1 January 2011. Discussions will take place on the method of determining pension increases for existing public service pensioners and current public servants in the context of the review of pay policy in Spring 2011. There will be an extension of the period by a year within which the January 2010 pay reductions will be disregarded for the purposes of calculating public service pension entitlements.

Water Is Life :Amazzi Bulamu LUNCHTIME SEMINAR

25th March 2010

As part of the lunchtime seminar series we are holding, we were delighted to welcome Dr Jean

Clarke, Dublin City University to provide a seminar titled ‘Positionality and the politics of

research: the outsider within’

A key principle of the Programme of Strategic Cooperation between Irish Aid and Higher

Education and Research Institutes 2007-2011 (Irish Aid 2006) is North-South collaboration.

Specifically, the Water is life project is a collaborative engagement between Ireland and Uganda to

build research capacity and to conduct research that supports sustainable water resource

management as a catalyst for sustainable economic and social development in rural Uganda.

Collaboration within this context is a critical social process that challenges the very position of the

researcher and how she or he engages with the other in the research site.

During her talk she told her story of engaging with her positionality as a white Irish woman

working to improve patient care in a hospital in Ethiopia. In telling her story, she was conscious

that it might be interpreted as an exercise in what Ifi Amadium (1997:13) calls ‘European-invented

Africa’ or the colonisation of the African mind and the dangers of ‘White words about Black

people.’ She explained that this was not her intention; rather it was to seek to provide the listener

with an account of the experience of how she and others, negotiated the outsider within in a project

of North-South collaboration.

References

Amadiume, Ifi (1997) Reinventing Africa: Matriarch, religion and culture. London: Zen Books.

Irish Aid (2006) Programme of Strategic Cooperation between Irish Aid and Higher Education

and Research Institutes 2007-2011. Dublin: Department of Foreign Affairs

Caption CompetitionCaption Competition

Congratulations Tom CallananCongratulations Tom Callanan

And next weeks...And next weeks...

Send your captions to editor@dkit.ieSend your captions to editor@dkit.ie

What do you mean you can’t

spot me? I’m wearing an

enormous green hat for

goodness sake!