Author and podcast host Georgie Crawford has teamed up with Specsavers Balbriggan to encourage budding authors to enter their nationwide short story competition.
The competition launched to help celebrate Specsavers’ sponsorship of the Junior and Senior Children’s Book of the Year categories at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2024.
As an author and a mum to two young children, Georgie is encouraging children to get involved in the competition.
“Parents and guardians, I urge you to encourage your children to dive in – you’ll be amazed by what they create. And who knows, they might just surprise themselves (and their school!) with a win,” she said.
The winner of the junior and senior category of the Specsavers short story competition will win €500 for their school library along with all the titles shortlisted in the Specsavers Irish Children’s Book of the Year categories at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2024.
Georgie’s top tips for writing a short story:
Believe in your story magic: You have stories bursting inside you, just waiting to be told! Trust your ideas, no matter how big or small, silly or serious. Let your imagination soar and don’t be afraid to explore the unknown corners of your creativity.
Write about what you love: What makes your heart sing? Is it a day at the beach, a video game adventure, a special friendship, or maybe a dream you once had? Turn your passions and real-life experiences into stories that will resonate with readers.
Fuel your imagination: Be a reading explorer! Journey through different kinds of books – funny comics, thrilling mysteries, magical fantasies. Discover what other authors do and ask, “What if?” to spark amazing story ideas of your own.
Make it exciting: Show, don’t tell! Instead of saying “The monster was scary,” describe its slimy scales, razor-sharp teeth, and bloodcurdling roar. Use all five senses to bring your story to life and don’t forget to add a problem or challenge for your character to overcome.
Writing tips: Start small – even a few sentences is a great start! Read your story aloud to yourself to see how it sounds. Don’t be afraid to ask grown-ups, teachers, or friends for feedback. And most importantly, don’t give up! Writing takes practice, but the more you write, the better you’ll become.
Most importantly, have fun! Writing should be an enjoyable adventure! Let your imagination run wild, embrace silliness and surprise, and savour the process of bringing your unique story to life.
To enter Specsavers’ competition simply create a short story, no longer than 500 words, inspired by the carnival picture.
“The carnival had come to town, a buzz of colour and noise. But there was one stall, tucked away in the corner, that was different. It was completely silent, and the sign above it read ‘See Your Dreams - One Euro Only’. I knew what to do…
Closing date for entries is Tuesday 7th January 2025. All entries should be posted to:
Specsavers Short Story Competition, c/o WHPR, 6 Ely Place, Dublin 2.
You can also pick up an entry form at your closest Specsavers store or submit online at www.specsavers.ie/irish-book-awards

Autumn brings with it the return to school and routine after-school activities and Swords Karate Club has been busy as students returned to training after the summer holidays. All classes are working hard and refreshing their karate skills with the ai of improving enough in time for Grading examinations in December.

October promises to be a busy month with visits from two Japanese Instructors. At the beginning of the month, we will host Yamaguchi Sensei 8th Dan JKS for a two-day seminar, while later in the month we will have a visit from Watanabe Sensei for an evening seminar. Both Instructors come with a high pedigree of JKS karate, and both are Instructors in the JKS Honbu Dojo in Japan. We are looking forward to their sessions immensely and will have a short report of both in our next news.

We hosted JKS National Brown & Black Belt training recently and Dermot Sensei covered kihon, kumite and kata in the technical session. Focusing on creating dynamic power with the whole body, the visitors from other JKS Clubs from around Ireland as well as Swords members worked on techniques from the grading syllabus for brown and black belts. Everyone had a great morning training and catching up with each other since Japan.

Our Club is always looking for new members (Children, Young People & Adults). Contact Dermot on 087-8073885 for details on how to join our club. You can also contact us on Facebook: JKS Swords Karate Club or on Instagram: @jks_swords_karate_club

The members of Swords Tidy Towns had a fantastic day at the National Tidy Towns Winners Awards in Abbeyleix recently. We picked up two awards the All Ireland Circular Economy Award and our 6th Silver Medal in a row. We must congratulate Abbeyleix Tidy Towns for organising what was a very enjoyable day out for everyone. A big hello to our shared table guests from Arklow Tidy Towns and Maynooth Tidy Towns.

To celebrate Climate Action Week, Seatown Road Green Team held a Swap Shop Day at Seatown Road Day Service.

This was a partnership project between Seatown Road Green Team and Circular Fashion Ireland and funded by Fingal County Council. Prosper Meath Day Service, Ashbourne, were so kind and gave a lending hand in Seatown Road Swap Shop.

Carrie Ann Moran from Circular Fashion Ireland held a workshop and spoke about the importance of initiatives like swap shops and circular fashion.

Seatown Road Green Team would like to thank and acknowledge Swords Tidy Towns, Swords Woman Shed, Fingal County Council, Best Wear Drogheda, Ashbourne Green Team, Fingal Community College, Circular Fashion Ireland and Carrie Ann Moran for their support and donations

Rush Eco Group
We were delighted to be invited by Fingal County Council as part of Rush Eco Group, to speak at a Dublin-wide Climate Action conference in the Mansion House in September. We got to share the background to setting up the group, discuss the projects which we received €59.5k funding for across the town, and learn from other like-minded people on their drive to sustainability.

Let’s Play Rush
What a fantastic day we had at the Let’s Play Rush free family fun and sports event at Tayluers Point in Rush on August 17th. Well done to all the medal winners. Thank you to Minister Joe O’Brien TD for Dublin Fingal and Cllr Robert O’Donoghue the acting mayor for presenting most of the medals and thank you to the volunteers from Rush Tidy Towns, the 38th Rush Scout Group and Rush Community Council for making the day happen. Finally thank you to Fingal County Council for providing grant funding for this event.

Calendar photos
Calling all budding photographers. You have just a few more weeks to submit your photos for our 2025 Rush Tidy Towns Calendar. We are trying to cover all aspects of Rush from the gorgeous views we have to the sports we play and everything else in between, and in all seasons. To enter your photo(s), please send all shots by e-mail only to dianaodonohue14@gmail.com. Each photographer featured in a month will be invited to a launch event and receive a free calendar. Please bear in mind that that submitted images must be of adequate resolution to print out on A4 size. Good luck and get snapping.

Children at St Catherine’s National School met with staff at Tesco in Rush to launch their collection for the Tesco Community Fund. You can help to raise funds for the school’s new PE equipment by putting your blue tokens in the middle box for St Catherine’s School. The appeal runs for twelve weeks. Thank you to Tesco for their generous support of the school”.

As the school year and the start of meetings in the new Council term are now well underway. Over the summer the Council have tendered for a consultancy team to produce the upcoming Rush Town Centre First Plan, it is hoped that the consultants can be put in place before the end of September and meetings with interested groups in the community can start soon after that.

At the Area Committee, Councillor Rob O’Donoghue spoke in regard to upcoming initiatives he hopes to work on in the coming term in Rush.

The first meeting of the Rush Sports Committee of this Council term to discuss the future sporting facilities north of St Catherines is to take place in September to get a progress report on development of the space for the clubs and community.

O’Donoghue commented, ‘the Town Centre First Plan will involve extensive public consultation asking the people of Rush, how they would like to see the town centre develop, it will be the guidelines for future development of the town, and I hope that as many people as possible will get involved once the process kicks off. I am also excited by the prospect of the provision of grass pitch facilities for the clubs in Rush as part of phase 1 of the Rush Recreational Hub.’

Rush Musical Society Singers made their International Debut last month at the Praha International Music Festival in Prague. The Rush group were among 11 groups from 7 countries to take part in the festival.
Countries represented were; Germany, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Korea, Hungary and Ireland. Many of the groups and orchestras are well established in their own countries and internationally performing music from jazz, sacred music, Mozart, Rossini to modern classics.

RMS Singers first performance at the festival was to a packed house in the main auditorium of the Municipal Library in the International Concert of Friendship on August 30th. RMS Singers sang acapella under Director Colin Sloan and were met with a fantastic reception. Following this RMS Singers were chosen to close the festival with a concert performance on August 31st.

The atmosphere was electric in the packed church of St Salvator just off the main square in Prague as RMS Singers took to the stage. RMS Singers thrilled with vocal arrangements written for the group by Director Colin Sloan. The programme included the music of Freddie Mercury, Beach Boys, Glen Hansard, Rainbow, Bonnie Tyler to the African ‘Calling of the Dawn’ - Baba Yetu by Christopher Tin sung in Swahili. The standing ovations from the audience raised the roof on St Salvator with RMS Singers being praised as the highlight performance of the festival.

From start to finish the trip was a joy for the 35 members who travelled to Prague. There was craic a plenty, the beauty and splendour of Prague, lots of song, on and off stage, beautiful food with a wonderful group of people to share it all with. This was the first but hopefully not the last International Performance by RMS Singers. RMS Singers next concert will be in St Catherine’s School, Rush on 8th November.

RMS Singers new season starts on Monday 16th September. If you want to experience the joy of singing come along to the Strand Bar, Rush Mondays at 8.30pm or Thursdays at 8pm. New Members Welcome.
Contact Details: secretary@rushmusicalsociety.com or call 086-8740713 after business hours for further information

Malahide United hosted the Coastal Cup for a range of both boys and girls age groups on the weekend of the 24th and 25th of August. It was a huge success, and two great days of football were had.

The Malahide boys U10 A team ended up winning their tournament, beating Cherry Orchard in the semi-final and then going on to beat an excellent Belvedere FC team in the final on penalties.

Lions Clubs of Ireland have recently launched a partnership with Childhood Cancer Ireland who support hundreds of families affected by childhood cancer. All funds raised will be used to ease the burden of treatment and help to provide emotional and practical support for families and survivors. Many local and internationally

well-known artists are exhibiting, all generously giving a percentage of their sales to the charity. A range of amazing paintings are on offer. Raffle tickets for €10 will be on sale during the exhibition for paintings by Alan Kenny and Jean Lowndes.

The Exhibition takes place on Sat 18th Oct and Sun 19th Oct from 12-6pm each day in the Malahide Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (K36TD90)

Free Entry. All are welcome. Further info contact: malahidelionsart@gmail.com and see ‘Malahide Lions Art’ on Facebook and www.malahidelions.com