Craic On

Fixing the Board

It’s right at the bottom of the main square in Moville. It’s a board which has a map of the area and has several useful facts about the town. You often see visitors looking at it. Movillians obviously don’t or they would be surprised at what they would see.

Amongst the useful ‘facts’ on the board is the festival list. Although it says that there is a regatta in Moville (indeed two, one in July and one in August), and the Raft Race but with no dates for either, it also has the Sea Angling Festival. I doubt if anyone under 20 years of age could remember that.

It also has the Patsy Sweeney Open Boar Competition. No one I’ve asked even knows who Patsy Sweeney is or was. One thing for sure is that he doesn’t currently have an annual Open Boat Competition.

Advertising Revenues

I wondered what this was all about. I saw some businesses from Moville advertising on it. I asked one of them how much he pays annually and from memory it was something like €700 or €800 a year. For that they also get on 2 or 3 other boards in other towns in the area. However, the main one they want on is the one in Moville.

I also saw that it was administered by a printing company in Monaghan. I emailed them and got no reply so I called the guy up. I told him it was way out of date. I said I would send him some fresh info on the festivals and he said he would change it. That sounded great.

I knocked something up with all the festivals on it and sent it to him. That was well over a year ago and there has been no change to it since then. The only thing they seem to worry about is the advertising.

I asked Councillor Farren how a firm in Monaghan got to own a board in the centre of Moville and charged Moville businesses to advertise on it but he didn’t know. Perhaps they’ve had it so long that no one remembers that they’ve got it.

Better

It would be much better if that board was owned by some group in Moville, say the East Inishowen Business Group, and that any advertising income got from it was spent on Moville’s festivals. When you get an IDP grant you need to put up 25% of it. The income from that would help many Moville festivals and events get a grant.

If they set the price at €500 per ad annually I’m sure they would get 10 local businesses to advertise. That would be €5,000 a year funds. That would allow festivals to get a further €15,000 in grants making a pile of €20,000 in all – which could go a long, long way.

Someone needs to find out how this company got the board and what is the deal with them. If it is something that people just forgot about over time then Moville could ask them to take it away and put up another one of their own.

Different One

If it is all above-board they could put up a different tourist information board and charge local businesses to advertise on it. I’m sure that the current half-dozen would like to advertise on it and maybe a further few would like to as well.

Even if it is all above-board someone needs to say to this company that they need to update this board with current festivals and when they take place. This is right bang in the centre of town and virtually all new visitors to Moville look at it.

It’s a scandal that it has stayed the way it is for probably decades. The firm looking after it haven’t looked after it nor the interests of the town very well. It’s time the town insisted that they did or indeed replaced it with one of their own. I think the East Inishowen Business Group would be the best to do this.