Mercy Secondary School Excels!

Eleanor Hutchinson certainly was a big hit when she won €250 worth of school sports equipment from Excel Promotions for Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School.

The promotion, “Are you smarter than a 10 – year old?” ran on WLR fm’s “Big Breakfast Blaa” with Timmy and Karen. Eleanor was the overall winner, picking up a €50 voucher for herself and sports equipment for her daughter Alice’s school. Alice is a first year student in the school.

According to Paul Kelly, it was a fun, interactive promotion that ultimately rewarded the school. “At Excel Promotions we work with schools every day of the week in providing uniforms and sports equipment. So, we wanted to reward a school and ultimately ensure that the students benefit directly.”

Mr. Eugene Broderick, Principal of Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School said that he was delighted to accept the sports equipment on behalf of the school as it provides a varied range of sports for all students.

He added “Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School has a proud tradition of sport and is renowned as the home of the Wildcats Basketball team. However we also have a wide curriculum of sports including aerobics, badminton, soccer, touch rugby and volleyball. The sports equipment will certainly find a good home here!”

Although established in 1999, Excel Promotions has been supplying schools equipment including quality Irish made uniforms to local schools since 2008. Some of the schools include St. Saviours NS, Gael Scoil na Deise, St. Pauls Community College and St. John of Gods NS.

For further information about the Excel range check out www.excelpromotions.ie or visit their showrooms at Six Cross Roads Business Park.

Solas Centre celebrates first anniversary with Kid’s Big Day Out!

The Solas Centre, the South East’s cancer support service, recently celebrated its first year at its state of the art facility in Ardkeen.

This year the celebrations focused on the children with the Solas Centre’s Kids Big Day taking place in Pirates Adventure Centre in Tramore.

It was a great family day out where over 50 kids where treated to hours of high energy games, bouncy slides, crazy golf, mini bowling, party food and the Beat Fleet were on hand, providing face-painting and balloons.

According to Iain Munro, SECF Chairman, the day was a great success. “At the Solas Centre we meet people of all ages every day. Cancer affects not just the person diagnosed but also has a big impact on the whole family. At the Solas Centre we provide counselling and art physiotherapy for children and their families affected by cancer”.

“The purpose of the Solas Centre Kid’s Big Day Out was to simply bring the children together, to have fun and to express themselves in that unique way that only children know how.”

Mr. Munro added, “We are indebted to John and Christine Murray in Pirates Adventure in Tramore, who provided the venue and also to the Beat Fleet who were a big hit with the children.”

Each year 2,000 people are diagnosed with cancer across Waterford, Wexford, Tipperary, Carlow and Kilkenny. Since opening its doors on February 28^th 2011, the Solas Centre has provided support services, such as counselling, relaxation therapies and group support services to over 500 people affected by cancer and anticipates that the numbers visiting the Centre in 2012 will continue to increase.

The philosophy of the Solas Centre is manifold; to provide cancer patients and their families with a safe place to talk things over and to help them cope with living with cancer. It also will work closely with the hospitals of the region in promoting and supporting patient-focused, cutting-edge cancer research and continues not only to educate people about cancer prevention, but also to change our mindset around cancer.

For more information about the cancer support services at the Solas Centre call 051 304604, visit www.solascentre.ie or check out the Facebook page Solas Centre – South Eastern Cancer Foundation.

12 year old ‘Game Boy’ teams up with Apple

Jordan Casey, a 12 year old boy from Waterford, is now the youngest person in Europe to have developed an app for sale on the App Store.

The app, Alien Ball vs. Humans is described by Apple executives as a version of the classic ‘Space Invaders’ and is the first step on the ladder for this talented young developer.

Since the age of 9 Jordan has been putting content on the web. His most successful project to date was ''The Club Penguin Cheats Team'' which he started in December 2009. When he closed it down it had a staggering 45,000 hits and gave Jordan a taste of the potential of the web. He then started developing music for iTunes, videos of which made him one of the most subscribed in Ireland. But Jordan was soon drawn back to the gaming industry and created Casey Games.

At 12 Jordan began coding small platform games playable on the internet. He called these games: "Alien Ball". He continued to learn more about coding and created ‘Alien Ball vs. Humans’.

Jordan received an abundance of support in school. His teacher, Ms. Alyward – 6^th Class St. Declan’s NS - in particular encouraged him to pursue this project. She is particularly proud of his achievement and allowed to demonstrate the game in class.

At first Jordan’s parents, Clyde and Louise, did not recognise the talent they had under their roof, “We are very proud of Jordan considering he taught himself how to code and write the programmes and worked hard on this app to get it published.”

Jordan is now working on getting as many people as possible to buy the app. He is concentrating on promoting the game and selling as many apps as possible. Jordan plans to give 10% of the proceeds from the sales to the SOLAS Centre. “I wanted to give something to charity and I think this cancer charity is really important” says the young developer.

The next project for Casey Games is to develop the Alien Ball character and move him into different scenarios such as racing. He also wants to develop an android app so the game can be downloaded on all smart phones.

One thing if for sure, this young developer has great potential.

Waterford Rotary Club joins world wide record Swimarathon

Rotary Global Swimarathon, in association with Waterford Rotary Club and Rotary International, takes place at Splashworld in Tramore, Co. Waterford on Saturday 25th February from 12.00pm to 1.00pm.

The Swim distance is100m (4 lengths) per person. The record is attempting to get the most number of people swimming 100m at various locations at the exact same time around the world. The world record is 2335 swimmers. With over 95 venues around the world taking part Waterford Rotary Club hopes to beat it by a lot!

Visit the event website at www.rotaryglobalswimarathon.org

Entry to the event is only €5 and money raised will go to the world elimination of polio fund, to which Rotary Clubs around the world have already contributed over €800 million and have eliminated polio from all but four countries in the world. We hope to have over 200 swimmers take part. To register, give your name in to Nolke Opticians Tramore, Splashworld reception or register on the Waterford Rotary Club Facebook page Swimarathon event.

IMPORTANT – THIS IS A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD EVENT. RULES ARE VERY STRICT! Please be there for 11.30am! You will need to be signed in and ready to go for 12.00 noon. Swimmers will be signed in and out of the pool. Photographs and video will be present to provide proof of event taking place.

Rotary has 98 clubs in 21 countries represented, 39 in Europe, 17 in Oceania, 16 in Asia, 14 in Americas, and 12 in Africa - a truly remarkable global event!

HCS Business Solutions addresses local businesses on the Cloud!

HCS Business Solutions, in association with Waterford Chamber of Commerce, recently hosted a free cloud computing seminar which highlighted the way forward for local businesses.

The seminar aimed at business owners and managers was entitled “The practical applications of the Cloud - is your business ready?”

Neil Phelan, Director of HCS Business Solutions explained that although there are many explanations of cloud computing, in essence cloud computing refers to leveraging from the internet, the storing of business data and the running of business systems and applications from data centres as opposed to traditional on site servers.

The seminar also highlighted the many obstacles or failure points associated with using on-premise servers as opposed to cloud computing. According to Mr. Phelan the way forward is inevitably the implementation of cloud based services. “Small businesses are becoming more and more dependent on technology. However there are still many obstacles or failure points in the way of being truly connected. Particularly in today’s tough trading climate anything that negatively impacts on productivity and leads to downtime is a real concern for any business.”

He also emphasised the cost saving implications of cloud services for small businesses.

The lunchtime seminar was well attended by local business owners and managers and due to the demand for places HCS Business Solutions intends to run the seminar in the future.

For further information about HCS Business Solutions or for a free cloud computing assessment survey visit www.hcs.ie or call 051 595200.

Home Instead Senior Care reveals some matters of the heart!

Love is in the air this Valentine’s Day amongst the young and the “not so young”. Cupid’s Arrow is destined to set millions of hearts a - fluttering! However, not in all cases is a heart flutter such a good thing.

According to the Irish Heart Foundation, approximately 10,000 people die each year from cardiovascular disease (CVD) - including coronary heart disease, stroke and other circulatory diseases.

CVD is the most common cause of death in Ireland, accounting for 36% of all deaths. The largest number of these deaths relate to coronary heart disease - mainly heart attack - at 5,000.

Home Instead Senior Care is urging people of all ages to be “heart – aware” this Valentine’s Day and to become more alert to the risk factors which influence and increase their chances of getting heart disease.

According to Danette Connolly, Director of Care at Home Instead Senior Care Waterford, our hearts are amazing, but we don’t always recognise it. "The heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times. That’s a staggering amount of work for such a small muscle.”

“Yet often we fail to look after our hearts and the consequences can be fatal. By smoking, being overweight, not exercising, having high cholesterol or high blood pressure, we put our hearts at risk.”

Ms. Connolly advised that small changes to our lifestyle can have a beneficial effect on our heart health.

Stopping smoking greatly reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Reducing high blood cholesterol is crucial in reducing heart attacks. Some steps to help lower cholesterol include eating more fruit and vegetables and less fatty foods.

Try to maintain a healthy weight. People who are overweight or obese for a long time tend to develop heart disease and / or diabetes. By losing small amounts of weight sensibly, the chances of heart disease decrease and can lead to improved health.

Another important step in keeping your heart strong is to be more active every day.

Ms. Connolly added, “The older we get, the more at risk we are of heart disease. However making some small, gradual changes today can make a difference for a healthier and happier heart.”

To find out more about looking after your heart call Danette Connolly of Home Instead Senior Care on 051 333966 or visit www.homeinstead.ie