Fellow Residents,

Firstly, let me on behalf of the committee thank you for your support in 2016 and to also say that we look forward to again working on your behalf in the year ahead. We genuinely welcome your feedback and any thoughts or ideas you have can be communicated to any of the committee members or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Maintenance

We have recently met with our gardeners, Garden ER, to agree our 2017 maintenance programme and this will kick- off, as normal, in early March with a general clean-up of planted areas and borders. First grass cut is likely to take place towards the end of March, weather permitting, and a further 19 cuts are scheduled from April to November. We also hope to complete some of the planting deferred from last year (see below).

Regrettably a number of the trees along the entrance road to the Estate have been damaged in recent weeks and one tree in particular, a young tree planted last year, was effectively snapped in two. Our belief is that someone from outside the Estate was responsible for this vandalism and we would ask you to let us know if you see anything of this nature or indeed anyone acting in a manner that you consider suspicious. We will promptly investigate and advise the Gardai, as appropriate. We would again respectfully ask, for the safety of the children in the Estate, that all animal owners clean-up after their pets.

Funding

We have succeeded in obtaining a modest but very welcome Development Grant, from Wicklow County Council, for Aughrim Hall. This follows a number of discussions/contacts during 2016. We are required to use the funds for specific development projects and have earmarked the planting/tree replacement outlined above as a key priority. We are also considering a number of other small projects and are happy to receive any thoughts you have in this regard. We will update you on the final project list in our next letter.

Given that our maintenance programme is about to start we need to begin the process of collecting contributions for the current year now. Annual fees have not been increased since 2010 and we are proposing to maintain them at this level (i.e. €180) again for 2017. For your convenience we are happy to receive this payment by monthly (€15) or quarterly installments (€45), if desired. Equally, if due to personal circumstances you are unable to meet the full contribution, we will gladly accept whatever you feel you can afford. An envelope is attached for this year’s payments and these can be dropped into number 19 or 33 or handed to any member of the Committee. We thank you in advance for your payment and look forward to meeting with you over the course of the year ahead.

By way of reminder the minutes of our AGM (held in November) together with updated Constitution are available and will be provided by email, on request.

Regards,

Seamus Cramer

Chairperson