Level of volunteers in Mayo town amazes European judges

The Cathaoirleach of the Ballina Municipal District says that cities involved in the European Capital of Volunteering competition could not get their head around the number of volunteers in an area with such a small population.

The Ballina Municipal District was among the final three candidate cities shortlisted in the European Capital of Volunteering competition with the winner announced at a ceremony in the Italian city of Trento on November 29.

The Portuguese city of Maia was the eventual winner with Ballina and the Polish city of Rzeszów the two runners up.

Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Ballina Municipal District, Cllr Michael Loftus, Cathaoirleach of the municipal district, complimented all the council staff and the different voluntary groups for all the work they did in promoting the area.

He explained that the city of Maia has a population of around 200,000 and the people at the competition were amazed that the Ballina area which has a population of 22,000 could have so many volunteers.

“They could not understand the municipal area, the size of us and the amount of volunteers we have and the amount of work done by volunteers in this area.

“The fact we are involved with Mayo PPN and we are involved with the Mayo volunteer group they could not get their heads around the aspect of the amount of volunteers we had in this area of 22,000. I think we worked out that for every four people there is one volunteer which tells you the number of volunteers in this area.

“They were taken aback by it all but we were given a great reception from them and our application was so well received. The majority of the people in the other two cities were all officials while the majority involved with us were all volunteers from clubs and organisations around the area. We held our heads high and that was well accepted by the other groups that we are all volunteers doing a job to help our communities,” he said.

Declan Turnbull, Head of the Ballina Municipal District who accompanied Cllr Loftus to Trento for the competition said it was disappointing that Ballina did not win out but they were delighted to be in the top three in Europe.

He added that there were a lot of positives that came out of the judge's report and other areas where they could work on and Ballina had also made a lot of contact with towns and cities from across Europe which they could work with in the future.