Pictured in Budapest with the two prizes won at the Entente Florale awards were Mayor of Tralee Jim Finucane, Joan O’Regan, Chairman of Towards A Better Tralee Johnnie Wall, Michael Scannell of Kerry County Council and John Griffin, Tourism Officer at Kerry County Council.
NOW that Tralee secured a Gold Medal in the Entente Florale competition on Friday, thoughts are now turning to the possibility hosting the awards ceremony in two years time to coincide with the celebrations to mark 800 years since the founding of the town.
The Tralee delegation of John Griffin, Joan O’Regan, Johnnie Wall, Michael Scannell and Jim Finucane, returned from Budapest on Sunday night with the Gold Medal and the Best Community Garden prize for Tobar Naofa. A most successful trip.
Tralee was the Irish representative in the towns and cities category in the international horticultural competition established to recognise municipalities and villages in Europe for excellence in horticultural displays.
Mayor of Tralee, Jim Finucane, was delighted that the huge effort made by Tralee people paid off and wants to capitalise on this momentum.
“We need to push ahead now. Bristol are hosting the awards ceremony next year, but we hope to formally apply to bring the event to Tralee in 2016,” said the Mayor, who explained that hundreds of people from countries all over Europe would visit the town for the ceremony, bringing a huge economic and marketing boost to Tralee.
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Johnnie Wall, Chairman of Towards A Better Tralee, is also hopeful Tralee can host the ceremony.
“We’ve asked can we host it. This is a great opportunity for us now. We got a great boost; we’re an environmentally friendly town, we’re very colourful, very community-orientated, so we want the judges and delegations to come over and spend time here which would give us great publicity all over Europe. We can coincide it with the Tralee 800 celebrations. It would be a fantastic achievement if we could get it,” said Johnnie.
He also commended all involved and said he was delighted with the win.
“It was amazing, especially when you see the standard that was expected to achieve Gold. And to top it all we got Best Community Garden for Tobar Naofa which was brilliant,” said Johnnie.
Johnnie said he hopes a official celebration, to mark the contributions of all involved, will be organised in the near future.
Great coverage of the event — Thanks Dermot –continued success for TraleeToday