The 18 vans & trucks rolled into the Club car park at 8.45am on a blustery morning on Saturday 11th January, the personnel on board anticipating a busy day ahead. It was of course the 7th year of the increasingly popular Boden Christmas Tree collection service.

In the lead up there were many thousands of texts, WhatsApp message & emails. There was also the small matter of many dozens of signs advertising our service throughout the locality. Unfortunately, after 6 years of perfect weather conditions we were prepared for a windy day, with a deterioration after noon. On Saturday we collected approximately 1,700 trees at address’s from Oldbawn across to the LUAS bridge in Dundrum, and maybe a bit beyond.

The reason the day ran so smoothly is due to the many people who assist on the day, this year we had 80 people involved. To each of you, many thanks – you exceeded expectations with your workload, good nature, humour and commitment in extremely testing conditions- this initiative would not be possible without each and every one of you.

Many thanks once again to AJ Grab Hire and driver Eugene, we could not possibly transport this volume of trees to the SDCC depot in Tymon without you.

To Damien, Pauline, Denise & Catherine – many thanks for feeding the troops!

To the Catherine, Sarah & Danielle who manned the boss’s phone on Saturday – not a sought after job but once again handled with so much enthusiasm, patience & positivity which made all of our lives so much easier.

To Cliona for the PR work to promote the service

And most importantly many thanks to the local community who are genuinely thrilled that we provide the service, and we of course are delighted to be in a position to oblige. We’ll go again next year!!

Organising committee: Kieran Rudden, Eoin Reid, James Murray, Cathal Fitzgerald, Keith McClusky, Ronan Feely, Peter Wall, George O’ Shea & Gerry White