Organisers honoured for ocean festival

A TIRELESS group which organised one of the summer’s best family festivals has been honoured.

The organisers of the World Oceans Festival held in Tramore from June 10 to 12 are the latest winners of the Tower Hotel Waterford Excellence Award.

The T-Bay Surf & Wildlife Centre combined with the Irish Wildlife Trust to stage the annual celebration of Ireland’s ocean heritage, which was also supported by the Tramore branch of Waterford Chamber of Commerce and a number of local businesses.

New features in this year’s festival included international kite-surfing, talks and demonstrations on bird box building and gardening with native plants. The internationally acclaimed Whale Roadshow also visited the south-east for the first time.

Presenting the award to members of the organising team, general manager of Tower Hotel Waterford Michael Skehan said that those involved deserved great credit for putting together a programme that drew attention to Tramore’s most valuable natural resource: the ocean.

“Tramore is blessed with a brilliant seaside location and this festival is a real celebration of that asset. It also has an important function in raising awareness of how important it is to protect the fragile waters off our coast.

“A particularly appealing feature of this festival is the way it mixes education and entertainment and focuses on increasing awareness among young people of how much fun protecting wildlife and the environment can be,” Mr Skehan said. “I have no doubt that this free festival will continue to flourish in the years ahead as it celebrates the oceans and seas that account for almost three-quarters of our planet’s surface and which are particularly important to coastal communities,” he added.

The Tower Hotel Waterford Excellence Awards recognise excellence and achievement in six categories: Politics and Public Affairs; Business; Sport; Education; Arts, Culture & the Media and the Voluntary & Community sector.