That McDonald’s Meeting

Burger me…

hil Moyles, who, along with Basil Miller and Liz Dillon, presented the facts and figures, and options, at the November 9th 2015 meeting against McDonald’s setting up shop beside three Greystones schools, has just issued the minutes from the night…

At the end of the meeting, there was a good interactive questions and answers session, some good suggestions put forward on how we can proceed, mixed in with some frustration that we are in this position.

Top-line, the over-riding mood from those present at the meeting is that as a Community Group based on the information presented, we are not in a position to proceed forward with taking a Judicial Review primarily due to the costs involved and the challenges regarding who the plaintiff would be. Reluctantly, we have advised our legal team that we will not be proceeding ahead with taking a Judicial Review.

As advised at the meeting, Temple Carrig Secondary School are considering taking the Judicial Review and as soon as we have more information on this, we will advise.

The resolutions that we have agreed on as follows are;

1)     If Temple Carrig proceed with a Judicial Review, we will support them as a community including some fundraising activities.

2)     Raise public awareness on this issue

1. Build up public support nationally through social media, news outlets and seek endorsements from health experts.

2. Actively lobby Lidl to see if pressure / negative publicity will change their minds with respects to the land they own.

3.     Letters into Lidl Head Office – I will send one in as chair of the group.

4.     Lidl’s website have customers feedback – input has started here, encourage as many people as possible to input. –Facebook pages have information on how to do this.

iii.    Protest / Boycott at Lidl.

1. Directly contact McDonalds.

2.     Inform them of the community wide opposition to this site, planned boycott of this. Banners / placards could erected on the school fences?

3.     Active campaign within the community and esp. the three schools on planned boycotting of McDonalds due to the fact it contravenes Healthy School policies – can the schools actively follow up on this? Ballot the parents to see if they would allow their children to eat there during the school week? If this is clear NO majority……

iii.    Inform them that we are actively going to focus on drawing media attention to this and make this a National issue.

1.     Protest at McDonalds in Bray.

3)     Active, visible support on getting the No Fry Zone Amendment in the County Development Plan.

1. Submissions of support for the amendment to be sent into Wicklow County Council.

2.     Focus on getting as many schools to actively promote support for this across Wicklow through schools networks and Parents Associations to get as many submissions in as possible.

3.     Actively communicate with the councillors in Wicklow to ensure that this amendment will be approved.

iii.    Contact the various different clubs to inform and act upon – soccer clubs, GAA clubs, rugby clubs and all the others.

1.     Contact charities, experts, other councillors and councils for support

2.     Raise this at government level.

3.     Focus on making this a National Issue through the schools network & social media.

4)     Fundraising for PR and Temple Carrig if necessary.
As you all can see, some very good actions and ideas proposed above.

It is up to every single one of us to follow through on the actions above – sending in submissions, contacting Lidl, actively informing neighbours, colleagues, friends.

Those on Parents Associations or involved in sports clubs, please get people informed and aware of this.

As mentioned on the night, we need people to volunteer some time to really bring this to another level;

• We will need to set up working groups to organise and complete some of the bigger actions above.

• Provide any contacts you have in the media – one lady had a brother working in Newstalk, please get in touch.

• Provide expertise you have that can help – PR expertise…

Please get in touch if you want to be more actively involved or want to join one of the working groups. You can read more on the meeting here. There will be an article in the Bray People too.
One of our attendees has followed up on a contact that she has in RTE to do a news piece on this which will happen on tomorrow and it will be on the Six One news – a real opportunity for us now to get this national.
Thanks Alice!

Please like, share, follow us on Facebook here, here and here. Our Twitter account is here. As soon as we have a decision on Temple Carrig’s position, we will let you know.

Kind Regards,
Phil, Basil & Liz