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EDITOR: ANGELA SHORT

ASSISTANT ED: MARGARET CLARKE

HISTORICAL ED: SEAMUS BELLEW

Four more retirees honoured at the end of term

Two weeks later on 10 December, another cake and four more retirees from Engineering, Eugene said a few brief words that were not as brief as he had intended! He outlined the difficulty in keeping track of who was retiring who was still deciding … He wanted to wish the four retirees all the best and to thank them for their service. On the electronic front he thanked both Terry McNamee and Larry Staudt for their contributions. They both came to DKIT and then left and came back again and now this is their second leaving!

Larry in the past nine years has been associated with the pioneering innovation of the wind turbine on campus. He now leaves to work at the Bahá’í World Centre, the spiritual and administrative heart of the Bahá’í community, which is located in the twin cities of ‘Akká and Haifa in Israel. It comprises the Shrines of Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, other holy sites of the Bahá'í Faith in the area, and the buildings on the slope of Mt.

Carmel. The DKIT community wish him and his family well. Terry will be missed as he was a key player in the level seven DREAM degree now in its sixth year. In recent years he underwent a transformation for charity under the careful skills of local stylist Gerard Hoey.

Eugene went on to thank the retirees from the mechanical area with whom he worked closely. John Hanratty was always very energetic in his work and Eugene recalled John’s joke on his first day about the difference between a hedgehog and a BMW! John will also be fondly remembered for his evening class on restoration. Finally Eugene also thanked Michael Wright for all his work down through the years. In the last decade Michael went back to study and obtained a Ph.D. He was also one of the CAD people in recent years. Luminaries such as Michael Mullin and Johnny Gallagher were also present.

The Newstalk 106-108fm Student Enterprise Competition is designed to foster a spirit of enterprise in students attending Ireland's Institutes of Technology and the National College of Ireland. The competition uses a case study format, allowing participating teams to analyse real-life companies, giving students the opportunity to learn about real-life business challenges and solutions.

Since its launch in September 2006 the competition has generated huge interest amongst both students and lecturers in Institutes of Technology. Over 330 teams from the 16 participating colleges entered the competition last year. Last year’s winning team was from Tipperary Institute of Technology. As a result, the 2009/2010 Semi-Final and National Final will be held at their campus in early 2010. The overall prize for the winning team at national final level and its Team Coach is a trip to mobile telecommunications operator Digicel Group's offices in the Caribbean.

Having made it through the first round of the competition the top four teams competed in the local final held last Thursday the 9th of December for a place in the national semi finals. Our local finalists were from a variety of faculties including business studies and engineering. Having made it through the first round of the competition the top four teams competed in the local final held last Thursday for a place in the national semi finals. The teams competing for a place were:

- Desmond Eiffe, Timmy Flemming, Niall Mac Cabe and Hassan Raji- Domhnáll Lennon, Ciaran Lennon, Paddy McEntegart, Geroid Harvey- Edward Walshe, Claire Lynch, Ashling Dunne, Emilie Mooney- Ruben Illera, Olivia Keenan, Alice Lee, Stephen Ormiston

Newstalk Student Enterprise Local Final 2010

The case study at that local final stage was based on the Java Republic organisation. Each team prepared an in depth analysis of the case study and presented their findings to our three judges on the day who were David Coggans, a lecturer from the business school, Karl Mernagh, also a lecturer from the business school and entrepreneur, Dr. Cecilia Hegarty, research and program manager with the ACE project and finally Sean MacEntee of the Regional Development Centre. The eventual winners of the competition were Timmy Flemming, Niall Mac Cabe and Hassan Raji, captained by Desmond Eiffe.

The team will now progress to the national semi final of the competition to be held in Tipperary Institute on February 6th. The team displayed not only business analytical skills and dynamic presentation skills but strong team work, as well as understanding and appreciation for real life commercial situations.

We here at student enterprise would like to wish the team every success at the national level of the competition and look forward to supporting the team when they represent DKIT at this level.

DkIT's Choir and Chamber Orchestra presented a concert of wonderful music and Christmas favorites in the beautiful setting of the Redemptorist Church last Thursday night. It was a poignant night for many of the final year students as they took part in their last Christmas concert with their tutors and friends but it was also an evening of celebration not only of Christmas time but also of the wonderfully talented students and staff in DkIT's music Department.

Well we’ve had the big freeze, the big thaw and now the big fair well. Yep that’s right, semester 1 has come and gone. We are now heading into exams and when we come out the other side; we won’t have the show to help us celebrate. But sure it’s grand, we’ll be back next semester and we’ll be even better!

So this week it was just Ros and Jim Jim holding down the fort. Sadly, Iarla couldn’t make it as he has projects to be dealing with. And while he was sorely missed, we soldiered on. We had a laidback show for you this week to help you unwind and help take your mind off of study. Some light discussion and plenty of quality music to keep you going.

The big topic of the week is of course the X Factor. Now that it’s finally finished we can move on with our lives, although I am still finding it tough that everyone’s favourite, and a God amongst men didn’t win. That’s right; Wagner’s departure from the show has cut me deep. But even more controversial than the Brazilian beauty was Matt’s winning single. That’s right, it would seem that his single “We Collide” has upset Biffy Clyro fans in that they feel the band sold out to Simon Cowell. Matt’s single is of course a cover of “Many of Horror” although we can’t see why they changed the name.

Moving on from that we played you Coldplay’s new Christmas single to help get you in the mood for when the exams finish, although we have no doubt that we will be seeing a few Santa hats popping up in the exam centres over this week and next!

As the weather has been so shocking for the last while, we haven’t been on the airwaves as much, so this week we got around to giving you the rundown of the Budget 2011. For more information check your webmail or contact the Students Union, James Clarke sent out an email explaining how you will be affected in the budget. The big issues are of course the Reg Fee and the grants. All grants will be cut by 4% effective immediately; this also applies to 2nd and 3rd instalments of the grant for this academic year. As always if you have any questions, contact the lads down in the SU during the exams and they will give you any advice or help you need.

Now can we just take this moment to apologise to everyone who listened to this week’s show. We realise that one element of the show may have upset or offended some of our listeners. For this, we offer our most sincere apologies. We are of course referring to Mariah Carey’s cover of Auld Lang Syne. It was truly horrific. Once again, we’re sorry.

Well, that’s it folks. We’ve had some good times and some great times, but that’s it for another semester here at DkITalk.

And yes, that also means no more awesome blog posts either. Upsetting, I know, but don’t worry; we will most certainly be back in semester 2. In the meantime you can contact us via our Facebook and let us know how we can improve and what you’d like from the show when we return. We’d also like to thank everyone who has been involved in the show this semester, Iarla, Ros, Jim Jim, Maeve, Siobhan, Cat, Alan, Suzi and all of our musical guests.See you next semester!!

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