President’s Welcome

Dear Alumni and friends,

I’m David Rafferty, President of Joeys Alumni. Our primary function is to provide a facility for Alumni to interface with each other and the Primary and Secondary schools and promote that relationship in a positive manner. We have been doing this principally by facilitating the Annual Reunion Dinner (last Friday in February), an Annual Golf event and, pre-Covid, held our first business networking breakfast.

Following a professionally enabled review of our activities in 2022, inclusion and engagement are two main themes that we will focus on during the year ahead. 

As a past pupil of St. Joseph’s CBS Primary or Secondary, Fairview (whether or not you completed Leaving Cert.), you are automatically a member of Joeys Alumni - at no charge. Welcome to the family! There is nothing extra you have to do in order to take advantage of all privileges, programmes, and events.

We are a network of over 5,000 living past pupils (of whom we are in contact with approx. 50%), providing opportunities to network, attend events and access articles, blogs and memorabilia on our new Joeys Alumni website and social media sites.

Our earliest records for past pupils meetings go back to the 1940s. These early days were followed with the setting up of Joey’s Past Pupils’ Union (PPU) in 1956, which was re-named as Joeys Alumni in 2017.

Check our alumni website, follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn, and update your email address to make sure you are receiving special alumni communications and invitations to these events.

As President of the Joeys Alumni Board, I do hope that you stay connected to St. Joseph’s. Every year, the Joeys Alumni Board plans activities and programs to support both alumni and current students in multiple ways. The Joeys Alumni Reunion Annual Dinner, featuring St. Joseph’s Hall of Fame, Community Service & Leadership and Education & Leadership Awards, happens every year. Student & Scholarship Awards pre-Covid were made on the night of the Annual Dinner but these events are now held in the school. Other popular events are our Annual Fundraiser Golf Classic, and starting in 2019, our Annual Business Networking Breakfast. We participate in career guidance events in co-operation with teaching staff and are working with the school to organise a school Open Day for past pupils. With the exception of our 2021 Golf Classic, such events could not take place in 2020 & 21 because of Covid19.
In 2022, we engaged UCD Smurfit Business School to undertake a review of our activities, as a result of which we are now re-focussing on how best to support networking between past pupils.

Between 2017 and 2021, we concentrated on an agreed program to enhance our support of the school and its past pupils through projects including a new central database, running fundraisers and working with industry, 2 other schools and Government Departments / Agencies to tailor IBM’s P-Tech Programme to the Irish 2nd level curriculum. This programme was successfully launched by the state in November 2018 and, under the leadership of Aidan Giblin (past pupil 1975 and past Principal), was developed in the school since that time to align it with the Irish education system. P-TECH went live for 1st and 2nd Years for the 2019/20 academic year. For more on P-Tech click here.

For 2019-2020, the Joeys Alumni Board (for both Primary & Secondary schools) adopted a new Strategic Plan, with particular emphasis on strengthening our school network communications, improving funding from private and public sources and student recruitment. For 2 years between 2019 and 2021 we succeeded in raising €100,000 annually to fund student laptop computers, participation in an inter-school competition (Cuchulainn Challenge) and delivery of various communications initiatives for the school. In 2020/21 these funds were targeted at refurbishing outbuildings for everyday school use, production of architect's plans for submission of grant applications for building works, delivery of a sensory garden for special needs students and communications projects (i.e. improved social media, fliers and videos). We also actively worked with school management on a strategic plan for both schools and continue to advocate for funding equality with state schools for inner city voluntary DEIS schools, like Joeys.  

On behalf of the members of the Joeys Alumni Board, I encourage and welcome your involvement in the activities and programs of our Alumni Association. Feel free to contact me or any of the board members listed below for more information on how you can become more involved in your alma mater. We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming Joeys Alumni event.

I am proud to report that many alumni, including board members, have contributed their expertise, time and other resources towards realising our plans over the years. I would like to thank all concerned personally for this support and look forward to further social and practical engagement in 2021/22.

Looking forward to representing all alumni one more year.

Sincerely, 

David Rafferty (Class of 1966)
President Joeys Alumni

ppu@stjosephsfairview.ie

To view more videos on our Youtube Channel, please click here.

For info re preparation for annual trip to Zamda Project, click Zamda.

Joeys Alumni Board 2021/22:

Dave Rafferty (1966 & President), 087 9178829, ppu@stjosephsfairview.ie

James Rogan (1982 & Hon. Treasurer), 0879234368, jamesrogan@beaumont.ie

Brendan McGrath (1966 & Strategy & Planning), 0862528258, bmc88drd@gmail.com

Conor O'Reilly (2016 & IT)
Sean Stack (Secondary School Principal), info@stjosephsfairview.ie
Kevin Gillen (Primary School Principal), kevin@stjosephscbs.ie

Fergus O'Riordan (1991 & Hon. Secretary, info@joeysalumni.com)
Ciara Dowling (Teacher)

Ciara McDonnell (Teacher)

Dave McGuinness (2008 & Community Liaison Officer, Primary & Secondary)

Paddy Walsh (1968 & Joeys Trust)

Alan Costello (1966) 

Bernard Daly (1966)

John O'Loughlin (1994 & Improved Network Planning & Delivery) 

Context – The School & its Community:

Over the past decade, a much higher proportion of Joeys students than in earlier years hails from the Annesley Bridge to city centre community. As in the past, Joeys is keeping relevant to the needs of its current community and pupils. In common with other urban schools, Joeys comes within the Department of Education’s social inclusion strategy for Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) to help children and young people who are at risk of or who are experiencing educational disadvantage. This helps overcome some but not all barriers to equal education opportunities through additional funding, smaller class sizes, etc.

Joeys Alumni – how we operate:

the Committee:

The committee, in collaboration with school management, is concentrating on 2 key priorities:

• Assisting the school to maximise its role in the community it serves, now and for the foreseeable future.

• Engaging in the best way possible with Joey’s past pupils and friends to maximise mutually beneficial networking possibilities and keep you all up to date with developments

1. Networking: 1st event is tonight’s Annual School Reunion dinner. We are also planning at least one more networking event and would welcome assistance in making this happen.

2. Strategic Direction of the school – Hi-tech companies have a growing skills gap for people with some technical training or post-second- ary education, but not necessarily a four-year degree. This calls for more alignment between industry needs, the school curriculum and student de- mand for more real-world learning. We have started working with industry, 3rd level and 2 neighbouring schools to develop and implement a course complementary to Leaving Cert. The model we are working on is based on the U.S. based P-Tech program. It is about enabling students become both career and college-ready. The objective is to put students in the driver seat, giving them skills that position them to choose. Do they want to go on and get that four-year degree or embark on a skills-based job (and possibly take the degree later)?

An Irish adapted version of P-Tech, which is an accreditation based “associate degree”, is a way to help solve both the corporate skills gap issue and provide a wider choice of either skilled employment or a path to third level. We will keep everyone posted on this new initiative, which is still at a very early stage of development.

3. Fundraising:

1. The following are our immediate needs:
• Building: Current balance €85,000. Need an additional €100,000 to complete new Construction / Technology Studies Room. Building work will commence in 2018 for completion in 2019.

New Construction / Technology Studies Room
• Evening Tuition: To provide students with after-hours tuition in preparation for Leaving Cert. Need €10,000 per annum to support students for whom such additional studies would be otherwise unaf- fordable for their parents.

• College Scholarship: To provide scholarships in the form of financial grants for students who are accepted into 3rd level and for whom this would be a great financial burden for their parents. We are working with teachers and school management to plan for and budget for this initiative for the next 5 years.

• Alumni Administration: The foundations for a well-supported committee and team are there but there is a long way to go. To develop and maintain the database, website, revenue stream and communi- cation channels, requires a “webmaster” type role. We have engaged with one of our recent 3rd level past pupils to deal with a database backlog. Our new “Alumni & Friends” website has been delivered and is constantly being improved. This leaves an ongoing need to contract suitable skilled person/s for website / database / communications and to provide professional management assistance. This will require an estimated €25,000 p.a.

4. Golf Classic: For the last number of years we have run a golf outing each year, which has received good support. Given the new initiatives currently in hand, we ran a Golf Classic in Clontarf Golf Club in June 2018 and 2019 in support of the above-mentioned funds. As always, corporate and individual sponsorship of this event would be most welcome. More about this will follow in the next News Bulletin.

5. PPU Annual Contribution Scheme: We will be launching this ini- tiative as soon as possible whereby past pupils and friends will be asked to make an annual contribution of €250 (or more if they can afford it) to support the very deserving projects outlined above. Multi year and Life options will also be available.