“A bright future beckons. The onus is on us, through hard work, honesty and integrity, to reach for the stars.”
Nelson Mandela
We used this quote from Nelson Mandela two years ago to describe our plan for CCR and it continues to apply to CCR to this day.
The current Board of Management leave office next Tuesday and will have their last meeting on next Monday the 14th.
The Board was constituted in May 2017 after the decision to close the College was reversed.
For the last two and a half years the members of the Board, Staff, Parents, Monastic Community, past pupils and wider community have contributed enormously to the renewed prosperity of the College.
In May 2017 we had 165 students and I am glad to say that with the fantastic effort of the Director of Admissions Seamus Hennessey and the Admissions Committee, today we have 222 students in the College, an increase of 35% in just two years.
2019 will be the first year in the last 10 when the College will not lose money. The current enrolment figure of 222 means that there will be a small operating surplus but that is without making any provision for capital expenditure.
While the College has turned a very significant corner with this year’s enrolment figures there has been no significant capital expenditure in the College in 10 years and a number of areas need very significant investment to bring it to a standard that we can all be proud of.
Significant funds have been raised through pledges and fundraising and major capital expenditure will commence this year.
However more fundraising is needed and we have plans to raise those funds over the next 2 to 3 years to see the renovation and improvement works completed to make CCR the best Boarding Schools campus in Ireland.
This Board and the Monastic Community have plans to make the entire campus carbon neutral and plans are underway to build an anaerobic digester that will produce gas from farm waste to heat the entire school and swimming pool.
A big thank you has to go to Dom Malachy and the Monastic Community for placing their faith in the Board. To the Staff, parents, pupils and all who have helped achieve so much together in the last two years a very big thank you also.
As they leave office after two years of extraordinary work and progress I would like to thank the Board Members who have served so tirelessly, Parent representatives Sinead Lawlor and Peter Murray, Staff representatives Catherine Smyth, Jim McManus and Kevin Kelly, trustee nominees Jack Kennedy, Dom Malachy, Sr Ann O’Donoghue and Andrew Cody and lastly and by no means least the Principal Gerry Grealish who has guided the School so well over the last two years.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us through hard work, honesty and integrity, over the past two years to reach for the stars. We are well on our way.
Ronnie Culliton
Chairman of the Board of Management.
