Thursday, December 21 2006 @ 10:07 AM GMT
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Frank Phelan celebrated 25 years with the KSC recently. Frank was born 2/2/25, number five of eight children – four boys and four girls, at Strad Valley, Co.Waterford
His father was Nicholas Phelan elected 6/6/22, the first labour TD for Waterford City & South Tipperrary for the first Parliament under the new system of proportional representation and was elected at the same time as Michael Collins and knew him quite well.
For some years now the Knights of St Columba in St Albans have been raising money to support the Catholic schools in Batam, an island about 10 miles from
Singapore across the Strait of Malacca, Indonesia.
One of our brothers, Pat Curtis, first met Fr Yance, the Priest who is administrator for about 16 Catholic schools on Batam and the surrounding islands, about ten years ago when he was working in the area.
As Indonesia is a Muslim country, the Government funds the Muslim schools only, and all other schools, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., have to fund themselves. It is for this reason that we have been raising money to help the Catholic schools in the area.
We have recently returned from a visit to France and Germany. Along the way we spent a few days at Camping Les Cigognes, Turckheim, a small village on the outskirts of Colmar in Alsace, France.
“Cigogne” is French for “Stork”. The campsite has special facilities for storks which nest in what looks like a concrete bowl at the top of a high pole. The birds are very noisy and give off a loud clicking noise which at first made us think that we were camped in a colony of woodpeckers. They are graceful in flight and, like hawks, seem to seek out warm air currents to ease their ascent. The ones at Turckheim are quite tame and seem ready to pose for photographs.
On a national basis the knights raise money for various national projects. In recent years they raised £277,000 for "Wells for Water" followed by £109,000 for "Help the Hospices" and currently the project is "Partners for Health" which is being run in conjunction with CAFOD and SCIAF to raise funds for health projects in developing countries.
The Knights of St Columba are an international fraternal body of Catholic men who together with the support of their families provide a service to the Catholic Church working for the good of the community both locally and nationally
Locally, our group is based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. We meet formally once a month and of course informally much more often than that with all the activities going on.