Operation Conversation Christmas Card Competition

The winner has finally been decided for our Christmas Card Competition!

The worthy winner is Ellen Kane who is 16 and a student at Athboy Community School.  Her entry was sent in by her Art teacher Mr Fox. Ellen wins a €100 voucher for Blanchardstown Shopping Centre kindly donated by Liam McGee of Studio Print in Kilcock.  Her winning design will be printed as a Christmas card to be sold with five other designs in aid of Third Age.  

Thelma Mansfield very generously adjudicated the competition for Third Age and she said of the painting by Ellen "It keeps to the theme of the competition, "The Conversation" - Lovely atmosphere very well painted and a really exellent and appealing Christmas Card. Well done to Ellen and well done to the other contestants , they went to a lot of trouble."

Thelma Mansfield is an artist and former Irish television presenter. She started out at RTÉ in 1965 as a continuity announcer.

From 1986–97, she co-hosted the RTÉ 1 afternoon show Live at 3 with Derek Davis.

Since retiring in the late 1990s, Thelma Mansfield has concentrated on painting and regularly exhibits her work and can be seen on Sundays in Merrion Square in Dublin.

She says her love of painting grew through the years nourished by her appreciation of the glorious landscapes and seascapes every where you turn on this island which she calls home.

Her time is divided between Dun Laoghaire looking out over Dublin bay, a favourite subject of hers and Spiddal Co.Galway overlooking Galway Bay which has been a huge inspiration to her with it’s dramatic skies and seas and ever changing light.

Stay tuned to hear the updates and news about the Christmas Card collection which we anticipate will be ready for purchase in the first week of November. 

Background to Operation Conversation

Operation Conversation began as a pilot in Trim Co. Meath to encourage isolated older people to engage and socialise with the local community through subsidised coffee mornings in local hotels and cafes. The aim was to have a conversation with someone who may otherwise not speak to anyone else that day. Older people can suffer from loneliness if they are ill, housebound, bereaved or with few social contacts. While geared towards everyone Operation Conversation is particularly aimed at promoting intergenerational social connections and for the benefit of older people in particular.

All Third Age programmes Senior Help Line, Fáilte Isteach, Sage and Summerhill Local, share an underlying philosophy of social inclusion and connectivity through communication and conversation, face to face and by telephone.