What time is it? IT’S COMPETITION TIME. Be in with your chance to be one of our lucky winners to get your hands on a pair of weekend camping tickets to Sea Sessions this weekend in the following three ways:

1. Pop on our Facebook Page, Like & Share & Answer the Competition Question

2. Call into your local Kelco Communication Store and enter your name & contact number into the draw which will take place this Thursday afternoon

3. Switch over to Vodafone from any network or encourage a family member/colleague or friend to switch over before this Friday and be in with your chance to win weekend camping tickets to Sea Sessions this weekend.

Terms & Conditions

1. All competitions entrants MUST be over 18 years of age to be eligible for the tickets.

2. Kelco Communications is excluded from liability for any loss, damage or injury which might occur to the winner or any other person with whom the winner shares or gives the prize.

3. Kelco Communications reserves the right at its sole discretion to alter any prize for any reason and without notification.

4. Winners will be picked at random from valid entries received. The decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

5. Entries must be strictly in accordance with these terms and conditions. Customers entering this competition will be deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions.

Hurry up now…did you see this years line up??? Goooood Luck

SAM MAGUIRE has set off for it’s first ever trip to Australia today, accompanied by Club Tir Chonaill Chairman Cieran Kelly.

The tour will commence on arrival in Sydney on Sunday 16th with a visit to the Cock n Bull, Bondi Junction New South Wales from 12pm. GAA & AFL stars Tommy Walsh and Tadhg Kennelly are to be in attendance on Sunday from around 3pm.

On Monday 17th

Durty Nellys

Tuesday 18th

PJ Gallaghers Criterion at 17.30

PJ Gallaghers Enfield at 19.30

On Wednesday 19th

Sam travels to Melbourne and visits Comhaltas at St Philips Hall at 7.30pm

Thursday 20th

Australian Irish Welfare Bureau at 12pm

Geelong 6pm

Friday 21st

Ardreagh Ltd.

5-6pm Pint on Punt

6.30- 7.30 PJ O’Briens

8.30 The Snug

Saturday 22nd

11am 3ZZZRadio

07.30 Donegal Association Dinner

Sunday 23rd

09.30 Auskick

12pm Gaelic Park

7pm The Quiet Man

If anyone wishes to have SAM visit their business or home please feel free to contact Cieran Kelly on +353872450505.

Get stuck in with your first month completely free on Vodafone Pay As You Go when you pick up a new smartphone. Enjoy 1GB free internet, free Vodafone calls and texts and €20 free credit for you to use whenever or however you like.

You’re now free to really get stuck into your new smartphone. Visit your favourite websites and download your favourite apps – all on us. Whether you’re an existing customer or new to Vodafone, choose from our great range of smartphones available to buy online today.

Congratulations to the stunning Catherine McCarron who was among the 32 roses selected at the Rose of Tralee Regional Finals held in Portlaoise this month to go through to the International Rose of Tralee Festival in August. Well done Catherine and wishing you the very best of luck on your continued Rose journey. Pictured by Event Capture Photography is Catherine donning the stage in Portlaoise with Daithi O’Shea.

The International Festival will take place in Tralee from the 14th – 20th of August with a great line up of events planned to coincide with the year of The Gathering. For more information log onto www.roseoftralee.ie

The team at Kelco Communiucations are delighted to be sporting our green and gold for the countywide ‘Wear Your County Colours Day’ campaign taking place today throughout schools & businesses from tip to toe of Donegal.

Ahead of the anticipated Championship clash at the weekend, schools, colleges, businesses and organisations are wearing the county colours today to raise money for the 2013 Donegal GAA Senior Football Team Training Fund.

Participants donate €2 and the Sam Maguire tour will certainly add to the festive atmosphere as the 2013 Championship opener approaches.

County Chairman Sean Dunnion said: “Donning your Donegal colours for the day will be a great show of community support for Jim and the boys as they prepare for the Championship season ahead.

“All donations made to the training fund will be greatly appreciated. So we invite you to ditch your shirt and tie for a day and share your true county colours with your fellow classmates, colleagues, family and friends”

We would like to wish Jim and the boys the very best of luck on Sunday

Great news! Trade-in your old Blackberry® Curve™ 8520 in any Kelco Communications store before the end of June and get the shiny new Blackberry® Curve™ 9320 for just €99.99, that’s a saving of €50!

With the top quality QWERTY keyboard message quickly and effortlessly; connect on the go with the fast BlackBerry web browser and 3G connectivity, talk, type and share in a instant with the dedicated BlackBerry Messenger shortcut key and with powerful new features and innovative pre-installed apps experience life the easy way with the BlackBerry Curve 9320 Smartphone.

Also, did you know our €30 top up now includes FREE any network texts plus 500MB of FREE Internet,which you can use to stay in touch with great Blackberry features like Blackberry messenger, email, Facebook and Twitter.

To sign up to this offer simply free text: ‘TEXTNET’ to 50222 and top up by just €30 or more.

For more information and fill T&C’s contact our team today on 1800 22 66 66. We are here and more than happy to help.

Don’t forget to ‘Like’ us on Facebook and ‘Follow’ us on Twitter.

26-year-old Raphoe native, Catherine McCarron will be among 61 Roses from all corners of the globe set to take to the stage at the 2013 Rose of Tralee Regional Festival to be held in the Portlaoise Heritage Hotel, Co Laois at the end of the month.

Catherine proudly sponsored by Kelco Communications, began her Rose journey when she was selected as the Donegal Rose at the county’s regional event in Harvey’s Point back in April.

She will now go forth to represent Donegal at the Regional Festival in Portlaoise from 29th May to 2nd June 2013, where she hopes to be among the 32 finalists selected to continue her journey to Tralee, Wednesday 14th to Tuesday 20th August.

The Rose of Tralee Regional Festival is hosted by Dáithí Ó Sé who interviews each Rose on stage at the Portlaoise Heritage Hotel over three nights, followed by music, dancing and a great line up of entertainment.

 “It’s a very exciting time and there’s lots to do in preparation for Portlaoise. I look forward to meeting 61 Roses from all over the world and making memories of the Regional Festival with each and every one of them. I have no doubt that 2013 will be a special year for us all. Many thanks to Kelco Communications and my family and friends, they encouraged me to go for it in the first instance and have helped me with all the preparation since – A Ghra mo Chroi! I hope to further what has been a wonderful experience to date and join Dáithí on the stage in the Dome in August” says Catherine.  

The Rose of Tralee International Festival has been extended by two days to celebrate the Rose Gathering 2013. Anyone who has ever been to the Festival since 1959 – Roses, Escorts, entertainers and festival-goers – are invited back to join in the celebrations in August.

With a fun-packed entertainment programme scheduled to suit all ages the line-up of events includes JLS, The Stunning, Nathan Carter, Ryan Sheridan, Sharon Shannon, Skyfest Air Display, the Rose Selections, Rose Ball and Fashion Show and much more.

The 2013 Rose of Tralee charity partners are the HOPE Foundation and Epilepsy Ireland.

Anyone who wishes to purchase tickets or find out more about what this year’s Rose of Tralee International Festival has to offer should visit www.roseoftralee.ie or contact the Festival Office on +353-66-7121322.

From all the team at Kelco Communications we would like to wish Catherine the very best of luck in the Regional Finals in Portlaoise. Be sure to stay tuned for more and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook & Twitter. 

Check out a great money saving apps article below written BY AIDEEN SHEEHAN – in Independent.ie - 09 MAY 2013

“From petrol to hotels, apps can take the hard work out of finding bargains, writes Aideen Sheehan

We’re all spending half our lives on our phones these days so we might as well save some money while we’re there. Smart Consumer looks at some top moneysaving apps that can help you net a good deal or save a few euro in your everyday life.

Most of these apps are free to download and browse, but some offer premium services at a cost.

Pumps.ie Free

Fab free app that will tell you how much petrol and diesel costs at filling stations near you. Smart Consumer were able to see around 20 stations in a five-kilometre radius with prices ranging from €1.559 to €1.609 per litre.

Trivago Free

App that checks offers across a range of booking websites such as booking.com, laterooms.com, lastminute.com and others.

For example, it found a double room in the g Hotel, Galway, for €158 with clever-hotels.com compared with €190 on some other booking sites.

Vouchercloud.ie Free

Great for finding deals when you’re out and about. Will tell you what restaurants are offering discounts – and there’s a growing number of retailers coming onboard with offers.

We found offers such as 25pc off your food bill in Pizza Hut; €40 off Timberland Earthkeeper Boots; and 10pc off takeaways from Letseatin, writes Aideen.

Whats App Messenger €0.89

Extremely popular app that lets you send free texts via the internet to the phone of anyone else who’s signed up with it. Particularly useful if you’re abroad to avoid roaming charges – as long as you’ve got Wifi access. When you sign up, you’ll see a list of everyone in your contacts list who’s also connected.

Hailo Free 

The taxi app that’s soaring in popularity allows you to tap on it to call a taxi and track its progress without any of those complicated explanations of where exactly you are as it locates you by GPS. Because you’re linked up with the nearest available taxi you generally have to wait less than five minutes for it to get to you.

Many drivers also waive the €2 callout charge and you have an option to pay automatically by credit/debit card, getting a receipt and a photo of your driver and their ID number as well as a security precaution.

Spotify Free

The music-listening app that allows you to stream music live on your computer or phone. There’s a free trial period for six months allowing free listening interspersed with ads but after that there’s a limit of 10 hours per month.

You can also purchase subscriptions for €4.99 to €9.99 per month offering unlimited ad-free listening.

Onavo Extend Free

App that allows you compress data while using the internet to cut your phone bill. This can be particularly handy if you’re abroad and want to cut down on extortionate roaming charges – though as always the only way to avoid them altogether is to stick to Wifi internet access.

Onavo also has a data monitoring app which allows you see what apps and programmes on your phone are using a lot of data, as keeping tabs on this can help you save money.

Mydealpage.ie

Free to download

If you’re a fan of daily deals sites, this allows you a handy overview of all the major Irish sites and then links you to that site to make a purchase.

We found a €60 Tapas food and drink voucher at Dax café bar for €27 with grabone.ie; and a half-price €55 physiotherapy treatment with dealrush.ie.”

See original Irish Independent Article here

Abbey Vocational Students Gerry Diver, Darren Doherty, Manus Darby, Emmett Doogan and Pauric Doherty, otherwise known as D5 Racing, proudly supported by Kelco Communications, pictured at the 2013 National Finals of the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge, yesterday 30th of April in Griffith College, Dublin.

D5 Racing who were awarded Best Website and Best use of ICT and CAD at the Regional Finals last month went on to represent Abbey Vocational School in the National Finals yesterday.

Work for the 2013 Finals began last September with schools registering their interest in competing. Intense competition followed with 94 teams representing 63 second-level schools from across the country, battling their way through the various qualifying stages of the competition to reach the National Finals.

In addition to racing head-to-head, the competing teams were judged on the quality of engineering, portfolio, resource management, marketing, graphic design, sponsorship activities and on a verbal presentation of their work.

CEO of the Irish Computer Society Jim Friars congratulated all of the participants.

“The standard was incredibly high this year and it was amazing to see the excitement and enthusiasm from both students and teachers alike. An incredible level of commitment and teamwork was displayed and the lengths that the teams went to in modelling and planning the cars were unprecedented.”

The F1 in Schools challenge, powered in Ireland by the Irish Computer Society, began as a response to a recognised skills shortage in computing and engineering, with technology courses having had experienced a significant decline in CAO applications over a number of years. However this trend has begun to change.

Said Professor Mark Ferguson, Director General of the Discover Science & Engineering, Science Foundation Ireland:

“Companies requiring science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) graduates are the fastest growing sectors of the economy. It is encouraging to see an increased uptake of science and technology subjects at third level in recent years, as there continues to be a strong demand for young STEM graduates in Ireland. Discover Science & Engineering supports the F1 in Schools Challenge as it is a great way for second-level students to engage with these subjects in a fun, creative and different way. It allows them to develop their problem-solving and innovation skills, which are vital for anyone who is considering a career in this area.”

This is the ninth year running for the leading global education intiative, which now encorporates over 17,000 schools from 31 different Countries. It will be held in Austin Texas to coincide with the 2013 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix. Wicklow winners, Bardahl Racing will hope to emulate the success of their former schoolmates, the only Irish team to win the World Finals, ‘The Koni Kats’ from St.David’s Secondary School in Greystones in the 2009 Finals in London.

For more information see www.f1inschools.ie and for more information on D5 Racing see www.d5racing.com.

The wait is almost over! The brand new, much anticipated Samsung GALAXY S4 will be available in black and in white online and in all Kelco Communication Stores from tomorrow, Saturday April 27th!

If you want the optimal smartphone experience, then the Samsung Galaxy S4 is the phone for you! With a sleek, slim, streamlined design this handset is jammed packed with amazing features, top of the range hardware, is 4G ready and is operated by a brand new quad-core processor and ultra powerful Jelly Bean Android v4.2.2. 

You will not miss a beat with this smartphone that intuitively adapts to your every move, pausing videos when you look away and resumes when you return your gaze to the screen. It will track your workouts, daily intake, monitors fitness levels and weight levels, so you can stay active and fit with ease.

Shoot multiple exposure pictures and edit them to your liking with the 13MP camera and instantly share your albums with your family and friends. Enjoy the wireless feature that allows you to connect multiple Samsung GALAXY S4 phones to play games, share photos, music and documents. Turn up the volume and create a powerful sound system by combining Samsung GALAXY S4 phones together for an optimal enhanced sound quality.

Break language barriers while traveling abroad with the Samsung Galaxy S4 – your ultimate tour guide which helps you communicate with locals, discover what to eat, what to see and where to be!

Undecided? See full virtual tour here 

Keep tuned for more network news, new releases and promotions. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.