Management and day-to-day operation services at the Old Cork Waterworks Experience

Tender description

The Old Cork Waterworks Experience is a unique recreational and educational facility that has been developed by Cork City Council at the restored Cork City Waterworks (c 1768) on the banks of the River Lee. The facility has a number of different elements, namely: Visitor Centre – incorporating a reception, coffee dock, conference room (used for meetings, events, tours and workshops) and interactive multimedia exhibition that tells the history of the site. Steam Centre - steam powered water pumping station including boilers and engines and multimedia interpretation which forms part of the tour and is used to tell the story of water supply to the city of Cork over the past few centuries. Schools’ Resource Centre – This comprises of an office and classroom where the School Science Programme is delivered. The programme aims to support the primary school curriculum and to promote the uptake of science subjects in second and third level education and foster a lifelong interest in science by giving young children a positive experience of science. Playground and Garden – The garden and playground have been removed from the site to facilitate the laying of water mains by Uisce Eireann. They will be reinstated during the timeframe of this contract and will be available for the use of all site visitors. The activities that take place on the site include: School workshops (on the topics of science, maths, marine biology and energy) –these are offered to schools onsite, online or on an outreach basis (i.e. staff visit school to deliver the workshop). By way of example, during the 2022/2023 school year, 100 energy workshops were delivered to 2666 children, 156 marine biology workshops were delivered to 4059 children, 142 maths workshops were delivered to 3522 children and 83 onsite primary science workshops were delivered to 2092 children while 66 offsite primary science workshops were delivered to 1600 children. Primary Science workshops were delivered by the Cork City Council employed Education Officer while all other educational activities were delivered by staff employed by the Facility Manager. Tourism (a tour – part self guided with handheld audio devices and part tour guided, has been developed in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland). The tour is available in 5 different languages.