BCDA Events Subgroup Annual Report
June 2013 – May 2014
It is hard to believe that BCDA has completed two years in our very own
community hall, which seemed like a distant dream only a few years ago.
Each year seems to get busier and busier, so let us go back over the past
year to relive the wide range of events (and test our memories)!
Just after Easter 2013, we started our annual 8-week Sports coaching
programme for thirty-six 4 to 14 year olds at Cairncastle Primary School:
this ran from 10th April right through to 19th June and we are indebted to
Niall Curneen and his band of coaches at Larne Borough Council, as well
as our local school for the use of their grounds.
Councillor Gerardine Mulvenna invited the Management Committee of
BCDA to a reception at the Mayor’s parlour at the end of May just
before her term of office as Mayor ended. June was a quiet month as
most classes drew to an end but this meant that our regular hall users
were able to avail of the wonderful weather and long summer evenings
outdoors. Ballygally now became a very popular destination as borne
out by data collected by Lynda Foy from Larne Borough Council who
conducted a survey on the beach on Sunday 9th June 2013 and counted
600 people at 3pm.
July and August saw a gradual decline in activities …only the Boccia, Yoga
and Exercise classes continued. We were glad of this as it gave us a
chance to get offside, recharge the batteries, think of new ideas and
slow down for a while before it all started up again.
And then September arrived and it all kicked off again as the Children’s
and Adult Art, Bowls, Bridge and weekly church group all started up
again after their summer break. Trainer Janice Bisp delivered a First Aid
course for volunteers who use the hall. The 12 trainees represented the
Bowling Club, Boccia, Art classes (both Adult and children), Ballygally
Spar, Neighbourhood Watch and Church groups. 1 large wall mounted
First Aid box and 2 small grab First Aid bags (1 for the hall and 1 for the
shop) were purchased, thanks to funding from the Big Lottery. A beach
cleanup, linked to Marine Conservation Clean Up, took place in Friday
20th September, followed by a BBQ. Thanks go to Larne Borough
Council, who provided the necessary equipment and in particular Lynda
Foy who came along to help out. At the end of September, we had a
visit from 30 members of the Rural Development Programme, (one of
our funders) who inspected the hall and held a Question and Answer
session. Needless to say, they were very impressed and completely
satisfied that their funding had gone to good use.
At the start of October, the Bowling section of BCDA ran a pub quiz in
Mattie’s and this raised £210 for CACTI. Later that month, 43 residents
travelled to Argory House, Co Armagh to visit the National Trust
property. All thoroughly enjoyed the day, due in no small part to the
superb weather and the fact that the House was only open to our group.
After the guided tour, all sat down to a delicious homemade lunch. This
outing costing £5 was targeted at those who support the events in the
hall and a grant from Rural Transport Scheme contributed towards
expenses. Two days later saw the return of our very popular wine quiz
organised by Neil and Amanda Copeland. The hall was filled to the brim
with 96 in attendance and it was looking at its very best, thanks to the
dedicated band of volunteers who decorated it.
On 17th October, Anne Lennon represented BCDA at the 2013 Coca Cola
Coast Care Awards at Stormont, following a suggestion by Lynda Foy at
LBC that BCDA should be entered for this competition which recognises
and celebrates the diverse work done by our committed coastal
volunteers. We were short listed, but beaten by Portstewart Strand
volunteers….there is always next year!
The names, as decided by the children’s competition in 2011, were
placed on the doors of the main hall, committee room, kitchen and
office and the children’s artwork for the naming competition was set
into acrylic mounts and strategically displayed, thanks to funding from
BCDA.
The under 8 Children’s Halloween fancy dress party was held on 19th
October: this was attended by 24 children and associated parents and
the entertainment was supplied by the Mr Hullabaloo’s puppet show.
A very energetic coffee morning, attended by 50 people, was held at the
end of October and this included a highly entertaining Beetle Drive,
organised by Amanda Copeland. A few weeks later, Amanda was back in
action when she organised a Bottle Decoupage craft evening for 27 local
ladies who had a messy session using coloured paper to decorate a
bottle. Many thanks to Amanda for all her efforts to keep us
entertained!
A new exercise class aimed at men over 50 started up at the end of
October, initially for a trial period but, thanks to local interest, has
continued to run every Friday morning and thanks are due to LBC for
providing a coach who also coaches our over 50 ladies on Friday and our
senior ladies every Tuesday. Many thanks are due to John Grant from
LBC who does his best to improve our level of fitness.
Ballygally Community Choir reconvened at the end of October in
preparation for their performance at the Christmas tree light up.
The November coffee morning took on a seasonal theme when the
choirs of Cairncastle Primary School and Roddensvale performed to a
crowd of 60 residents. The turning on of the Christmas tree lights took
place on Monday 2nd December when the two youngest members of our
Boccia club had the honour of doing so. There was an amazing turn out
of around 150 people who all managed to fit into the hall afterwards for
seasonal refreshments and entertainment in the form of a magician for
the younger generation. The Community Choir and Cairncastle Primary
School provided the carols for the event. Ballygally Castle Hotel and
BCDA set up 2 hampers for a raffle and these added almost £250 to our
funds. As always, this is a great opportunity for all ages in our
community to get together to enjoy the festive spirit.
And now 2014 beckons!
Thanks to funding from BCDA, we were able to purchase and install a
ceiling projector and wall mounted screen, which you see here in action.
The Boccia club was entertained by Councillor Maureen Morrow in the
Mayor’s parlour at the end of January and they all received a little
present from her. This was very exciting for them and they were
informed that BCDA had nominated them for a special Challenger Award
at LBC’s annual Sports award ceremony due to take place in March.
More about that later.
A 6-week session of teenage kickboxing was organised by LBC Sports
Team in co-operation with Larne Kickboxing Club and BCDA and 6 girls
participated in this.
60 people, including the Ballygally Castle Hotel manager Stephen Perry,
attended the community lunch at the end of January and, thanks to part
funding from NACN, we were able to provide a 3-course meal at a very
reasonable price. Colin Roden of LBC Sports Development Team spoke
about the importance of exercise in pursuing a healthy lifestyle and
managed to persuade those present to join in chair based exercises.
A weekly youth group led by a youth worker from Larne YMCA started
up in the hall at the beginning of February. 2 representatives from
Traffic management at DRD Roads Service met with residents on 11th
February to discuss concerns about proposed traffic calming schemes for
Croft Road and Cairncastle Road. Eric spoke on behalf of BCDA and
conveyed residents’ concerns to the 2 representatives. Following this
meeting between Ballygally residents and Road Traffic at DRD, Eric has
been in contact with Ivan Penney (DRD) who informed him that the road
traffic-calming scheme would not now go ahead, due to the large
number of letters (30) received from residents.
The end of February saw our annual Pancake coffee morning when we
were ably assisted by two members of staff from Ballygally Castle Hotel
(sent over for training!) and entertainment took the form of another
entertaining and noisy Beetle Drive under the watchful eye of Amanda
Copeland.
Two days later, 57 residents from BCDA and CCA travelled to the Opera
House on Saturday 1st March to see the matinee production of Hello
Dolly, following a meal in Mattie’s. This was an excellent day out and all
enjoyed the show and companionship. Many thanks to Mary Neill at
Cairncastle and our own Ruth Lough who spend months organising this
event and are still making the final arrangements on the day! The
demand for this is such that we may have to look at changing the format
next year.
Another very important event occurred at the start of March when the
new hall manager, Bernie McAllister, commenced her duties. We wish
her well in the months ahead. Anne and Clare accompanied the Boccia
Club to the Larne Sports Awards ceremony at the Leisure Centre on
Thursday 6th March when the club picked up the Challenger Award. This
was a tremendous achievement for a club, which has just been in
existence for over a year, and the winners were great ambassadors of
the spirit of the award. It just goes to show that valuable programmes
such as these do make a difference in our community.
At the end of March, our usual monthly coffee morning was changed to
a Stew Lunch as a tribute to St Patrick’s Day. Some 40 residents
attended and again, we had the help of two staff from Ballygally Castle.
The stew was prepared by Mattie’s and the verdict was unanimous….it
was delicious. Entertainment was provided by Anne McCusker in the
form of a very entertaining sing along and also by Mason from
Rodensvale School who regularly entertains us. Many thanks, Anne and
Mason.
And now for something completely different. In an effort to enhance
the community’s engagement and involvement in the Arts and Cultural
activities, we organised an evening of musical entertainment provided
by the Belfast String Quartet on 12th April. This was a wonderful evening
for all 66 present, when we were treated to four musicians, one on the
viola, one on the cello and two on violins playing a selection of
recognisable light classical music from Elgar through to Shostakovich and
Handel.
On Easter Sunday morning, Ballygally’s cross community spirit was, once
again, very evident when the hall opened its doors very early to provide
breakfast for approximately one hundred people who had turned out at
7am at the slipway to attend the annual Easter Dawn service organised
by the four local churches, whose continual support was so vital in
obtaining funding for this building.
Before I close this year’s activities, I want to mention our neighbours
over the road at Ballygally Castle Hotel who closed their doors last
October for an extensive make over and expansion of the function room.
After a long wet winter and much to the surprise of all onlookers, they
re-opened their doors to the public at the beginning of April and the
manager Stephen Perry extended a welcome to all Ballygally residents to
a wine and canapé reception on 22nd April to see the renovations for
themselves. Many thanks to Stephen and his staff for their support over
the past year, their Easter egg hunt for the children held in the Castle
grounds just before Easter and the Christmas hamper. We wish them
well in their new surroundings!
Plans are going ahead for the forthcoming Giro cycle race on Sat 10th
May. An application has been made to LBC for a grant to help with
decorating the village in advance and running a Giro themed coffee
morning on Thursday 8th May. Ballygally Castle Hotel plans to run an
Italian wine dinner during that week. This promises to be a very busy
weekend for the village so we want to show it off to the global audience.
The Environmental group will liase with the Council to organize a village
clean up in preparation for the Giro cycle race in May and volunteers will
be very welcome to help out. New seating has been purchased from
BCDA funds to replace those in the alcove on the Coast Road opposite
Grace Ave. Lynda Foy (LBC Countryside Officer) is seeking funding from
the Causeway Coast and Glens Heritage Trust to install glass panelling at
the same time.
And talking about cycling events reminds me to mention the charity
cycle run which took place last Sunday from Belfast to Ballygally (our
very hall) for refreshments and back again. This was organised by
Friends of Cancer at Belfast City Hospital and raised just over £300. A
tremendous effort from all concerned.
A lot more goes on in our busy hall. We have had a steady flow of
birthday parties for all ages, two different yoga classes, Art clubs for
adults and children, a Christmas Craft fair, Church meetings twice a
week, Irish dancing practice, workshops, meeting facilities for a wide
range of organisations such as the Red squirrel Group, refreshment stop
off points for various cycling clubs. The notice board at the front door,
both inside and outside, gives full details of the various activities, monthby-month so you have no excuse for being left out.
All of this would not be possible without a lot of work behind the scenes
from a group of dedicated volunteers. This includes all those who help
out in any way whether it is the monthly clean up, preparing and
delivering the newsletters, producing posters and flyers for the various
events, selling tickets, working in the kitchen, opening and closing the
hall, running the various clubs and activities in the hall, sorting out the IT
end of things for us, helping at events, attending meetings, Hester Little
(Neighbourhood Watch representative) and Eric Dalzell (Community
Environment representative), both liasing with local agencies especially
LBC to keep our area safe and clean and all the other little tasks too
numerous to mention but which make our organisation BCDA run so
well, we hope! We do need more volunteers so please come along to
any of our monthly meetings, held on the last Tuesday of each month at
7.30pm, when we start the meeting with an open meeting for anyone
interested in hearing more about the activities of the three subgroups.
These are Community Services, Community Centre and Events and
Community Environment.
Finally, we must never lose track of the fact that BCDA is all about
community and making Ballygally a very special place to live where we
can help, support and even entertain each other. We hope that the
presence of Ballygally Spar, very ably managed by Grahame (to whom
we send our very best wishes for a speedy recovery) and Chris Todd and
their staff, together with Ballygally Hall help to achieve this and we ask
you to support us as we all move forward together to continue the good
work being done here to improve life in our wee village. Thank you for
listening and as we go forward into 2014, we look forward to another
eventful and entertaining year in our community.