Trustees report Year ended 31st March 2024
Achievements and Performance
We continue to open the Barron Hall 5 days a week, with Saturday and Sunday opening when required. The footfall remains steady and it’s wonderful to see more people coming out. The Barronettes ladies group is going from strength to strength. They have a choir set up to help with mental health and continue to meet every Monday night for craft, training, dancing, speakers and crack. ACRE meets in the hall; this is a project that looks at active communities restoring the earth. We got involved in a project ran by Ulster University and this brought a 6 week course to the hall. The course was on The Agreement and we also hosted an Agreement Exhibition. Members of the board and others went on a yearlong project with Dialogue for Diversity and Cherry Orchard from Dublin. This was dialogue on issues effecting communities. We have worked closely with ANBC on the school uniform appeal and this has been very successful with lots of families donating and receiving uniforms.
The Great Glengormley Get Together has been a great family event and numbers have risen to between 3000 and 3500. We have all ages attending and seen members of our ethnic minorities coming along to join in the family fun day.
We held events such as:- Alternative Burns night, Celebrating the Kings Coronation, celebrating volunteers, held a hustings for local council elections, The Repair Cafe, Christmas events, ran 3 events during Good Relations Week
The forum has been involved in the planning of Ballyclare May Fair events, speaking at Headway Ballymena and Monkstown groups, liaising with PSNI on local issues, helped local groups with table quizzes, supporting groups throughout the borough, worked with Wheelworks on their youth project, speaker at local churches,
We have developed a 3 way partnership with Shankill and Falls Womens Centres and are working on the Epilogues programme with them. This partnership also works together during Good Relations Week and brings woman from all the areas together to run an event. We developed a programme called Remember Me. This has been very successful and will be being rolled out next year across Antrim and Newtownabbey. We also rolled out the Who Lies Beneath Course funded by Connswater Homes.
We continue to work with ANBC, PSNI, PCSP, Glencree, NI Libraries and many other organisations throughout the area.
Plans For Future periods
We secured funding from CRC for our Project Manager for 2024 – 25. Outreach and Involvement grant, premises grant and festival grant were from ANBC. We will continue resourcing funding to provide a dedicated project manager to work alongside CRF volunteers to deliver good relations in the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council area.
Structure, Governance and Management
Currently the Forum is governed by 9 voluntary board / committee members (we are elected annually) The Forum has currently 1 full time worker (Project Manager) who is line managed by the CRF Chairperson.
Public Benefit Statement
The public benefits that flow from the purpose are :-
• improved relationships in the area
• increased knowledge on history of the country, improving divisions between different cultural communities,
• Helping local communities in the area, these are evidenced through questionnaires, feedback from users, the number of service users and those accessing the services on offer and evaluation forms.
• Promoting civic responsibility.
• Increased opportunities to engage in activities regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability / ability, race, political, religious or other opinion
• Provision and use of local facilities for the social welfare, education, recreation and leisure time with residents
• Partnership working with community / voluntary groups and organisations that also use the facilities, resulting in a more efficient and quality service delivery, an improved quality of life and raised awareness of good relations and its benefits across the borough.
• The beneficiaries are the general public and locally based community and voluntary groupings. No private benefit arises from these purposes.
• Improve relationships between business, church, statutory agencies and community/voluntary sector
J Barrow (Trustee) Date: