The Breakaways
28 October 2025
Charity Number: NIC103752
CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT
This year the Breakaways were in a very fortunate position to win the Kings Awards for Voluntary Service. This very prestigious award is compared to an MBE and to have won this award is a testament to the amount of time and dedication our volunteers put into the Breakaways. This award recognises the work that each and every one you put in to the group to make it work. From turning up to the tea dances every week, attending the outings, any hobby classes that we do and the willingness to participate in so many things that are asked.
Throughout the year we ask you what you enjoy to understand what works and what you wouldn’t do again. The outings are always a favourite, dancing classes are popular and so are the tea dances. Meeting other groups is enjoyed, hobby activities and attending places that have live entertainment like the theatre.
This year the Breakaways have listened to you and have provided weekly tea dances, various outings to Newtownards, Antrim Castle Gardens, Glens of Antrim, and Ballymena to name a few. The Breakaways have provided a Christmas dinner and Christmas outing which are annual events and enjoyed by all.
We continue to meet on a Tuesday in Whitehouse Workies for our weekly tea dance and have held seasonal tea dances which encourage people to dress up for an added bit of fun.
Our committee volunteers work extremely hard to secure funding for the timetable of activities that we provided. The Treasurer will provide you with an overview of this in his report.
We continue to attract new members which are always welcomed. However with an increase in membership this increases costs as we need extra buses and funders limit the amount per person on food and refreshment, sometimes this requires us to ask members for a small donation, we understand that seniors have limited budgets and we will always try to keep any ask as low as possible. We will continue to try to secure funding to reduce this ask.
We plan to continue with the charity work with Cancer Lifeline. This organisation continues to provide support to our members and their families.
Through our fundraising we were also able to donate £500 to Monkstown Autism Group. If there are any suggestions for other charities to donate to for next year, please put in writing to the secretary.
The Breakaways continue to represent older people on the Rathcoole Neighbourhood Renewal Partnership Board and lobby for increased service delivery for older people and raise any concerns that older people bring to us through this platform. We will continue to feed any information from these meetings to our members.
Through this AGM we would like to remind you that the Breakaways are a group for all older people, regardless of community class or creed and we would hope that members respect that. We have a Code of Conduct that we adhere to and there are measures in this that we take to disperse any unwanted behaviour.
All members will have the Code of Conduct, and any new members are provided with this. If there are any concerns within the club, please speak to any of the Committee and we will do our best to address any concerns.
On behalf of myself and the Breakaways Committee, I wish to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your continued support as always and look forward to another successful year.
Many thanks
Joyce Campbell