World Police and Fire Games

James McKeown, Nelson McCausland MLA, ACC Duncan McCausland (PSNI) and Ian Paisley Jnr MLA.

The World Police and Fire Games will be coming to Northern Ireland in 2013 and will involve 10,000 partipants with another 15,000 family and friends coming to support them.  I have been visiting potential venues for specific events and yesterday I travelled up to Ballymena to see the Carnview Farms Shooting Club.

The facility was developed by James McKeown, a farmer and shooting enthusiast, in 1996 and it is now one of the best in the United Kingdom.

Arts and Business

Sean Dorgan, Chairman, Ulster Bank; Roisin McDonough, Chief Executive, Arts Council of Northern Ireland; , Nelson McCausland MLA; Mary Trainor, Director, Arts & Business and dancer, Chamila Harshaani representing ArtsEkta .

Yesterday I attended an event at Hillsborough Castle to recognise and celebrate partnerships between arts organisations and businesses.  The event was organised by Arts and Business and it was good to see the range of partnerships and to hear about the benefits they bring to the partners.

Concorde Community Centre

This photograph was taken at Concorde Community Centre, where the young people were exhibiting the phtographs they had taken as part of an art project organised by Wheelworks.  The project was called Pix N Beats.

Fleming Fulton School

The children and staff from Fleming Fulton Special School came togther with pupiles from other schools and the Ulster Orchestra to put on a wonderful performance in the Waterfront Hall on Tuesday evening.  The evening showcased the talent of the children, the dedication of the staff and the readiness of the Ulster Orchestra to work with communities outside of their normal concert setting.

Before the concert two of the children from Fleming Fulton showed me some of the art work which pupils had produced and which was on display in the hall.

Enjoying a joke with some of the pupils

Young people and politics

We are often told that young people are disinterested in politics but here are a few photographs of young people who belong to the DUP and who are very interested.

Students from University of Ulster at Jordanstown

Stormont delivering for sport!

This afternoon I visited Ballymena Showgrounds, which is owned by Ballymena Borough Council and is the home venue for Ballymena United Football club.  This is one of 30 sports grounds designated last December as requiring a safety certificate under the Safety of Sports Grounds (NI) Order.

Robert Cupples (chairman), Cllr James Currie (mayor), Nelson McCausland MLA & Ian Paisley Jnr MLA

The council and club have been working hard to improve the Showgrounds and to address safety issues.  Between 1997 and 2006, Sport NI made awards totalling £752,000, mainly towards safety improvements at the ground, and in July 2008 an offer of £205,000 was made under the Soccer Strategy Playing Facilities Programme.  This work should be completed within this financial year.

A further award of £808,000 was made under the Stadia Safety Programme to provide a new stand and this work is due to be completed by August.

This is a good example of Stormont delivering for sport and in this case Stormont delivering for North Antrim.

Braid Centre, Ballymena

Nelson McCausland and David McCallion

I was in Ballymena today and visited the Baid Museum and Arts Centre to see the museum and also to visit the temporary exhibition by The War Years Remembered.

The curator, Jayne Clarke, gave me a tour of the building nut there was only a short time to see the permanent exhibition.  However I hope to return fairly soon, possible some Saturday afternoon when I can talk my wife into shopping in Ballymena and I can then escape to the museum.

The temporary exhibition is a magnificent collection of artefacts and memorabilia from both The Great War and the Second World War.  They explain something of life on the battlefields and also at home.  David McCallion really brings the story to life and he deserves great credit for his dedication, comitment and knowledge.  This exhibition is well worth a visit and I understand it will be coming in the near future to two venues in North and West Belfast - Grove Bowling Pavilion in the Grove Park off York Road (the entrance is a short distance before you reach the Grove Health and Wellbeing Centre, when coming out of town) and the Spectrum Centre on the Shankill Road.  The exhibition in the Grove Pavilion runs from 3 to 8 May. You can find out more about them at http://www.waryearsremembered.co.uk/