Recent Speakers
In the weeks before the Christmas break speakers to the Club gave encouraging and excellent address which were very well received and garnered many questions and comments. They included:
Liz Rocks, Services Coordinator Belfast Homeless Services and Claire Crummey, Executive Assistant to Board Member James McGill, Hastings Hotels MD who spoke 11 November about the work they do. Liz advised they are a cross-community volunteer-led organisation and work within the community to provide food, temporary shelter and hope to Belfast’s vulnerable and homeless populations to improve their quality of life and help them regain stability. They run a drop in facility three evenings per week for 50-70 people who may be at risk or are experiencing a level of homelessness - rough sleeping, in a hostel or sofa surfing to help improve their quality of life and wellbeing and are in the process of moving to new premises in King Street. Claire noted that the Board support their aims and despite greatly increasing costs the new premises will open up new opportunities and enable them to support more people more days a week; as well as enabling them to develop a range of services such as providing health education during the day and trying to get people back into employment. It will also create new opportunities for partnership working with other organisations.
In an extremely detailed and illustrated presentation guest speaker PE Heather Shiell on 18 November talked about UNESCO, World Heritage and the selection and consequences of World Heritage sites. She noted UNESCO - the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - is a specialist agency of the UN and the UNESCO World Heritage Convention was formed to select and preserve the best or most representative examples of heritage for future humanity. In its symbol the central square symbolises outstanding examples of the cultural heritage of humanity - monuments, groups of buildings or sites of individual cultures and the circle celebrates outstanding natural heritage. There are currently 1,223 sites: 952 represent cultural heritage, 231 natural heritage and 40 mixed sites. PE Heather highlighted there 4 WH sites in Ireland - 2 in the North - the Giants Causeway and the Moravian Village in Gracehill and 2 in the south - Brú na Bóinne and Sceilg Mhichíl. She concluded by highlighting WH sites are not balanced across the world but are heavily concentrated across Europe with large areas having no recognition at all.
Col. Don Bigger, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the NI War Memorial Museum, using a detailed powerpoint, discussed on 25 November the 591st (Antrim) Parachute Squadron’s experiences of D-Day and the NI War Museum. He revealed that they were the first to land in France dropped behind German lines on 5th June at 11.00pm and were tasked with preparing the way for the airborne invasion by blowing up upright poles before 3am to create a runway for the planes to land. They were successful in this task and he noted that the Commonwealth War cemetery at Ranville, Normandy contains 14 graves of 591 Squadron members. He pointed out that the NI War Memorial Museum was established to provide an enduring memorial for the men and women of Northern Ireland who died in the two World Wars and to commemorate the significant American presence in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. Their mission is to tell the story of Northern Ireland’s role in the Second World War comprehensively and authentically through engaging exhibitions, publications, research, outreach and school programmes and accessible learning programmes focussing in particular on the “home front”.
Retired District Judge Mervyn Bates gave a well-illustrated and most informative personal view of C.S.Lewis. He reflected on 09 December on Lewis’s upbringing in Strandtown and Belmont by his father as his mother dies when he was 9. He was educated by a private tutor one term in boarding school in England and Campbell College before achieving a 1st at Magdalen College Oxford where he became firm friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. Mervyn reflected that Lewis's works are written for children and several of his characters are reflected in the "wonderfully done statues in C.S. Lewis Square which are hugely tall". He pointed out that Lewis wanted people to think what if we humans lived in a world where animals could talk. He concluded by highlighting that plaques have been erected on the numerous premises he lived or frequented.