ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING - Thursday 4th November 2010 at 8.00 pm.

COMMUNITY BULB PLANTING - 23rd October Meet at the car park at 10 am.

SWITCH ON OF CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS and ANNUAL CAROL SERVICE - 7th DECEMBER

CEMETERY REPORT
Belfast City Council has still not made any decision on a site for the cemetery.
They are continuing with site investigations in a number of locations.

THURSDAY COFFEE MORNINGS

The Residents Association plans to hold a series of informal coffee mornings. How this will evolve is up to you ...perhaps we have the occasional speaker with just a small presentation on a variety of topics or just a pleasant get together with your neighbourhood friends. You can have your say in how it evolves so come along and enjoy. The first one was on 7th October. There were 18 people present. Irene MacWilliam had brought along a number of mystery objects some from the early 1900s. These led to a lot of chat and reminiscing.
The next coffee morning will be on Thursday 2nd December in the minor Parochial Hall at 10 am.

DRUMBEG ART CLUB by Michael BoydThe 9th Annual Art Club Exhibition was held on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd May.
This end of season event enables the Club members to showcase their hard work over the winter months. It is very much a social occasion for all the community to come along and see what a group of local amateur artists can achieve.

The social side of the exhibition went extremely well and on occasions many tables were filled with people having tea and a good chat. There is no obligation whatsoever to purchase a painting but, of course, many people do end up buying one, such is their admiration for a particular piece of work.

In the run up to this year’s exhibition, with the economic climate being as it is, it was questionable if the success of previous years could be repeated. Therefore, it was an enormous surprise to note that after the first day both attendance and sales were up on the previous year and by the end of the two days there was a record number of people through the door and record sales achieved.

Twenty members had work on display and some sixteen members had sales. It is a testimony to the quality of paintings on display that 31% of the exhibition sold. Many visitors attending and some artists themselves, commented on the excellence of the paintings on display. Members can be rightly proud of their efforts over the past year.

As a result of the commission levied on sales, sales of cards and notelets, together with several generous donations, the Art Club was delighted to hand over £420 to the Church for the Fabric Fund.

The members would like to thank all those who helped to make the exhibition such a great success, particularly those who came along and supported the Art Club over the two days.
Next year will be the 10th Birthday Exhibition so hopefully it will continue in the pathway of success.

FLOWER ARRANGING CLASSES by Clara Crookshanks

September started our Flower Arranging Class. We meet in Drumbeg Church Hall on the first and third Saturday of each month at 10.30 a.m. Our teacher, Mrs Elma McDowell is full of new, inspirational and exciting ideas that you can try on your own at home, as well as in class! Elma and all the current members would like to welcome more new members. Don’t worry about having any experience, you can be a complete beginner and soon blossom into a budding flower arranger.

SPRING OUTING DRUMBEG OCCASSIONAL GOLFING SOCIETY by Michael Boyd
After several false starts, the DOGS eventually had their Spring outing at Ormeau Golf Club on Monday the 19th April. The weather was fine but a cool breeze meant that golfers had to keep on the move.
Some 22 golfers, both members and guests, took part in what turned out to be an excellent day’s golf, at a venue which is very underrated. Several spouses came along for a very good evening meal, which was enjoyed by all.
After the meal Captain Bryan Holliday kindly presented the prizes.
The winning team was- Wendy MacLaughlin, John McVicker and Teddy Hanna.
The runner up team was - Pat Cameron, Ken Stewart and Tony McGall.

SUMMER OUTING AND CAPTAIN’S DAY by Michael Boyd
Bryan Holliday’s Captain Day was on Monday 7th June at Spa Golf Club. The weather again was good and the course was in excellent order. Fifteen golfers took part, a little fewer than usual, due to other commitments etc. but twenty-two, in all, attended the meal afterwards.

Gail McNeice was welcomed to her first outing and Ken Wilson as a new member.
Bryan Holliday kindly presented the prizes and the winners were as follows:-
The Hidden Hole winner was Gail McNeice.
The winning Team was - Heather McIvor, Kevin Brown, and John McVicker
The other three teams all finished on the same score but on the better back 9 holes the Runner-up team was Tony Hegarty, Betty Thomas, Alasdair MacLaughlin and Paddy Logan.
The winner of the individual Lady’s Captain’s prize was won by Heather McIvor and the winner of the individual Men’s Captain’s prize was won by John McVicker .
Following presentation of the prizes John McVicker thanked Bryan for his lovely prizes and for a great day out.

The DOGS are keen to increase membership, so if you are interested, please make contact with any member or Michael Boyd

DRA 27th ANNUAL SHOW by Sue Wilton

This year the Show was held on Saturday 11th September 2010 – a week later than usual to try and avoid a clash with the Hillsborough Oyster Festival and the Air Show on the North Coast. The gardeners of Drumbeg did themselves proud.

We had an amazing amount of entries and the standard was as high as ever!! The fruit and vegetable exhibits were outstanding and the flower arrangements were gorgeous.
The baking categories proved to be even more popular than last year and the whole display looked amazingly scrumptious!! There was a beautiful table of crafts and some fabulous photographs. We thank each and every exhibitor that made such great efforts with their entries, the standard was raised yet again!

Our judges, Mr McCausland who has been involved in the show for many years judged the fruit and vegetable exhibits and Barbara Farris, a Home Economics teacher from Drumbeg had the enviable task of judging and sampling the delights of our recently introduced baking and preserves categories.

At 2pm the Crescent Jazz Band struck up with some fantastic jazz numbers. This year we were so thrilled that Dame Mary Peters was able to open the Show for us and she gave a warm and welcoming speech. She was greatly impressed with the standard of entries and she had fun meeting everyone who attended! There were games and refreshments for the children in the adjacent hall. After everyone had enjoyed cups of tea, coffee and biscuits Dame Mary Peters awarded the various prizes.

A big thank you to everyone who entered and helped make the show such a success and a huge thank you to our sponsors too. It was a great day and much enjoyed by all those attending and those exhibiting. Let us make next years even bigger and better - start working on your craft projects and organising your vegetable patch now!!

Pictures of the show are on our website..

ANNUAL OUTING by Margaret Hegarty
This year’s annual outing was to Sentry Hill, a 19th century Historic House and Visitor’s Centre situated in Newtownabbey. The house and its contents gave us an insight into life in rural Ulster during the 19th and early 20th centuries. After coffee, we had a very informative introductory video, followed by a guide tour of the house and exhibition gallery.

Unfortunately it was a very wet day, so we were unable to enjoy the beautiful garden. However this was compensated for by our visit to Hillside Garden Centre were, after a delicious lunch we spent some time, and money.

Afterwards we had a short drive up the Antrim Coast. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day.

DRA GROUP DISCUSSION March 2010.
Attendees: Members of Drumbeg Residents Association, Danny Campbell, Edel Doherty, Hannah Mc Clure (Queen’s University Belfast).

Purpose of the Meeting: to discuss issues surrounding food purchasing behaviour and food safety. The Queen’s University researchers are engaged in a project which entails conducting a large-scale survey of consumers’ preferences for improved food safety related to meat products. The researchers are holding a series of focus group discussions with members of the public to obtain opinions on food safety related issues. The purpose of these meetings is to inform the design of the main public questionnaire.

Key Discussion Areas
The discussion began with a number of questions regarding current purchasing behaviour.
The participants stated they bought food from a range of sources including the main supermarkets and from local shops (such as butcher shops for meat produce).
Many participants felt that the European Standard for food safety is high.
Some participants raised some health concerns regarding meat products.
Many participants felt that labelling is important- concern over purchasing meat from outside EU areas.
Some participants stated they were more concerned about safety of poultry produce compared to other meat products.
Some participants raised concern over the feed stuff of poultry (particularly when the meat comes from outside the EU).
Generally, the participants are in favour of local (Northern Ireland) produce.
Many participants prefer to buy free-range chicken over battery chicken. More concern about organic produce for vegetables.
The key factors raised when purchasing food include: - labelling, price, presentation (related to freshness), food miles, taste, convenience (including convenience of the shop) and allergies.
Some participants indicated a concern about the water content of meat produce.
Regarding the information given about the attributes of the experiment, some participants indicated a concern about the inference of science with food- perceived that food should be as natural as possible.
some participants stated that concern for food safety and ingredients is depending on who you are buying for- e.g. more careful purchasing baby food. Also, occasion matters- willing to spend more on food for special occasions.

Danny Campbell and Edel Doherty of Queen’s University Belfast would like to thank the Drumbeg Residents Association for their participation in a focus group discussion. The aim of the focus group discussion was to inform a public survey currently being designed at QUB. Members of the Drumbeg Residents Association kindly gave their time to participate in this discussion and the information they provided was extremely valuable to the development of the survey.

BROADBAND and DRUMBEG
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson MP has been making enquiries for a local resident about getting an enhanced broadband service for the Drumbeg area. This is the response he obtained from BT
The Senior Broadband Manager for BT in Northern lreland, Mr Michael Spiers, stated that 'Openreach', which is part of the BT Group, look after the initial part of the network from the exchange through to homes and businesses and that they had previously decided to exclude the Balmoral cabinet L9 from the Superfast Broadband NGA rollout programme. Apparently, this decision was attributed to performance and economic reasons. This decision was taken by Openreach in the autumn of 2009 and there are currently no plans to upgrade the cabinet that serves Drumbeg village.

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