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Luton Irish Forum Annual Report 2003-2004

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Luton Irish Forum
Annual Report 2002-2003

The following are extracts from this report:
(1) As an organisation we have continued to encourage and promote community activity, and play a positive role in the life this multi-cultural community.
Funding
(2) We continued trying to access funding to further our aims, and we have been very successful in this regard. We have obtained grants from SRB and DION, as well as several smaller grants from other bodies for the development of projects at our Iirsh Centre.
Development of the Irish Centre
(3) The Tuesday Club. In last year’s report we had just commenced the Tuesday Club.
Well it has been an outstanding success and is obviously providing an answer to a great deal of social need, and improving the quality of life of its’ members. 300 members have been enrolled and there is an average attendance of 70-80 every week who enjoy the bingo, the music and the ‘crack’. The Club encourages active participation by the members themselves. They have been organising day outings to the seaside, and places of interest etc. and those have been well supported and enjoyed by all. Mary Dee and friends are full of ideas.
Keep Fit Group: This commences in May and is proving very popular with the ladies. The men, as usual are a bit slow of the mark. A qualified female fitness instructor supervises the classes, so come on, you old boys!!
Computer classes. The old fear of computers has really been tackled of late. You are never too old to learn, and over 30 people have already enrolled for classes. This is being done in conjunction with Barnfield College. Great to see people who wouldn’t look ‘sideways’ at a computer a year ago, now playing a tune on the laptop!
A Xmas party for members was organised, as well as several fund-raising dances, all of which were very successful.
In December we entertained 100 pensioners from Birmingham and they have invited us back in 2003. With the success of these activities, and the number using the centre we have become victims of our own success. I t has become very obvious to us that the facilities available are completely inadequate.
This is a problem of which our Executive Committee is very aware, and will be addressing in the coming year.

Irish Pensions Advice/Benefits Advice
The demand for help and advice is increasing, as our services get better know. We have been very successful in assisting people with queries on Irish pensions, health, benefits and housing. It has become very obvious to us, that there is a great need for a service, with a sensitive and understanding approach to our community in this area.
Our new development worker will be looking at this. 
(4)Development Worker
Following our success in obtaining SRB funding we have now employed a qualified person who will help us fulfil our aims. We welcome Frances McCauley to our ranks. She will be responsible to our Executive Committee.
(5) St Patrick’s Festival 2002
This is a day when we see a great family day, a day when Irish identity is celebrated worldwide. It makes a big contribution to the development of a happy community.
Supporting the festival financially has proved a major problem for us. We were greatly disappointed however when our very comprehensive application for funding to Eastern Arts was turned down. This was a blow to our efforts to our efforts to promote Irish culture… The response of our St Patrick Festival Committee was “The show must go on”. This left us with the major task of raising the funding to run the Festival through our own initiative. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our committee and the positive response of the business community and Luton Borough Council, we succeeded. The show did go on and our 3rd Festival was the most successful yet. We are however keen to put the funding of the Festival on a sound footing rather than be at financial “panic stations” every year as March 17th looms.
Once again we thank LBC for their continued assistance

Photograph Caption:
Recognition:
Luton Irish Forum was host to the National Congress of Irish Societies at the Strathmore Hotel in June 2002.
Picture: L to R. Tom Bourke (Chair LIF), Mrs Bourke, Mary Tilki (Chair FIS), Irish ambassador D. O’Ceallaigh, RS.B McKenzie, Mr Bill McKenzie Leader of Luton Council, Artist Peter Deighan, Frank Horan (LIF)

RefCAP/LTN/22/5/5
Levelitem
Date2003
RightsLuton Irish Forum
StatusPublished

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