The Irish in Britain national clubs forum took place on the 9th July and was very generously hosted by the embassy of Ireland courteous of his excellency ambassador Mulholland along with Nora Delaney.
With 14 organisations attending ,the forum was opened by ambassador Mulholland who spoke about the need of the community to work together and the forum was an excellent example of putting that into practice.
The meeting was opened by Irish in Britain’s funding pack being launched, this was extremely well received and gives some great examples of what funding opportunities are available now and ongoing.
We also highlighted that through the forum nearly 40k of funding had been secured for 4 clubs and with another 3 planned shortly this is going to be a massive benefit to the community.
Following on from the requests of the last meeting Mr Tim Martin (Chorlton Irish Club) gave an excellent presentation and demonstration of the “need for social media” this really did spark some interest
And something I am sure we will have to revisit in the very near future.
The afternoon was concluded by a really in depth question and answer session with Celine Byrne who came over from the Department of foreign affairs unit in Dublin.
This was the most informative session I have ever seen and heard about the emigrant support programme and how it works along with the criteria for application etc.
Celine went into great detail about some of their pitfalls with applications and gave some great feedback which will indeed help our members for the next round in 2017.
The forum continues to go from strength to strength and more members join each time, if you would like to take part please contact John Gradwell at jgradwell@irishinbritain.org