Birmingham Irish Heritage Group

Annual Report 2008/2009

Chairperson’s Report

I wish to extend a warm welcome toall attending this Birmingham IrishHeritage Group AGM 2008/2009.My report will be an overview reportas other officers/members of thecommittee will be reporting on theirspecific area of responsibility.

In essence the Heritage Group is acommunity of people who share aninterest in the heritage of the Irish people at home and abroad, whether they come from first second or other generations. They also want to explorethat interest in the company of likeminded people rather than “ploughinga lone furrow” with little appreciationor recognition. It is a membershiporganization but the general public iswelcome to attend events. Like anymembership organization withoutemployees its continued existencedepends on its members so I urgeeverybody to become a member,without delay.During the past year your committeehas implemented a number of initiatives to strengthen the collectivenature of The Group. Before we hear from the speaker at monthly events, wehave a different member of thecommittee say a few words on their particular work for the group. This isso that members and others attendingwill get to recognize individualmembers of the committee, and beaware of their work, which is vital tothe functioning of The Group.The playing of background music to provide a distinctive Irish atmospherein the period between your arrival, andthe start of the event has been providedwithout fail by Committee MembersJohn Macintyre and John Costello. Theuse of our computer related equipmentat events has been reduced, due to anevent entirely outside our control.During the upheaval between thechanges of control of the premises,where we stage our monthly eventsfrom the Irish Club to WestbourneLeisure, we were put under severestrain.Consequently the equipment whichenables us to show films, and put onPower Point displays etc had to besuddenly dispersed. The Groupachieved this within a few days,entirely due to the magnificent effortof your Committee who are all unpaidfor their work. Thus we are unable touse this equipment until we havenegotiated a safe home for it, whichhas to be in the premises where westage our Events. Good relations wereestablished as soon as the newmanagement arrived, and we havereceived a general assurance that theywill be able to accommodate the returnof our equipment.. The details have yet to be finalized;meanwhile we wish the newmanagement every success in the business sense, and also in keeping the premises at the vibrant heart of theIrish Community. During thisupheaval the Paragon Hotel came toour rescue, in providing a fine roomfor our event free of charge. Thisallowed your Group to maintain itsunbroken record of staging an Event,on the first Wednesday of each andevery month since its birth.

This fine record is due to the hardwork of Anne Scott, the Committeemember who is responsible for locating and negotiating theappearance of speakers, from far andwide and of course her predecessors.We have greatly appreciated theassistance of Nicky Getgood, the proprietor of the Digbeth Blog website,who has included news reports of mostof our events sometimes including avideo of the entire event. Her websitecould be regarded as a sort of localnewspaper for Digbeth, but much better having moving pictures andsound, do log in the address iswww.digbeth.org.The Birmingham Irish HeritageGroup also has its own website,carrying news reports of our Events, plus an Archive of reports of pastEvents and other information, do getyour friends to log in the address iswww.e-voice.org-uk/bihg. It is notnearly as good as Nicky Getgood’sDigbeth Blog, but it is still worthwhile.Our aim is to make it bigger and better every month, after all “Rome was not built in a day”. In addition we wouldurge you to log in to the new andinteresting web site put up byWestbourne Leisure for the IrishCentre the address iswww.irishcentrebirmingham.co.uk

The

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newspaper also carries newsreports of our events and we wouldlike to send our thanks for that. Inaddition

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has for several years provided a full page, for a serieswritten by one of our members. about people from the Diaspora who havecontributed to the history of Ireland.We have also promoted an increasingamount of questions after talks or films, on occasion extending todebates. This and forthcoming proposals for your greater participationis to demonstrate, that it is in fact your organization and consists of you, it’smembers and supporters.During the next year your committeewill with your help, implement asmany further improvements as possible. Every member who is willingand able will be urged to actively participate, in further realisticmeasures to strengthen and enlarge thegroup. Meanwhile we ask everymember or other person attending, to bring along an extra friend who will bemade most welcome. However thosewho find themselves unable to actively participate, will continue to be madevery welcome and we offer our thanksto them for their interest in IrishHeritage.We will continue to provide a programme of Irish Heritage for everybody, in its various aspects,History, Family History, Literature,Art, Music, Plays, Poetry and Folklore.We offer our thanks for their support toThe Federation of Irish Societies, TheIrish Forum and very importantly toWestbourne Leisure whose premiseswe use as a base.Mike Walsh, Chairperson

Music at All Events

John Costello and I have providedmusic before all our Events, and wehope and believe that it has served tocreate a warm Irish atmosphere, thathas been been appreciated byeverybody. As usual last December atthe end of my Quiz Night, live musicwas provided by Anthony Druryaccordion, Caitlin Drury fiddle, SueShortland fiddle and Ciarin Druryflute. All reports suggest that their talents were much appreciated by allmembers and visitors.John McIntyre, Vice Chairperson