6 Courses in Belfast

felt crafts janine

generation women

I spent the first half of my career in a thick fog, and of course I got lost and ended up somewhere I didn’t want to be. I felt lost, miserable, and what little confidence I had was waning by the minute. I also became a total bore. I was consumed by how unhappy I was. I couldn’t even apply for another job because I didn’t know what I’d do. So I felt stuck. I had, by many measures, a great job, a great salary, in a great company. But I was in the wrong place. I was ambitious with nowhere to direct it, so it evolved into frustration! It took a fair bit of effort to turn it around, which started with working out what I wanted and developing some much needed confidence to get there. Thankfully I had a good basis with my Psychology degree, throw in a mountain of self-help books, a coaching and NLP qualification, a mountain of training on presenting and the like…and a real desire to build my brand, visbility, and expertise, meant I built a reputation for business and leadership transformation. That experience of having a big impact, being recognised, and having real influence made me feel like I could achieve anything. My values, purpose, and strengths were all aligned and I felt amazing! It came as quite a shock then to be confronted by my inner feminist one day. I’d had my first daughter (I now have 2), and was having a cheeky nap. You know how it is, I love my sleep! So for the first time ever, I sat her down in front of Nickelodeon so I could get some zzz’s. I was happily snoozing away when the advertising started to filter through to me. The ‘boys toys’ were all exciting and adventurous. The ‘girls toys’ made me want to vomit. All about being pretty and vacuous. I jumped off the sofa with an ‘oh hell no’! Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been driven by fairness. I think it may be because I’m the youngest of 4 and nothing ever seemed fair from my standpoint. My sister tells me of times I used to fight for gay rights at the dinner table and I was always arguing for what I felt was right (because it is). The one thing I’d never have called myself back then, or until that day, was a feminist. No, I’d been well trained by society to see feminists as embarrassing, hairy, dungaree-wearing angry women who made a show of themselves. This moment set a chain of events into action that lead me to start a political party where I live, and gave me the direction for the business I would later start.

springhill community house

Springhill Community House has been a pioneer of community education in West Belfast since 1972. Established by Fr Desmond Wilson the project is about helping people see their own potential. From its inception, the purpose of the ‘People’s School’, has and will continue to be about empowering people to take control of their own lives. This remains at the heart of what Springhill is about and involves tackling the apathy and frustration felt by individuals through programmes of personal development, life coaching, education, training, health awareness and confidence building. Our primary aim is to target and recruit the most disadvantaged individuals within our community and to support them improve their quality of life and wellbeing.

imagine! belfast festival of ideas & politics

The 8th Imagine! Belfast Festival proved to be a successful offering involving 147 events and 359 speakers & performers during 21-27 March 2022. The eclectic week of talks, workshops, theatre, poetry, comedy, music, exhibitions, film and tours attracted an audience of 9,210 online and in-person attendees. Most of the events (82%) were free as the festival returned to live events after two years operating online. Although Covid continued to impact on our programme with 17 events cancelled due to illness, we were still able to roll out a huge range of events including headliners such as Michael Ignatieff, Tom Robinson, Helen Thompson, Michael Longley, Ece Temelkuran, Bill Neely and a host of exciting arts and cultural events – with many sold out or oversubscribed. We have conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the festival through an audience survey(3.5% sample). Our survey found that 95% of respondents felt the festival satisfied their expectations. It was particularly pleasing to find that 60% of audience members were attending a festival event for the first time and 37% of the sample had never been to a festival venue before, which suggests that we were able to reach new audiences and introduce them to new venues and partners. Other outcomes included: 12% of attendees came from outside Northern Ireland. Of these, 13% stated the festival was the main reason they were visiting Belfast. Audience spend: Our sample spent an average of £35 attending our events Number of festival partners: 52 Number of international participants: 40 with 27 events organised by participants from outside UK & Ireland Number of free events: 121 – 82% of total events Average ticket price: £7.8 Number of workshops: 14 Number of venues used: 35 Media coverage: Total number of items: 98. Reach: 4,022,796. AVE: £181,881. PR value: £545,644 Positive feedback was also elicited from survey respondents, detailed as follows: 95% of respondents felt the festival satisfied their expectations with only 1% reporting dissatisfaction (increased from 94% in 2021) 95.3% of people answered the question ‘after attending the festival, would you be more likely to attend other politics-related events’ (88% last year) 97.8 of respondents stated they were more likely to recommend the festival to family and friends after attending one of our events with 1.6% stating they felt the same When asked whether the festival promotes Belfast and Northern Ireland in a positive way, 98.4% said yes, with 1.6% responding as ‘don’t know’ People appeared to be reasonably well informed about the festival. 92% of the sample stated they were either well or somewhat informed about the festival prior to attending an event Respondents overwhelmingly found the subject matter of the event/performance as the main reason for attending the festival. However, familiarity with the speaker/performer was also cited as a factor. We also asked whether respondents considered themselves to be disadvantaged and found that 21% of the sample considered themselves to fall into this category which suggests were able to significantly engage with vulnerable and less well-off sections of the community. We invited the public to suggest and organise events in November 2021 and received a record 98 proposals, most of which we were able to support. This was a higher than expected level of public participation in the festival which resulted in more events than planned taking place in the 2022 programme. We also had a greater variety of events with more place-making events, exhibitions, music and discussions/workshop events compared to previous years.

belmont playcare

In the spring of 1965 a few members of Belmont church were concerned that their children, born in 1961, would not have a place in Belmont primary school in September 1965 as there were too many children for the place available, and it was felt that there was a need for a playgroup. Belmont Church was approached to see if a hall could be used for the group. All financial and other arrangements were organised by the church committee and in May 1965 Belmont Pres-School Playgroup opened its doors in Belmont Church. Belmont was the first Nippa run playgroup in Northern Ireland. UTV broadcast a programme from Belmont around 1980-81 which was hosted by Frank Carson and starred the children and staff. Funds were raised through hosting coffee mornings and it was also an opportunity to meet parent and children on a social basis. We remained at Belmont Presbyterian Church until June 2002 when we were to move to pastures new at Belmont Tower. However we were accommodated by St Mark’s Church due to awaiting completion of renovations to Belmont Tower. We spent from September 2002 to April 2004 at St Marks and moved to Belmont Tower in May 2004. In June 2006 the preschool room was awarded an accreditation by NIPPA (The Early Years Association) which was a great achievement. We spend a happy two years in Belmont Tower but when our lease finished we were grateful to St Marks for accommodating us on a temporary basis. We spent over a year in St Mark’s Heyn Hall offering a variety of indoor and outdoor play in a happy and relaxed atmosphere. In November 2008 we were filmed for the Peoples Millions with the support of the community, past pupils, staff , friends, family and our current parents, we won the £50,0000, that with our past fundraising events and the support of the Education Authority we obtained enough funds for a new build which commenced building in February 2009 and was completed 3rd April 2009. We opened our doors on the 20th April 2009 and with the opportunity of new ventures for the playcare.