Community Action Team

Community Action Team 2008-9

It has been yet another successful year for Community Action within Bangor Grammar School. We organised a school sponsored walk, two non-uniform days and the Clifton Special School Christmas party. We also had twelve boys on community placements throughout Bangor.

The annual school sponsored walk took place on Thursday 18th September 2008. All year groups took part in the event. Nearly 1000 boys and staff left Bangor Grammar School and made their way to Crawfordsburn Country Park via the coastal route. We were again lucky with the weather and had the sun shining down on us for most of the day. The boy’s efforts managed to raise over £9340 for charity. The staff and pupils were asked to suggest charities that we could support and as a result the money raised was split between the following organisations: Emmanuel Ministries Calcutta, Light House Trust, Clifton Special School, Abaana, Changing Faces, Natasha’s Journey of Hope, Northern Ireland Chest Heart & Stroke, T.L.C Ministries, Diabetes UK, Muscular Dystrophy, Heartbeat NI, North Down Sailing Academy Project for the Disabled, Madeleine McCann Fund, Fresh Hope Ministries, Action Aid, NI Leukaemia Research Fund, Oasis Village Trust, McDermot Cancer Charity, Women’s Aid, Northern Ireland Hospice Care, Samaritans, Assisi Animal Sanctuary, Ireland Air Ambulance, RUC Benevolent Fund and Action Cancer.

We would like to extend our thanks to the P.S.N.I who, as usual, helped coordinate the walk through Crawfordsburn and ensured the safety of our boys walking along the footpath through the village.

The Clifton Special School Christmas party was eagerly arranged by our fifth and sixth form boys which included Matthew Ferris, Kyle Craig, Andrew Thompson, Chris Coulter, Jordan Donley, Keith Frizzell, William McKeown, Sean Heron, Daniel Warwick, Sam Gribben, Paul Shields, Nathan McKee, Alex Foster,
Matthew Coey, Jack Penn, Ben Bradley,
Sam Donaldson & Chris Lambert.

Christmas Carols were practiced on a daily basis at lunch times in Room 34 for weeks before the event. The challenge of wrapping 120 chocolate selection boxes certainly helped the boys appreciate how long it takes Santa to do all his wrapping.
Speaking of which we would like to thank Chris Coulter (see inserted photograph) who agreed to be the man in red on the day of the party as well as his three larger than life elves: Jordan Donley, Keith Frizzell and William McKeown. Chris Coulter was ‘promoted’ from his role as an elf in last year’s event to being the main attraction this year! Sam Gribben put his artistic skills to good use by constructing Santa’s Sleigh from cardboard, tinsel and gold paper. The carefully constructed Sleigh managed to survive the party and will no doubt be re-used for Santa’s arrival at next year’s party. William McKeown ‘tinkled the ivorys’ for us during the carol singing and Sam Donaldson was our happy reindeer for the event. Matthew Ferris who does his Wednesday afternoon Community Action placement at Clifton School was our compère for the party and he did a great job entertaining the children and kept everything running smoothly. The party was a great success and the children of Clifton Special School were thrilled to meet ‘Santa’ and join in with the singing and activities. Immediately after the party a great number of our boys were already ‘signing up’ for next year’s party as they found it such a fantastic and enriching experience.

Our non-uniform days were enthusiastically supported by pupils and staff alike. We raised over £2000 to support charities which included The Salvation Army, World Challenge Expedition, CMF Ireland, Abaana and Storehouse.

If you would like Bangor Grammar School to support a particular charity please feel free to write in to the school with your suggestion or send word in via the pupils.

We had twelve boys taking part in local community placements. These placements consisted of Matthew Ferris at Clifton Special School, Jonathan McCullough at British Red Cross, Sam Donaldson and Chris Lambert at the Ulster Cancer Foundation, Nathan McKee and Paul Shields at Oxfam, James Watton and Ryan Ingham at Abaana, Thomas Cosgrove at Save the Children, Robert Smith and Patrick Crothers at Bangor Central Primary and finally Dennis Campbell at the British Heart Foundation. All boys relished the opportunity to help out the local community and developed close relationships with many people both young and the young at heart!

We would like to thank all these organisations who provided placements for our boys and we would hope this link can continue in the future.

This year we bid farewell to Matthew Ferris, Jonathan McCullough, James Watton and Ryan Ingham as they leave school and venture forth into the world. Good luck with all you choose to do and thank you for the commitment you have shown to the Community Action Placement Team. A special mention must also be made to the following boys who, although were not members of the Community Action Placement Team, were invaluable assets to the organisation of the Clifton School Christmas Party for the previous two years. These young gentlemen were Andrew Thompson, Sean Heron, William McKeown, Jordan Donley, Keith Frizzell and Chris Coulter; thank you all for your hard work.

Fred Gilmour