Magnificent Displays at the Flower Show

Entries may have been down at the 83rd Annual Show staged by the North Antrim Horticultural Association in St Patrick’s Parish Hall, Queen Street, Ballymoney on Saturday 27 August but the competition for cups and prizes was extremely keen.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Sep 2011, 12:48 BST

It was quality rather than quantity with upwards on 500 exhibits in the various classes for flowers, fruit, vegetables, home industries handcrafts and floral art.

Trevor Wright, Chairperson, welcomed a large turnout of visitors to the opening ceremony. He congratulated everyone on the colorful exhibits of flowers, fruit, vegetables, pot plants and the skills of those who exhibited floral arrangements, handcrafts and home industries.

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Trevor called on Sean McCarry, Regional Commander of the Community Rescue Service (CRS), to officially open the Show and say a few words about the work of his organisation. Sean said this was his first experience of a flower show and congratulated all the exhibitors for the magnificent display in the hall. He then explained that the CSR are a completely voluntary organisation who work with the PSNI searching for missing persons in Northern Ireland. He thanked the Association for selecting the CRS as the charity to benefit from the show and said they receive no government funding and rely on donations to carry out their work. He then declared the show open.

Margaret Elliott of the CRS presented the cups and prizes to the successful exhibitors.

Trevor Wright presented a cheque to Sarah Elliott as the Associations donation to the Community Rescue Service.

Trevor Wright proposed a vote of thanks to the Select Vestry of St Patrick’s Parish for the use of their halls, Hubert Taggart of Hugh Taggart and Sons for the use of timber for staging, James Leslie for transportation of staging, to members of Ballymoney Women’s Institute for serving teas during the afternoon, to Ballymoney Borough Council and all our sponsors, to the hard working members of committee especially Kenneth Bacon, Secretary, Auldwyn Calderwood, Show Secretary, Valerie McKnight, Treasurer, Grace Patton and her team for organising refreshments for the judges, to all the Judges, Stewards, Exhibitors and all who helped to erect and remove staging.

The end result was a successful show, although the total number of exhibits was down on last year the standard was every bit as good.

Pictures in this week’s Ballymoney and Moyle Times.