Northern Ireland Community Relations Council - About Us - Council Minutes

10 March 2011

Present: Tony McCusker, Sinead McShane, Billy Gamble, Tony Kennedy, David Russell, Katie Hanlon, Hassan Mansour, Rosie McCorley

In attendance: Ellana Tomasso, Bebhinn McKinley, Ray Mullan, Jacqueline Irwin, Duncan Morrow . Patricia O’Neill, Grace Hamilton

1 Welcome and Apologies

Apologies: Stephen Farry, Jonny Byrne, David Porter, Michael Wardlow

2 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Minutes of the previous meeting were taken as read.

3 Chair’s Business

Could members please advise staff whether or not they are able to attend meetings for catering purposes.

Interface Community Partnership meets two weeks before the Interface Working Group – this system connects people and policy makers and information is exchanged. There are issues in that this CRC led work is growing ever bigger and the PD Programme staff team do not have the resources to give it the attention it warrants. Difficult to ascertain the view of OFMdFM in relation to the role of IWG, its sub groups and the work being developed.

New funding programme from OFMdFM and Atlantic Philanthropies needs a more joined up approach. A number of information events have been carried out by OFMdFM & AP and the Chair recommended that a CRC staff member attend at least one of these.

4 Publications

One thousand copies of the CSI response have been published and sent out to various contacts.

The next edition of Shared Space will be out mid March. Ray Mullan gave an overview of the contents.

5 Consultations and Assembly Update

Dympna McGlade outlined the responses that the PD Programme would endeavour to make given the absence of the Policy Officer responsible for this area of work. The Committee was asked to make every effort to give feedback on the responses which would be sent to them via email. The business case for the Policy Officer post has been drawn up for OFMdFM consideration.

Duncan Morrow, Bebhinn McKinley and Michael Hughes presented the Beyond Belfast report to the OFMdFM committee. They were asked to isolate the practical value of this research and outline the next steps.

6 CSI Update and Review

CRC will not have sight of any potential paper until after the Assembly Elections in May. There was meant to be a report on the consultation on 9 March but this has been postponed.

7 Policy Conference

Declan Kelly has not yet confirmed his attendance, therefore the date is still fluid. Duncan agreed to pursue this when he was in USA over the St. Patricks day celebrations.

8 CR Week 2011

CR Week commences on the 23 May and the theme is community relations and the economy. Groups have received mailouts asking them to notify JPR of any events they are planning. There will be a prelaunch event on the 16 May and the brochure should be available at that time.

9 External Communications Review

There was some discussion around CRC’s press releases. There was some discussion around what the future was for the Communications strategy but there was a consensus that CRC needed to have a higher profile.

There was some discussion about the amount of releases and who would be the spokesperson in the follow-up.

10 Draft Advocacy Paper

There was discussion around advocacy ideas (see paper) and Bebhinn will update the paper with the necessary changes.

11 Draft Election Strategy

Please refer to paper that cites pre-election and post election ideas.

12 Draft Barriers Removal Paper

A draft barriers removal sub-group has been formed which will meet with the Departments who have responsibility in these areas. It was decided that the Department of Justice should take this forward on the political side and Dympna agreed to pursue this through the IWG.

13 AOB

Update on CRED policy – the response has gone to the Minister and they are trying to get it launched prior to purdah.

14 Date of Next Meeting

Wednesday 11 May.