Waterwall Pics and weekly Report
The Mayor of Ballymena Mr. Hubert Nicholl plays host to the cyclists who took part in the autumn and winter series of Ballymena Road Club – Northstone - fun cycle tours at a special reception in the Town Hall tonight (Wedesday 14th December)
This year’s series produced sixty medalists with eleven earning bronze for five tours, while seventeen won silver for eight tours and another thirty-two attained gold for eleven or more.
Six cyclists achieved full attendance, namely, Alan Blair, Liz Carey, Christina Clarke, Clifford Grant, Sammy Kerr and Peter Smyth.
Record collection for Chernobyl Children.
John and Eleanor Duffin of the Chernobyl Children’s appeal NI, the chosen charity of this year’s fun tour series, will also be present to accept a cheque for £862, which was the total donated by the fun tour entrants and by those who had taken part in the Nine Glens Challenge in July.
This is just £1 short of last year’s best ever total. Several non cyclists also donated to the fund. (perhaps there may still be a few late donations to break the record)
Ballymena Road Club first became involved with the "CCA” through their touring committee member Martin McKernan who, along with his wife Jennie, acted as a host family for the children.
"After Martin died the club’s touring section decided that it would be a fitting memorial to him if the club carried on his fund raising efforts and here we are, eleven years later, still keeping his name and memory alive.”
"The CCA is a totally voluntary organisation with no paid personnel. All the money is used to bring children from Belarus to NI for a "holiday” in our healthy environment. The host families are also volunteers and they too receive no remuneration.”
"These visits greatly extend the life expectancy of the children whose homeland is still contaminated following the destruction of the nuclear power plant in 1986.” explained one of the fun tour organisers, Richard Wilson
"On 26 April 1986 reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Four hundred times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The plume drifted over extensive parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russiawere badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.”
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