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The Newsletter of Northern Ireland Children's Enterprise

    The evening of Thursday, November 16 will be a very special one for all of us at NICE. A group of eighteen chefs from the major golf and country clubs in Westchester and Putnam will be donating their services to a unique fundraising event, held at The Bronxville Field Club.
    Each chef will prepare a specialty to feature at the various serving stations. The buffet reception will be a taste sensation for all the lucky participants.
    The evening will include a session of traditional Irish music dedicated to the memory of a great supporter of our program, Pete Toner. Leading the group will be three-time All Ireland fiddle champion Brian Conway, with JoEllen King joining him as vocalist.
    One of the highlights of the evening will be picking the winner of this year's NICE 50/50 raffle, who could be going home $10,000 richer if all the tickets are sold. Second prize of $1,000 and three third prizes of $500 will also be offered.
    There will be a maximum of 250 tickets sold in the raffle—with chances this good, call NICE today to be sure you have a chance at the winning ticket!

A NICE Summer
    NICE chairman Don Murphy has spent much of this past summer in Ireland where he has been working on a number of fundraising initiatives for the program.
    For over twenty years we have been bringing children from Northern Ireland to the New York area for a summer holiday, and this year we had a great group of children and host families. We all got together in July at the annual picnic at Putnam County Park, and in August when the NY Yankees donated two hundred tickets for our visitors and host families. The five weeks passed all too quickly, with the weather the biggest problem this year. It seemed more like Belfast than New York!
    Thanks to all our hard-working committee members and to all the golfers who made our summer golf tournaments at Mount Kisco, Wollaston and Mahopac so very successful.

Don Murphy with members of the NICE Dublin fundraising committee,
Teresa Egan (standing), Maura Kitt (left), Áine Kitt Brady (right).

San Francisco, Here We Come
    The first annual NICE San Francisco golf tournament will be held on Thursday, October 12, at the Presidio Golf Course. Chairman of the event is Bill Norris of Montgomery Asset Management.
    Presidio is an exceptionally beautiful course, located just outside downtown San Francisco with breathtaking views of the city and the Pacific Ocean. Built by the US Army in 1895, it is a very challenging course, winding through century-old eucalyptus and Monterey pine trees in the city's trademark hills.
  Corporate sponsorship opportunities, as well as reservations for golfers, are still available. Just call us at (914) 666-6656 if you would like to participate.

It looks like our host family, the Marlins,
was previewing our newest NICE golf tournament
when they took Rachel Ferguson of Belfast (center)
to San Francisco recently.
Tory Marlin (left), Rachel Marlin (right).

Auctions and Prizes and Fun for All
    “It was the opportunity of a lifetime,” says Hal Ofstie, talking about his experience Inside the Ropes with David Feherty at the Sprint Invitational Golf Tournament in Boulder, Co. Hal was the winning bidder for this unique auction item at the first annual NICE Philadelphia golf outing. “We had a detailed look at the operations of the CBS golf broadcast, and spent the day following Els, Norman and Appleby, walking right down the fairway! Really a wonderful way to watch a golf tournament.”
    Auctions for unique prizes and vacations have raised a tremendous amount of money for NICE. All proceeds are used for operating expenses for the program, including the cost of transportation and medical insurance for the children we bring from Belfast each summer. We are most appreciative to all the generous individuals and corporations who have donated these wonderful gifts.
    Twice this year Owenoak International of Norwalk, CT. has donated golf vacations to Ireland, complete with first class accommodations, airfare, rental car and five rounds of golf. At our Palm Beach tournament, the trip for two was through the northern part of the island, with courses like Royal Portrush Dunluce, Portstewart, Baltray, Portmarnock Golf Club, Royal County Down Championship, and County Louth. At our Mount Kisco outing, the tour covered the west of Ireland, including Waterville, Ballybunion, Tralee, Lahinch, Killarney, Dooks and Old Head. These donations from Owenoak are valued at over $10,000!

Mike DelPriore, Jack Nelan, and
Mary Jo Murphy are ready to pick the
next winner at a NICE golf outing.

    If you're wondering why NICE supporters are so “nice”ly turned out, part of the reason is the support we receive from Mike Gibbons at Estée Lauder. Our golfers go home with goody bags brimming with great products. Thanks also to Gerry Gorman and Pfizer for their many donations. For those who have traveled to our seven tournaments all over the country, the accommodations donated by John Fitzpatrick at the Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel are most appreciated.
    Waterford donated a unique commemorative crystal bowl that was a big hit at the Palm Beach outing.
    Gary Sanders at Jewelers of Bond Street in Great Neck, NY donated a lovely hand-made broach with emeralds, diamonds, sapphire and coral.
     Talented artist Jim Fitzpatrick of California has donated prints with a golf theme, like Tom Watson winning the 1982 US Open at Pebble Beach. Claire Grimes at the Irish Echo newspaper has been very supportive of the program, donating Waterford crystal prizes to our raffles at the last few tournaments. This summer Claire sent along copies of IE Magazine with a brilliant article by Charlie Mulqueen rating the best golf courses in Ireland. Our golfers will be well informed when they travel to the Irish links.
    Pat Dooley at Dan Dooley Rent a Car has been a great supporter of the NICE program for many years. He continues to donate the use of his vehicles to NICE. Our friends traveling in Ireland always want to extend their stay at the Killeen House Hotel in Killarney, where Michael and Geraldine Rosney have been entertaining NICE guests for years.
    We can always count on Mike and Mary Lyn McRee at The Caravan Connection in Bedford Hills, NY to bring along beautiful, hand-made rugs for the auction. And of course, so many of our golfers return year after year just to complete their set of beautiful Belfast crystal engraved glasses that Don and Mary Jo Murphy have been donating to the golf tournaments each and every year.

Report from the Executive Director, Northern Ireland Carmel McCavana
    Hello from Belfast. Things in Northern Ireland were reasonably quiet this summer, given that during the past few years the marching season has pre-empted some sort of violence between the communities. However there was an unusually high incidence of sectarian intimidation over the summer with Catholic and Protestant families being intimidated out of their homes by gangs of one kind or another. It seems that despite the peace we have had over the last year the communities are still growing apart, with people reluctant to live in mixed areas or even on interface areas, where Nationalist and Unionist neighborhoods meet, preferring the relative safety of living within their own religious/national group. NICE therefore continues to provide a very important first point of contact for many young Catholics and Protestants. Last year our statistics showed that seventy-nine percent of the young people we worked with had never met a Catholic or Protestant before except through NICE. So we know the reasons why we started NICE in the first place still exist today. It is therefore even more important that our work in reconciliation continues to grow so that intimidation and sectarianism are not experienced by future generations of our young people.
    We had a very busy and successful summer with programs operating in Ballycastle and at our Center in Belfast, as well as a group of thirty-four young people who spent five weeks with host families in New York and Connecticut. The summer in New York was unusually cold and damp but the kids from Northern Ireland must have felt at home in such weather! There were no major problems at all during the trip and our thanks go out to all the host families who provide such great care and love for our young people. Special thanks go to the people who hosted our chaperones, Dave and Mary Hembree who hosted Aideen Cochrane, and Marilyn Colangelo who hosted Sharon Lynn. Both chaperones seem to have behaved themselves, although Aideen's driving did bring her to the attention of some local law enforcement officers!

We held a training session at our Ballycastle center for youth volunteers
who work with the young people over the summer and throughout the year.

    The summer program started for us in NICE in Northern Ireland with a four day residential at the end of June for a group of twenty 16-18 yr. olds. We have been training this group to prepare them to work as volunteers, to help us out over the summer and throughout the year. The feedback from the residential was very positive and as Grainne said in her evaluation 'the youth volunteers were a real gift, they had loads of energy and were really creative.' The youth volunteers then helped to staff the various programs and residentials we had for young people during July and August. One such workshop was on drumming; the young people made some traditional drums and decorated them with their own designs. They also wrote and made the scenery for their own drama, which they will continue to work on over the autumn and winter and which will be performed at the end of the year for parents and friends.

    Other young people spent time in Ballycastle enjoying some very fine weather for the most part and participating in loads of outdoor activities. Many friendships between Catholic and Protestant young people were made during the summer, which will be developed further throughout the year at programs in Belfast and Ballycastle. Many thanks to all who helped out during the summer. A special word of thanks to Marlene Mc Kensie, one of our adult volunteers who took a weeks leave from her job to bring a group of young people to Ballycastle - that's real dedication!

Scenes from the annual NICE picnic for host families and children from Northern Ireland.

Sorcha Tierney of Belfast (front row, center) with the Cruz family and her uncle Martin Keenan.

Chef T.C. Collins with Rachel Ferguson of Belfast and Victoria Marlin of Connecticut.

Schedule of Upcoming Events Fall 2000

Monday, September 18	Second NICE Philadelphia Outing at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill, PA
Thursday, October 12	First Annual NICE San Francisco Golf Tournament at the Presidio Golf Course
Thursday, November 16	Evening at The Bronxville Field Club — see page one for details
Coming in early 2001	Second Annual NICE Golf Outing at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, FL and the Fourth Annual NICE Golf Outing at Pelican Marsh Golf Club in Naples, FL

For further information, or to register for any of these events
just call NICE at
(914) 666-6656
or visit our website at www.nicekids.org

  

NICE TIMES is a publication of
Northern Ireland Children's Enterprise
344 Main Street, Suite 104
Mount Kisco, NY 10549
(914) 666-6656
(914) 666-9417 fax
www.nicekids.org
Please call us with any comments, suggestions or questions.
Kate Cunningham
Executive Director USA

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