Category: News

Colin Glen Forest Park in West Belfast has lifted a prestigious all Ireland trophy at the inaugural awards ceremony in the RDS last week. Up against some of Irelands most illustrious woodlands in Ireland, Colin Glen emerged victorious in the Community Woodland category of the RDS Irish Forestry Awards.

Colin Glen Forest Park has been on a journey from refuse to recreation since its inception in 1989. As a reclaimed landfill site in West Belfast, the Colin Glen area transformed with the addition of pathways, substantial tree planting, and significant cleanups in the late 80’s / early 90’s. More recently the park has developed into a real community asset. Faced with uncertainty due to decreasing financial support for the natural environment from local government, Colin Glen Trust has successfully introduced a number of sustainable projects to generate income, create local employment and boost the number of visitors, volunteers and leisure opportunities in the area, while ensuring the survival of the valuable woodland asset.

The Community Woodland Award is designed to encourage and reward projects involving community woodlands and forests which have been established and managed in a way which is sustainable and beneficial to the landscape, the local people, biodiversity and the economy. Entries were invited from woodland owners or managers from the public and voluntary sectors throughout Ireland. As a first time entrant in the RDS Spring Forestry Awards, Colin Glen Forest Park was up against other organisations who use trees, woods and forests to improve the places where people live, bring benefits to people e.g. health and well-being, recreation, education and training and who strengthen communities e.g. diversity and inclusion, volunteering and active participation and following a rigorous inspection visit by the judges it was decided that the work which has been undertaken by the Trust should be recognised.

Over the past year Colin Glen Forest Park has welcomed over 265000 visitors onto its site and has continued to develop a top quality outdoor pursuits centre in the urban park which attracts thousands of families and teenagers each year to undertake adrenaline based activities, whilst others with younger families have found favour with the introduction of Ireland’s only official Gruffalo & Stick Man Activity trails. Now offering an annual programme of environmental education, youth work and leisure & sporting events the park is attracting people from all over the world as Paul Bennett – Park Warden explains “The footfall has increased dramatically over the last few years. As well as the many regular local users, we are welcoming families from all over the country and from foreign climes. We have had visitors from all over Europe, USA, Canada, and as far away as Asia! It’s great to see so many smiley young & old faces enjoy our woodland.”

This in turn has helped the forest park grow in popularity and has secured a bright future for the Glen as it continues to deliver a unique, tranquil yet fun and engaging space for many visitors throughout the year.   Colin Glen is working towards becoming one of the first sustainable forest parks in Northern Ireland through a mixture of environmental education, outdoor recreation and community sport & leisure programmes, to ultimately ensure the protection of this natural environment in its urban setting.

With new & unique capital projects nearing fruition including Ireland’s first ever Alpine Coaster, Super Zip Line’s, Ireland’s first interactive Golf Driving Range and Mountain Bike trails, the park’s master plan is to fully cement itself as a top leisure & tourism attraction in the country. On receipt of the award, Chief Executive Colin O’Neill expressed his delighted to be recognised for the hard work undertaken by staff and volunteers over the last 30 years;

“This is a huge honour for the Trust to receive the inaugural All Ireland Community Woodland award.  Colin Glen Forest Park is a real gem for the people of West Belfast and beyond and we are doing everything we can to ensure that it survives.  This award is recognition for the hard work of everyone connected to Colin Glen Trust.  It is an exciting time for the Trust and having secured capital investment we should soon see some new features that are sure to bring even more people into this award winning forest park”.

#RowAMarathon

Gym10 at Colin Park Leisure will be hosting a charity Rowathon on Friday 16th June from 1pm – 5pm. Teams & individuals can take part in this event supporting Bowel Cancer UK. With over 16 business across Belfast and beyond signed up to take part, this looks set to be a great event.  To take part E-mail colinpark@colinglentrust.org contact 02890614115. To Donate £3, simply text ‘ROWM50 £3’ to 70070

Marty Hamill, Public Legal Services Division, has recently returned from his secondment with the Prince’s Trust. Below he shares some of his experiences as an Assistant Team Leader.

In June 2016 I successfully applied for a secondment with the Prince’s Trust to become an Assistant Team Leader on their Team Programme in the Colin Glen Forest Park in west Belfast. My secondment began on 19^th September when I met with my new colleagues Brendan (Team Leader), Francine (Assistant Team Leader) and Rory (Delivery Manager).

The first few weeks of the secondment was to go out about around the local JBOs, hostels, homeless shelters and other various organisations within the area in order to recruit young people between the ages of 16 to 24 on to our programme. This was very challenging and I got to see first-hand the effects that substance abuse, mental health issues, homelessness and other challenges that our young people face on a day-to-day basis. It really made me realise just how lucky I was that I avoided any of these pitfalls when I was growing up. Seeing these things made me more determined to help people out and give them a hand in getting their lives back on track again and hopefully get back into some sort of education programme or employment and bring a bit of self-esteem back.

A few weeks into the programme we took our group away on a 2 night residential to Cornmill Quay in Annalong, Co Down, where we engaged in lots of fun activities including rock bouldering, kayaking, mountain bike riding around Castlewellan Forest Park and a hike around Silent Valley. This 2 night stay was great in that it gave the young people a chance to get away from their troubles at home and to have some space of their own maybe to clear their head and to give them a chance to do things they normally wouldn’t have the chance to. A great time was had by all.

Part of the programme also is a 2 week work placement in a field of the young person’s choice. This was an excellent opportunity for them to sample what it would be like to work in that field and maybe also to rethink their career choice if the placement was not to their liking. Placements ranged from office work to dog grooming and working in a dentist. All participants got so much out of this experience and some even managed to get a permanent placement which is the aim of the programme.

We also embarked on a community project where our team have to come up with an idea to give something back to the community. Our project was to restore an old rowing boat and turn it into a memorial to be situated at the lake in Colin Glen where a lady had tragically passed away last summer as the result of an accident involving a quad bike. We had to contact her family to get permission and they were absolutely delighted with the gesture from our group and gave the project their full backing.

All in all I would have to say that I enjoyed my Prince’s Trust experience and although at times it was tough to get our group motivated to come in every day (it’s a voluntary programme), I think we all achieved something through working together, and I have a sense that I have helped people to achieve their goals and point them in the right direction. I would recommend anybody to give it a go and hopefully you will get as much out of it as I have.