Recent Progress

4 C UR Future

In partnership with the Northern Regional College, Council organised a ‘4C UR Future’ event, which was part of Mid and East Antrim’s Enterprise Fortnight. Over 150 school children from Ballymena Academy, St. Patrick’s College, Carrickfergus Grammar and Larne High School took part in action-packed workshops, enabling them to experience typical engineering roles; speak with staff from local businesses; experience a range of interactive exhibits including virtual reality welding headsets, drones, generators and a full-scale Wrightbus. Local organisations that took part in the event included Caterpillar Northern Ireland, Clarke Façades, Cranswick, GES Group, IPC Mouldings, McAuley Engineering, Plotbox, Ryobi, Sensata Technologies, Wrightbus and Yelo.

MEA Council will continue to organise events like these in partnership with the NRC as the feedback both from school children and local businesses has been extremely positive. Council believes that participatory events like ‘4C UR Future’ are extremely important in ensuring that the young people of our Borough are aware of the opportunities that our local businesses can offer. By showcasing the variety of paths available to our young people within these industries, we are helping keep the sector a vibrant and forward-thinking one to establish and to develop a career in.

Volunteer Survey

Volunteer Now carried out a survey which aimed to capture the vacancies and skills needs of partner organisations to inform the next steps for the Delivery group. This survey received 41 responses and has provided a useful baseline for future working, the Delivery group will now use this survey to progress the volunteer gap that currently exists for local businesses.