Agenda item

            The Committee was reminded that a major exhibition entitled ‘Shared History: Different Allegiances’ had been commissioned earlier in the year to mark the Decade of Centenaries and covered the period 1912–1914.  It had been launched at the beginning of August and would be in place in the East entrance of the City Hall until the end of February, 2013.  The exhibition had received much positive media coverage and the feedback from the numerous visitors had been very encouraging.

            The Good Relations Manager reported that, at the beginning of September, Ballymena Borough Council had contacted the Council requesting the Good Relations Unit to facilitate a visit by a number of their Elected Members and senior staff.  That cross-party visit had taken place on 12th September and had been very successful, with the Ballymena representatives stating that they had enjoyed the visit and were very impressed with the exhibition.  The matter had been discussed within the Ballymena Borough Council and at their monthly meeting in October it had unanimously agreed to host the exhibition.  Subsequently, a formal request to borrow the exhibition and display it in the Braid Town Hall Museum and Arts Centre for a period of four months next year, that is, from March till June, 2013 had been received.  The Braid Centre was a new purpose-built museum and arts venue and would draw a whole new audience from a wider region.

            The Good Relations Manager reminded the Members that the exhibition had been designed specifically so that it could be dismantled, transported and re-mounted elsewhere, as it had been envisaged being displayed, for example, in another venue in Belfast and had also specified that the design should be modular so that individual elements or panels within the exhibition could be loaned out for display.  The Ballymena representatives had already discussed the possibility of making slight amendments to some of the panels to give them more of a “Ballymena” focus.  Some of the artefacts currently in the glass display cases would not automatically be included in the travelling aspect of the exhibition but Ballymena might be able to make their own loan arrangements with the owners of those objects and the Council could assist in that.

            The exhibition had been funded under the District Council Good Relations Programme by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister at a cost of approximately £45,000.  That Office, as principal funder, had indicated that it was delighted to hear of the very positive feedback regarding the exhibition and was very supportive of the proposal to stage it in another district council area, since that would demonstrate collaborative working and sharing of public resources within the good relations sector.  The Good Relations Manager pointed out that the costs of the removal and the re-build of the exhibition would be met by Ballymena and would be at no cost to the Council.

            The Committee approved of the loan to Ballymena Borough Council of the exhibition for a period of four months, subject to the satisfactory completion of an appropriate loan agreement which would be drawn up by the Legal Services Section.