Club President Duggie Anderson, (right), presents the Paul Harris Citation to Keith Irvine, also pictured is Keith’s wife Norma.
Presenting the Paul Harris award President of the Rotary Club of Comber, Duggie Anderson said “There’s someone here tonight who’s a bit special, who has made a huge contribution to one of this Club’s successful projects for about 10 years and yet has never asked for or received any recognition for it. It gives me the greatest pleasure, on behalf of the Club and CODAG, to present this Paul Harris award to KEITH IRVINE”.
In 1995, the Rotary Club of Comber sponsored CODAG – Comber Drugs Awareness Group. The group ran 4 residential weekends for teachers, school nurses and social workers to learn about drugs and how to deal with them in schools, In all 55 were trained.
CODAG’s next project was much bigger: buying a Life Education Centre mobile unit, hiring an Educator and putting them both on the road, visiting Primary schools in Ards & N Down. There was a lot of money involved, most from the public sector, and it all had to be carefully husbanded. Anyway, it was a success: but schools wanted annual visits. So CODAG bought another unit, and hired two more educators.
You can imagine the headaches! Staff difficulties, scheduling, breakdowns, keeping up to date with the curriculum but, that was nothing compared to the financial problems. As the project grew, so did the paperwork. Every funding body had its own forms, reports, audits, rules and deadlines – and all needed close accurate attention. That CODAG has managed, so far, to disentangle all this red tape is down to one man and we’d like to formally recognise his unstinting work.
The award was presented at the annual Christmas function in Balloo House attended by over 40 Rotarians and guests.
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Submitted by The Editor on Sun, 2007-01-14 00:16.
