Great turnout out at annual display

Great turnout out at annual display

21 March 2018

THE annual display of 2nd Ballynahinch Boys’ Brigade Company was held last Friday evening in Ballynahinch Congregational Church Hall.

The church minister and chaplain of the Company, Rev Dr George Speers, chaired the evening’s proceedings and the guest of honour was Mr Sam Donaldson.

All sections put on an excellent display with a variety of sketches, games and drill. Instrumentals were also performed by members of the Junior Section, Matt Courtney and Benjamin McCartan.

The Company bade farewell to Junior Section Officer Stephen Nesbitt and Anchor Boy Officer Stephanie Rea after many years of faithful service.

Company captain Mark Bell presented Stephanie and Stephen with a gift on behalf of the Company to acknowledge their service and thanked them for the time and support they devoted to the Boys’ Brigade. Both officers will be greatly missed as they were very dedicated to their role.  

Company Section boys James Douglas, James Long, Jonathan Shannon and Daniel McKibben were presented with their President’s badge after successfully achieving it this year.

Five Company Section boys will be leaving the Company this year and were presented with Boys’ Brigade Bibles to remind them of their time in BB. They are Alex Burtney, Corey Fitzpatrick, Nathan Cowan, Oliver McKibben and Matthew Gibson. 

This year brought many achievements for the Company in many different areas. Dylan McCandless, from Anchor Boys, won the Down Battalion colouring competition for the P4 age group. 

The Anchor Boys finished runners-up in the Down Battalion duster hockey competition. The Boys missed out on the trophy by one goal and everyone played brilliantly.

The Junior Section football team won the Down Battalion five-a-side football competition, beating 3rd Kilkeel 2-0 in the final. This was a hard fought tournament and every boy played their part. The team will now represent Down Battalion in the Northern Ireland finals on Saturday, April 28, in Magherafelt. 

The Junior Section also won the Down Battalion ure Shield this year. This is an excellent achievement for the Company and is the core business in the Boys’ Brigade, which seeks to advance Christ’s Kingdom among the boys.

Finally, the Company Section five-a-side football team w were runners-up in this year’s Down Battalion football competition. The team scored lots of goals to get to the final, which they lost on penalties after the score was 0-0 at full time.