Group Focus: Busy year for Ballyclare

​Joyce McConnell, who was the Group Manager and Agent in the Ballyclare office decided it was time to retire after an impressive 32 years in the role.

Joyce will be greatly missed in the Ballyclare office and also by all her long-standing customers and friends whom she dealt with over the years.

We organised a surprise retirement party for Joyce in the Ballyclare Golf Club in June and it was attended by over 150 customers, friends and family and was a fantastic nights craic.

We are currently appointing a replacement for Joyce who will hopefully join the East Antrim Agency in the Autumn time.

In July we we held our cereal competition kindly judged by Andrew Hyde.

The winners of the Spring Barley competition were 1st Dessie Gillespie, 2nd and 3rd Kyle McCrea.

Winter wheat was won by Sam Marks.

Once again the Ballyclare, Crumlin and Larne Group, jointly had a stand at Antrim Show in July.

The weather this year was fabulous which resulted in a record turnout on the day.

The Group managers welcomed over 500 members and friends to sample the hospitality on offer and to rest their weary legs while catching up on the latest craic!

It’s great to see the show being so well supported and especially the large turnout of livestock in all the classes which meant there was plenty of competition on the day.

We will be organising our winter programme in the coming weeks, and this will be communicated to all the members in September and we look forward to some enjoyable and informative meetings during the second half of 2024.