Summer Madness Concludes with Thousands

|TOP|Summer Madness, the largest Christian youth festival in Ireland, recently wrapped up with more than 3,500 people out in the camping grounds, listening to some of the biggest acts in Christian music.

This year, Summer Madness featured various speakers such as Mike Pilavachi, Phil Collins and Tre Sheppard, and renowned worship leaders Tim Hughes, Johnny Parks, and more.

Among the highlights at the festival were debates such as 'This house believes all XXXXing swearing is wrong' and discussions on the Da Vinci Code and Intelligent Design and Evolution.

Summer Madness director, John Kee said; "It's fantastic that the event has sold out so quickly this year.

"This is now a truly international festival and we're absolutely delighted that it's a sell out."

Countries that booked their youth groups tickets for Summer Madness include Argentina, Kenya, Singapore, Holland, USA and South Africa.

|AD|Directly after this year's event, more than 1,000 volunteers went out to the streets of Belfast for 'StreetReach'. They will work in areas like the Shankill, Falls and Ballymacarrett as well as Tigers Bay and Ballymurphy.

"StreetReach begins on July 4 and ends on July 9 with our volunteers literally going out onto the streets of Belfast to get involved in practical work with local communities," explained Kee.

StreetReach involves young people cleaning streets, doing gardens, painting walls, playing football/hurling/cricket, running kids clubs, delivering window boxes to OAPs, painting murals, putting on community bbqs, taking old people on trips, playing with kids, etc.

To register for StreetReach '07, or for more information about Summer Madness, go to www.summermadness.co.uk.