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Westlife have splashed out €25,000 to buy a rare collection of the band's memorabilia -- and it will all mean a financial bonanza for Sligo Rovers.Band member, Shane Filan, confirmed to THE SLIGO CHAMPION that the four Westlife members had agreed over the week-end to make an offer for the collection and they were delighted that a deal had been finalised.

"We first saw the collection five years ago and were very impressed by it. When we heard it was going up for auction, we decided to make an offer and the fact that the money is going to Sligo Rovers is an added bonus. It's a win-win situation for everybody and we're thrilled to have the collection.

"When I heard the memorabilia was going to be auctioned, I contacted the other lads in the band and we were all 100% agreed that we should make an offer.

"Our view was that it was better for the collection to end up with Westlife than anywhere else. We can now put it together with all the other memorabilia we have ourselves so that the complete collection will be in safe keeping. It's hard to put a price on these things but it is of great sentimental value for us", said Shane.

The collection represents ten years of dedicated work for local collector, Gavin Walsh, who assembled the rare memorabilia through a network of over 6,000 collectors from all over the world. Mr. Walsh donated the collection to Sligo Rovers Financial Support Group and they in turn negotiated the sale to Westlife.

"Fair play to Gavin for donating the collection to help Rovers", said Shane. "He put in a huge amount of effort assembling the memorabilia and it was a terrific gesture on his part to pass it on to Rovers"

The extensive collection includes rare posters and promotional material from Westlife's early world-wide tours.

A well-known collector of music memorabilia, Mr. Walsh has no interest in football but was anxious that a local cause should benefit from his collection.

"I have no interest in soccer but I know what Sligo Rovers mean to the town and the local community and that's why I donated the collection to them. I'm delighted that they have reached agreement with Westlife to buy the memorabilia. I don't think the collection could find a better home", said Mr. Walsh.

He explained that he had assembled the collection out of a sense of civic pride.

"Westlife are the best thing to ever come out of Sligo and as a music collector, I felt I had an obligation to get as much of their material as possible.

"It was a labour of love putting it all together over the years and I will feel some sense of loss now that I've let it go. But it has gone to a very appropriate home and will benefit Sligo Rovers into the bargain", he said.

Westlife's Shane will attend Rovers FAI Cup Silver Jubilee function in the Radisson Hotel on Sunday evening when the official hand over of the collection will take place.

RTE's Northern editor, Tommie Gorman, and sports broadcaster, Adrian Eames, will be MCs on the night and the evening's schedule will include footage of the epic 1983 semi-final game against Cobh Ramblers, the final against Bohemians and the memorable homecoming celebrations.

Tickets, costing €60, are available from Caheny's Bar, EJs and Fiddler's Creek.

- Leo Gray

Source:Sligo Champion

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Hi guys,

I'm sorry for not updating these days but I've been having problems with my computer for the last few weeks, so I made a back up and stored all that elswhere. But I'm thinking of getting my entire PC cleaned, including re-installing Windows. Which means I won't be able to update until that is done.. Unless there's something important to tell you all of course and I can still add news. I hope you understand. And you'd make me really happy if you'd vote for me in the anyway. Thanks and hope to be back soon.

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x7

Westlife singer Shane Filan during the Launch of Rally Ireland 2009 which replaces the Monte Carlo rally as the first event of the 2009 WRC Championship. Strandhill, Sligo. Picture credit: Pat Murphy / SPORTSFILE

Source: Sportsfile & Rallyimage

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Thursday October 30 2008
WESTLIFE singer Shane Filan indulged another passion yesterday when he performed rally car stunts on a beach.

The multi-millionaire singer and property developer, who has his own extensive top-of-the range car collection, wasted no time sending sand flying at Strandhill, Co Sligo.

He got behind the wheel of the Citroen C2 belonging to rally champion Shaun Gallagher, to mark the official launch of Ireland's biggest sporting event next year.

"It was amazing, great craic. It was a great rush. I'm glad I did it but I was glad he was beside me because I could have toppled it over," said a delighted Shane afterwards.

He added that although Westlife is on a break, he had no plans for a career change.

"We are definitely taking a break, but I think I'll stick with the group. I don't know about driving rally cars, but it was great fun," he said.

Rally Ireland 2009 will take place from January 29 to February 1 across seven counties in the North West including Sligo, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Cavan, Roscommon, Tyrone and Donegal.

It will mark the opening of the World Rally Championship 2009, which for the first time will be happening in Enniskillen, and not the traditional venue of Monte Carlo.

In 2007, Ireland's first involvement in the WRC, 250,000 spectators viewed the event and an estimated €48m was generated for the North West economy.

Speaking at the launch in the rally headquarters in Sligo, Junior Minister Dr Jimmy Devins, said that next year's event was equally significant.

"2007's Rally Ireland was seen by more than 62 million people in over 180 countries worldwide.

"Rally Ireland 2007 was a huge success due to the organisers, the local community here and the thousands of fans who witnessed this tremendous sport,'' he said.

"I have every confidence that Rally Ireland 2009 will be another major success.''

Chairman of Failte Ireland North West, Paschal Mooney, assured potential visitors that they would have the time of their lives.

Rally Ireland event director, John Naylor, said that the success of the event in 2007 had been recognised by the WRC when Ireland was given the honour of hosting the opening round of the 2009 championship.

- Anita Guidera

Source: Irish Independent / Em for finding

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We've got a fab Westlife widget that's the perfect addition to your website, blog or Myspace profile!

By downloading this cool gadget you can have the totally brilliant Croke Park trailer playing right on your page for all your mates to see. What's more, it's really easy to use - just fill out your details and you'll get a unique code to embed on your site.

Sign up here!

Source:Westlife.com

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Thanks to Rachel for this

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Yes, you might not believe this, but I actually took a look at the emailas I received over the past couple of weeks and I updated some pages with entries:

1 Shane's Words entry
2 Back Home track by track entries
1 affiliate
1 link

Then, what we all have been waiting for, a trailer for Westlife's Croke Park Anniversary dvd, go check it here warning: contains spoilers

And last but defenitely not least, I added 6 'new' Westlife / Shane pictures. I can't remember who posted those anymore, but I guess that would have been Alfee at TheCommitted - I'll check the agency later.

x1

x5

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Hi Laura

We’ve got absolutely tonnes of cool stuff lined up for you this week, including the chance to win tickets to exclusive screenings of Westlife’s brand new DVD and watch a preview of it right NOW!

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We Love Westlife Online Scrapbook
With only a few more weeks to wait until 10 Years Of Westlife: Live At Croke Park DVD hits the shops on 24th November, we’ve set up a brilliant online scrapbook for you to share your memories and show your love for the boys!
Get involved by uploading your photos or artwork in the Guestbook, writing about your memories in the different blogs, signing the whiteboard, sending in your videos and designing a brick for the wall. You can even record a voicemail message for the band using your home phone or mobile!

Click here to join in and become a part of this very special project. The boys can’t wait to look at the finished result!

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Competition # 1 – Win DVD Screening Tickets!
Exciting news – we’re holding preview screenings of the 10 Years Of Westlife DVD at venues around the UK and there are LOADS of tickets up for grabs for Westlife fans!

All screenings take place at 2pm on Friday 14th November at the following locations:

Odeon Covent Garden (London)
Odeon Birmingham
Odeon Silverlinks, Newcastle
Odeon Glasgow Quay

To enter the draw to win a ticket, just fill out the form here.

Competition # 2 – Win An Exclusive Collage!
How do you fancy getting your hands on an exclusive, one-off framed collage of all Westlife’s album covers to celebrate their phenomenal career so far?

Everyone who uploads content into the scrapbook or leaves a memory post in one of the blogs will automatically be entered into a draw to win this brilliant prize. So, get posting!

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DVD Preview
Can’t wait until the DVD is released? We’ve got a little taster of what you can look forward to to keep you going! You’ll find it on the scrapbook page and over at westlife.com right now, where we’re also counting down the top ten Westlife videos, as voted by you!

Want to have the DVD delivered direct to your door? Pre-order it from one of these sites…
Play / HMV / Amazon

For all the latest news, keep it at www.westlife.com.

Love Westlife HQ x

Source: Westlife.com newsletter

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Show your love for Westlife to all your mates by creating a very cool Westlife badge!

Just follow the simple step-by-step instructions in our nifty application and you'll soon be the proud owner of an online badge that you can display on your social network profile pages.

What's more, we'll be selecting some of you that have got the badge on your page to be one of Westlife's Top Friends on Bebo and Myspace over the next few weeks!

Just head to www.westlife.com/badge to create your badge now.

Source: Westlife.com

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Ok, here's the pictures of Patrick's christening in Sligo. This happened on 22nd October. All of them look great, but can I just say that I think Gillian looks beautiful? Wow!
x3 - thanks to Lucy for the article scan & Alfee for the other 2 pictures, Bullspress

Then I also have 2 pics of Shane launching the Sligo Live Festival
x2 - thanks to Katrin for those scans

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