At the Recent Conference organised by the local rotary organisations and the University of Cumbria, I bumped into a striking looking bloke.  he was big and carried himself confidently and was about as Asian as I am Irish.  As we chewed our way through 2 contrasting plates of conference nosh, conversation drifted round to the similarities between the Irish and Kashmiri approach to life.  I won't bore you with the minuteae - suffice to say we had a good crack about life, business and the universe.  Turns out he is pretty much the new face of  AWAZ who are based near Penrith and who work under the umbrella of Cumbria's rural diversity programme who's remit is to promote the better participation of BME (ie Black and Minority Ethnic) people in the county's affairs.