Club Iarmhí membership dwindles at crucial time for fundraising

With just eight people involved in Club Iarmhí, the fundraising arm of Westmeath GAA, volunteers are urgently needed as the county faces some crucial years in their bid to develop training facilities.

With a new centre of excellence very much an objective, the county will be faced with holding major fundraisers in the coming years to ensure it doesn’t become just a pipe dream. In the past two years alone, Westmeath GAA has spent over €140,000 hiring facilities for its county teams to train on.

Westmeath County Committee chairman Frank Mescall, who replaced Billy Foley three years’ ago, issued an appeal for people to assist with fundraising when he addressed club delegates at the recent county convention in Bloomfield House Hotel, Mullingar.

“Sadly fundraising is an inevitable consequence of life in the GAA. Clubs know all about it. As a County we all know about it. We will have to fundraise into the future. There is no getting over it,” he said.

While Club Iarmhí has been quite successful in its fundraising activities over the years, they are in serious need of freshening up in terms of new faces, the chairman feels. Although they combined with the Westmeath county committee to help raise approximately €170,000 for the association last October, clearly there is concern that the low membership base can meet the requirements in the years ahead.

“I don’t want anyone to think for one minute that I am belittling the contribution made by Club Iarmhí. Club Iarmhí and the supporters club before them have contributed massively to Westmeath GAA,” said the chairman.

“At our last meeting they looked back over the last number of years pointing out that they had raised over €1 million for Westmeath GAA. But now they are down to a small cohort of people. You will probably be quite shocked but their committee is now down to just eight people. For a county organisation that is very small. Can they keep going? Yes but at what capacity. Is it the capacity that we require? No, it is not.

“So Westmeath GAA Management have been working in conjunction with Club Iarmhí.

The Quid Game earlier this year was a great success. Prior to this we had the Movathon. What we will have next year I don’t know. We haven’t decided yet.

“I am making an appeal to anyone who would like to get involved with Club Iarmhí, please give me a call. We need new blood in this group. The members of Club Iarmhí would recognise this themselves. I am not talking behind their backs. They need your support,” he added.

The accounts showed that Club Iarmhí has over €48,000 in the bank, having raised just over €19,000 in 2023. Their fundraising efforts were confined to a golf classic (€12,550) and half-time draws at games in TEG Cusack Park (€7,355), but the group were heavily involved in the major fundraising venture, quid game.

Some of the major expenses for Westmeath included meals/catering/nutrition, which came to €178,000, while backroom team personnel cost the county €175,000. Gear and equipment for county players stood at €160,000.

Clubs must find one new referee

Elsewhere, the chairman called on all clubs to focus on the provision of referees for underage games in the year ahead. Clubs failing to meet their obligations are to face penalties next year.

“We are looking for every club to have a minimum of one referee. We have a large number of clubs who supply no referees. The CCC have taken the decision that you, the clubs, have a year to get this in place. After the year if you haven’t supplied at least one referee by 2025 we will be looking at sanctions,” he remarked.

“What kind of sanctions? The sanctions that we see operating in other counties: the loss of home league games. No All-Ireland tickets for the club. Monetary fines. We will be looking at some, or all, of those if your club doesn’t provide a referee. You have over a year to work on this.

“We have too many clubs that don’t provide any referee and they are putting a strain on a very talented, committed group of almost all men, in our county, who are doing ladies football, camogie and adult and underage hurling and football games. We don’t have enough, and some of them are moving on, to put it nicely,” the chairman added.

Call for all semi-finals and finals to be at neutral venues

The Cullion club had three motions on the Clár for county convention and one of those called for all semi-finals to be played at neutral venues, including adult and underage. Delegate Dermot Broughan proposed the motion, but Westmeath county committee chairman Frank Mescall pointed out that the CCC (Competitions Control Committee) could not be restricted when it came to venues.

“We have a junior ‘B’ final, very wet pitches, and the two clubs involved, Coralstown/Kinnegad and Tubberclair decided to toss for the venue,” he explained, pointing out that if the Cullion motion came into effect, this option would not be on the table.

He explained that only lower division finals are played at home and away venues and only a small number of games are involved. However, Mr Broughan claimed the Division 1 semi-finals at underage level in 2023 were not played at neutral venues.

It was agreed that the CCC will take cognisance of the semi-final and final fixtures going forward.