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The optimum would be for a GPO to be Cofunded by two clubs and work in areas such as coach development,athletic development,player recruitment if there's an untapped urban area and calling to about 8  primary schools and 1/2 secondary schools.

Funding would come from croke park via the county board,Irish sports council grant and the remainder split between the 2 clubs.

For a tipp class GPO you would be looking at a base of €35k upwards plus phone/fuel expenses etc

You weren't so smart when Batman served it up to you, so practice what you preach and don't even try to get snide with me. I'm not a coach. I don't want to be a coach. We have plenty of good people out there, but we'll have to pay them. I have no problem putting my hand in my pocket to help provide for that.

When I read some of the posts on here, I realise why we're so far behind, and getting further detached. It's 2020 lads. Despite what we're routinely told, the GAA is at the very least semi professional in some areas. Volunteering plays a part for sure, and it has its place. But not at the head of the queue.

Stay running off your gob here son and telling the rest of us where we are going wrong rather than getting up off your lazy hole and doing something about it.

At the least the rest  of us here are involved in trying to move the boulder..

Fair enough you won't coach

There's loads of other jobs in every club begging for volunteers,no doubt you'll be first to volunteer.

[Half of these courses time are taken up telling you how not to be a paedo.]

And we don't do that already? What an absolute joke. Asking lay volunteers to up the ante and attend a few courses and all of a sudden you're an expert. No kid deserves to be coached by some wannabe who fancies themselves as the next Jim McGuinness or Davy Fitz. Half of these courses time are taken up telling you how not to be a paedo. No thanks. All of that is great when it's backed up by proper coaching structures monitoring each kid and local mentor. Unfortunately, there's far too many of our kids being "coached" by classroom experts.

So many good ex players studied on that course in Carlow under Mick Dempsey. They are the ones who need to be targeted. And yes, it would cost money, and yes, we would have to fundraise. But it sure as hell beats the crap out of know nothings taking a few classes and suddenly knowing it all. Let's be a little bit professional in our approach, please.

Easily known you've never been on one then.

Every club should be aiming to have all the coach's with at least a foundation course under their belts and trying to get as many up to level 1 and possibly even level 2.

There's no shortage of other courses and resources out there also

I presume you are on Martin Fogartys mailing list for the 4 sessions hes running in Jan/Feb

Habits both good and bad are picked up by kids early on and people knowing what they are doing helps

Some of the best coaches ive seen have had little or no skills as hurlers but have a love of the game,are willing to educate themselves and are good with kids,some of the worst Ive seen have had stellar playing careers.

I've seen a few excellent coaches at club level in the county at juvenile level, we just don't have enough of them at the minute.

As regards your comment about getting in coachs and paying them,We cant even fill the 4 GDA's positions at the minute,lets get that sorted first.

Can someone tell me why clubs in Laois are prepared to shell out €10,000 - €15,000 a year for a manager but wouldn't have the foresight to instead pump funds into hiring a Development Officer (even on a part time basis) or even compensate a few coaches within their club to go into the local school/schools in their catchment area?

Setting aside €2000/€3000 (hypothetical figures) per year to pay for every underage coach within the club to partake in coaching courses, have a coach education weekend where a big name coach comes down and all your coaches attend and hopefully pick up new techniques, drills etc.

Soccer clubs even at local level seem to be light years ahead of GAA clubs, despite having far less money and it's baffling.

There's a school club coaching grant available

The GAA will fund a GDA to the tune of €18k PA..

It's being done elsewhere where 2 clubs in separate divisional areas  within a county hire in a GDA.

Nevermind Dublin clubs

Nothing to stop 2 clubs here both selling 100 odd county board tickets each and doing similar.

Id agree with everything that Merman has posted and i hope that Peter comes back to the Gda role for Portlaoise Parish and all the other 4 Gda roles are filled asap.

In relation to Boys in School in Portlaoise Parish across the 8 schools (I'm counting holy family senior and junior schools as separate entities)

They are currently 1784 boys in Primary Education.

In Relation to u14 Hurlers

We currently have 18 teams playing u13 hurling in the 2019 championship,assuming an average of 18 players per squad

We are looking at 320 odd hurlers wouldn't it be great for the county if we could get that up by another 100 at that age grade over a 3 to 5 year time frame

Short term no need to worry about Portlaoise being a super club in hurling. They are in quite a bad place currently. There have been occasional green (and white!) shoots but there is 10 years work required to get them even back to where they were in the 90s.

If it does happen that Portlaoise become a dominant club then there are options. The town is more than big enough to support two clubs as is the case in many other county towns. However we are a million miles away from that. Not investing in Portlaoise because of an unfounded fear of the Dublin effect is madness.

Where did anyone say not to invest in portlaoise because of a Dublin type effect?

There's 5 clubs in the Portlaoise area

Build them all up

Juvenile is from U17 down

For the purposes of player registration

Minor is on its own

Juvenile membership figures includes u15 down

I did some number crunching on the 2019 registered juvenile players with the various clubs

Juvenile includes from u15 down

Top 10 Largest clubs by Juvenile Playing numbers

1.Portlaoise 505 Registered Juveniles
2.Ballyfin 229 and yet are part of a hurling amalgamation
3.Ballyroan 206 Portlaoise is bigger than the next 2 clubs put together and we are only scratching the surface of gaelic games participation in the town
4.Abbeyleix
5.O'Dempseys
6.Ratheniska
7.Rosenallis
8.The Heath
9.Kilcavan
10.Port

The bottom 10
Kyle
Clonad
Slieve Bloom
Colt/St Fintans
Shanahoe
Kilcruise
Trumera
Courtwood
Ballypickas
Annanough

I disagree HF. If (and it's a big IF) it was done properly it would destroy GAA everywhere outside of Portlaoise. Kids who have no chance of winning drop off, kids who are getting hammered even more so.
Rejuvenation needed in Portlaoise, but a carefully chosen path required to avoid destroying internal club competitions. Not an easy task.

The flip side of the coin is the current state of affairs, and that is simply not good enough. Too many kids are being lost to the GAA, and a club that should be productive has been ignored. A lot of people beckoned this day forward. Well here it is, and there's no improvement whatsoever. There are too many clubs anyway. A lot of them doing no more than hanging around. So many people involved are doing no more than getting on the treadmill. It's stale. It's unproductive, and worse than all that, the standard is poor. New thinking is needed. Asking people to keep flogging the dead horse, and redouble their efforts, is quite frankly insulting.

The strategic plan had 10 clubs all rural in danger of disappearing in the next decade

I think it's completely counter productive the idea that Portlaoise should be turned into some sort of super club

Have we learned nothing from Dublin?

Anytime I suggested a GDA for portlaoise,it was for Portlaoise Parish

The next census there will 26,000 people living in portlaoise,between a quarter to a third of the total population of the county

The aspiration should be to have 5 strong dual clubs operating in the Portlaoise Parish area

This is in conjunction with a games manager and 4 GDA positions for the rest of the county.

The budgets are in place

It would be great if we could fill these positions and keep them filled,something we hasn't been done up to now

Mike and Jason are doing the best they can with the resources they have. Anybody else see an email today from Mike Henchy looking for coaches/mentors for the development squads? It mentions they asked over 80 people to get involved last year with very little positive responses. Everyone loves coming on here for a whinge but very few want to get involved and help out.

Both Mike and Jason are doing their best and hopefully in time they will get their rewards

Not one bit surprised at that figure

Other counties there would be killings for lads to get on board and mentor development squads

Not here

Just  another example of apathy

Cabbages 2 Eddie Brennan 0

A result just in from tonight's convention


No motions

No question to the top table

Move on,nothing to see here

That's a great read Clonadmad. Big money, facilitates and resources needed to get these type of underage structures right-having UL on their doorstep, people like Cregan and an enviable budget certainly played their part in achieving what they achieved.

A major reason for upturn in Limerick's fortunes has been the promotion of hurling in the city. Huge increase in numbers and interest in GAA. Sadly, previous strategic plans in our own county have noted the need to do something similar in Portlaoise. We are still waiting to see the same upsurge as what Limerick experienced. In fact, I would suggest GAA in Portlaoise at juvenile level has nosedived in the other direction.

If we unearthed a JP in the morning to give us millions

It wouldn't matter a jot as we wouldn't have the numbers of enthusiastic and more importantly hurling qualified people to implement any plan

The initial limerick plan back in 2011 had well over a hundred seriously committed hurling people on board willing to give huge tranches of their time for a 5/6 year time frame

Money is just one component of any plan

That's a great read Clonadmad. Big money, facilitates and resources needed to get these type of underage structures right-having UL on their doorstep, people like Cregan and an enviable budget certainly played their part in achieving what they achieved.

A major reason for upturn in Limerick's fortunes has been the promotion of hurling in the city. Huge increase in numbers and interest in GAA. Sadly, previous strategic plans in our own county have noted the need to do something similar in Portlaoise. We are still waiting to see the same upsurge as what Limerick experienced. In fact, I would suggest GAA in Portlaoise at juvenile level has nosedived in the other direction.

Someone suggested earlier that Portlaoise's move out of town has been a blow to the club and Id agree. A very low % of the town population could conveniently walk or cycle to the new pitches. This adds a new layer of difficulty as lifts out and back are now needed.

Its a bit like leaving your hurl at the back door. If its there you are much more likely to pick it up because its handy. But if you put it on a shelf in the garage that needs a ladder to get it, you will never use it.

Perhaps Portlaoise and The COE would have suited better the opposite way around with Portlaoise retaining their pitch beside O'M Park?

There isn't even a pathway for walking or a cycle path out to their grounds to encourage anyone that might inclined either