The GPA - Questions & Answers.

[Bud Wiser]

Right folks.  A new thread to deal specifically with the questions and answers for the GPA.  I received an email before Christmas from Mr Potts.  I have now replied to that email.  See below. As far as I am concerned now all the discussions are over, we have talked this thing to death over the last five or six years so this thread is not for another discussion as we can use the one below.  This thread is for to publish the replies we get from the GPA and to comment on those replies only.  I am proposing to provide one answer to one question at a time.  This board is , as far as I know,  the only one that has had decent discussion about the GPA and there are pro and anti members here and it is a credit to us that we can still discuss and put our viewpoints across without the adminstrator having to intervene. Now let us keep it that way and respect the answers we receive because up to now the GPA have respected us and whatever the final analyses we can't take that from them.

This is a copy of the reply I sent today.  Now we must wait.

Hi Sean,



Thank you for your mail before Christmas, now it is the New Year and time to get all them unfounded fears out of the way.



I have prepared the questions that are the most commonly asked ones, or from your side of the fence, the ones that are causing you the most problems.

To be honest I do not think there is a man among us that would not want to see all of us sitting around and eating from the one table, nor is there one among us who do not respect the individual achievements of your associations executive and bord of directors both on and off the field.



You may view the 10 questions I have asked at   .........

Please remember that your replies will be brought to the attention of thousands of members of the GAA Discussion Board and in this regard I will ensure that each answer is treated with respect.

I really really hope that at the end of the open forum that we have created that people like myself will be less begrudging of your association and that if the GPA is to co-exist with the GAA that it will do so in an all embracing way right down to junior club level instead of being perceived as an elite group of a minority trying to control the GAA from an outside independent company.



I await your reply with a great deal of excitement.



Tom Fennelly




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Press [mailto:press@gaelicplayers.com]
Sent: 17 December 2009 09:22
To: fennetec@eircom.net
Subject: Meeting in the GPA



Dear Tom



Your communication regarding a meeting with the GPA has been brought to my attention. I will contact you in early January to arrange a meeting and will give you due notice when you can forward any questions you wish to raise.

[Denn Forever]

Whats the starter for 2p?

[tyronefan]

any chance of posting the questions Bud

[Bud Wiser]

Sorry, no I won't be posting the questions until the GPA have received them. Then, to avoid a whole new avalanche of comments and postings what I propose to do is to post the first question or first two and the answers I received to them one day and then follow on with the next questions after we have digested the first ones. After we have looked at them all we can take a general consensus but if I post all the questions now it would not be fair to the GPA and it would only confuse things.  Hang in there Tyronefan.

Also, the questions I have asked are from the most common questions that have been mailed to me by GAA members, and when I say GAA members I mean in some cases active members who are playing club football and hurling. The level of interest in this has surprised me so the GPA will hopefully answer the questions and we can go from there.

[ha ha derry]

Any date for the meeting Bud ?

[Bud Wiser]

Any date for the meeting Bud ?

Other than getting this back.

Hi Tom
Thanks for that. I'll pass on the questions and send on a few possible dates for the meeting first thing in the morning.

Regards

Seán

No more details posted here now until date is given.

[Denn Forever]

Bud, can you lock the thread until you have received answers so it isn't filled with crap like this.

[Bud Wiser]

Any date for the meeting Bud ?

Got the following date today. 

"Hi Tom

Sorry for delay coming back to you, took me quite a while to go through your document.
After looking at our schedule, I can organise a meeting for the week starting Mon Jan 25. If you could suggest a day and time that week I will confirm in due course.

Originally you mentioned 10 questions but from my own reckoning, you have asked over 40. I appreciate you are passionate about the subject but could you edit your submission down to the 20 most pertinent objective questions please so that we can have a decent, focussed discussion. I think this is fair.

It may be worth pointing out at this juncture that several of your questions are leading questions which you may want to reconsider before we meet "

So I have responded as follows:

"Thanks again.  Yes, I agree that there are over forty questions instead of ten but sure anything is worth trying once. Some questions are repetitive so I will resubmit the questions in the format you suggest.

I will send you a revised format and lesser number of questions before next Monday.

I am unsure of what you mean when you say that some of my questions are leading questions but if you wait until I submit the new format we can work it out.

Just for clarification very few of the questions are my questions but rather questions from hundreds of members of the Gaa Discussion forum most of whom are club players and even some of them, county players.

The week starting Monday 25th is fine with me and I will fall in with any date and time you choose.  Now that you have confirmed the meeting is going ahead can you please let me know if I can bring one person with me who would be an active club player because my last club playing days were back with Eoghan Ruadh in the Joe Towell era and I feel that a currently active club player would be better able to put forward the concerns that they wish to raise than myself.  However, do not let this request be a reason for postponement or cancelling our current affirmative agreement to meet or be seen as another attempt by me to move the goalpost again.

I will forward you a revised list of questions and then you can come back and say they are acceptable and when the meeting will take place and who can and will attend.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply and for your continued interest in this matter.

[orangeman]

Bud - you asking leading questions ?? Tut tut !

[Bud Wiser]

Hi lads again.

Ok, just for the purpose of those who have PM'd me let me explain again.  I will not be providing the list of questions to anyone before the meeting other than the GPA. There is a good reason for this, the main one being that I don't want to be reading in the Evening Herald or the Independent articles like "Gaa Discussion Forum Challenge GPA over A,B,C & D Issues" or something like that before we even give them a chance to reply.  That is not to say that every single concern that has been mailed to me will not be addressed and I can only formulate the questions from the issues you have raised.

They have indicated I have too many questions and I think I had about sixty. Recognition of club players was a concern of a poster from around the middle of Louth for example and since that would be an obvious question there is no harm in providing it as an example. I had presented it in the following format which meant there were about ten questions in the one;

Q6.  CLUB PLAYER/COUNTY PLAYER.
Why do the GPA differentiate between club and county player as far as welfare is concerned .  Now, it has to be admitted here that the GPA have done some good and county boards did act disgracefully for years. I can only give the example of my most favourite footballer of all time, Joe Higgins. Joe suffered a serious injury against Westmeath and  he was flown out to Colorado where he got the best  of treatment but the facts are that, unless you tell me otherwise, it is the policy of the GPA to only look after players who are members of the GPA and you can not become a member of the GPA unless you are playing on your counties senior team.  So while Joe is flying at 30,000 feet to Colorado there could be a junior player lying in a heap on the pitch in Ballinakill after giving his all for his club and he could find himself out of work for six weeks (maybe six months if it were Castletown v Clonad !)  and not get a shilling.  Why is a junior club member not as important to the GPA as a senior county player?  I will put it a different way, why is the wife of a family of six children whose husband is self employed and out of work not as much entitled to put food on her table for her family as a member of an association that her husband is prevented from joining and what is the benchmark for a club senior player qualifying to become a full member of the GPA with all the associated benefits that compare with say the Cork senior hurling team.

Now as you can see there would be a lot of debate on that one question alone because it addresses about six issues like how much is full membership, how many full members, what benefits, what about personal sponsorship deals being part of overall benefits, can the GAA now allocate their annual players welfare fund exclusively to club players since the GPA are looking after the county players, what happens if a county senior player declines the offer of joining the GPA, etc, etc.

Some of the other questions would be fairly obvious as well like company structure, accounts, membership, associated companies, goals for the future etc, etc.  However, I am not posting these here until after the meeting and for the last time I am asking can ye appreciate that and my reasons for not doing so. 

If you still have questions that you want asked please PM them to me before Monday morning.  Other than that, please do not PM me asking for the list of questions.