The future of laois hurling

[Keyser Söze]

Some good suggestions re funding a GDA.
Mountrath, Camross & Castletown parishes for example should be able to fund a full time GDA if they wanted. I think there's 5 clubs there. Am I correct in saying that they would need to fund half of the GDA's wage between them?
I think there are 8 schools in that area. Certainly enough work for a GDA, maybe too much actually when club duties are also added in.

On the point I brought up re a second club in Portlaoise. if there was a serious investment and intent to improve participation in the town, it would be too late waiting for it to be successful to look to start a new club.
Good luck telling parents and kids in 10 years that they have to leave this super successful club with a tradition and join a new one.
Or that they can't play for the same successful club as older brothers or cousins or neighbours.
I think this would meet serious resistance.

[High Fielder]

Agreed Keyser. This is the way to go. Investment first and foremost. What parent wouldn't pay a few quid to have their kid trained properly? We can't duck the extra funding issue forever. We need it. Simple as.

As for Portlaoise, there are enough grades for them to enter all the teams they need. Splitting Portlaoise is a non starter imo, and non negotiable for any serious Portlaoise GAA person. There are probably a lot of kids in Portlaoise who would never see a GAA pitch anyway, no matter what is done to encourage them. The trick here is to keep the ones that start, and get the attrition rate lower

[clonadmad]

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.

[High Fielder]

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.

[clonadmad]

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.

[High Fielder]

I take it you don't own a mirror 😂. I'm happy with my own contribution. I do as much as I can with a young family and a job. But I know when to be quiet, so I'll leave you to it

[Laois Rising]

Excellent idea to group clubs together in Laois to raise necessary funds for a GDO. Need to show some out of the box thinking on this to maximize resources. If Abbeyleix, Ballypickas and Ballinkill  (maybe one other) clubs pooled together they potentially could afford the cost of a GDO that would then rotate between the schools and club training. If I had a choice I would much rather put my money here (long-term pay off) than on paying the cost of an outside manager.

[clonadmad]

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

[Keyser Söze]

I'm not sure who has decided what the optimum number of clubs is? The reality is that this is Laois, there is a smaller pool of corporate support, much smaller revenue streams and no club (as far as I know) operating a bar to bring money in.
I think if we started with 3 or 4 clubs managing to do it between them we would be doing well for a start.

[clonadmad]

I'm not sure who has decided what the optimum number of clubs is? The reality is that this is Laois, there is a smaller pool of corporate support, much smaller revenue streams and no club (as far as I know) operating a bar to bring money in.
I think if we started with 3 or 4 clubs managing to do it between them we would be doing well for a start.

No one has decided who the optimum number of clubs is

But from talking to people who work in the area,they are saying with 3/4 clubs,they would be stretched very thin with the workload,if it was going to be done right and there's also the attendant politics and optics of being "fair" to every club.

That's all

I know of 2 rural clubs that are sharing a GPO,they have to come up with €13k each every year,but they have made the decision to not pay any outside managers and have a concerted effort made to sell more county board tickets.

Thats how they are funding it.

[clonadmad]

An initiative that I'd like to sell in all laois post primary schools every year


https://twitter.com/cbsnenagh/status/1339714245429239810?s=21

[Keyser Söze]

In an ideal world they would be working for 1 club.
You also have to be realistic and start with a manageable step. And I think number of primary schools to be serviced is possibly more important than number of clubs

[merman]

I believe Peter Halley was involved with the process of establishing club GPOs during his time in Wexford but I'm not positive on that. It is definitely interesting to see it being debated and thought-out here.

I wonder is there an opportunity within the club-school link model to get things started in a very simple way?
If we have maybe half of our primary-schools currently "employing" a club-school coach then it leaves say 30 schools without one.
Could the juvenile coordinators in each club get in touch with their respective schools, find out how many hours a week they can have access to the kids and bring the information to Mike Henchy or a nominated GDA? If the 30 schools could stretch to an average of say two hours a week then we have 60 hours a week. That could cover 3-6 students with a very decent part-time job when such jobs aren't exactly plentiful. And I'd imagine I'm being conservative on what schools could avail of this and how many hours could be offered.

If these coaches only got an extra hour a week into 7-10 year olds or found a few extra players at nursery level, it'd be a sound investment.

It used to be the case that the club cover half of the hourly rate and the county cover the other half. This makes it more palatable for the club and it takes some of the pressures off the already over-stretched GDAs.

[Keyser Söze]

Ye it's an obvious, achievable and important first step Merman. One that every club should be taking ownership of. And if it's not happening the CB should be pressuring for it to happen.
You'd wonder are clubs who have the link in even in touch with schools to check that they are getting maximum access etc.
Also, your point on offering the hours to students on associated courses is a good one. It'd be mutually beneficial and there are plenty of them around.

[Ogie]

Some chance missed with our Minors this year, Offaly now in a Leinster final.