GAA ambition

[irunthev]

Following on from the concerns raised by the Louth contingent on here, what sort of ambitious projects have your own clubs / counties attempted in the past? Which have been successful and which haven't, which have been bizarre and which innovative?

[Oakleafer93]

We have just built a massive new state of the art complex with 3 astro turf pitches, that are suitable for playing all GAA sports, as well as a gym and new changing rooms.

[irunthev]

We have just built a massive new state of the art complex with 3 astro turf pitches, that are suitable for playing all GAA sports, as well as a gym and new changing rooms.

Are there any concerns about the financing of this project or is that all under control? Is it being made full use of?

[WeeDonns]

Loads of Clubs have had really ambitious projects over the last 10 years or so. I was at an Ulster GAA Club Development conference a couple of years ago and a guy from donaghmore was talking about their Development project which was going to include a community centre,gym, clubrooms, retail outlets etc which seemed really ambitious for a GAA club. He was showing us this image on his slideshow and i think most people thought it was just a clipart image until he pointed out that it was actually what they intended to build!Check their website http://www.donaghmoregfc.com/

My own club have also been involved in a very ambitious development project

At the start of the decade we played on a parish owned pitch with basic facilities. Since then the Club have purchased 16 acres of land in an ideal location just 3 miles out of town and started to develop facilities.

A massive amount of fundraising was involved. We ran a draw in 2001 to purchase the land and then a much more ambitious one in 2003 at £100 a ticket with the first prize a 3 bed detached house in Omagh. The draw was limited to 3000 tickets and all were sold.

At the time this was extremely ambitious. I don't think many other clubs had tried it at that stage, although many have copied the format since.
Considering we had a membership of 400 odd, we were relying on selling tickets to alot of outsiders. I think you'd have a lot of trouble running it at the moment.


http://www.drumraghgfc.net/2009/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=294

[fitzroyalty]

Sean tracey's HC in lurgan had a huge draw a few years ago, think 1st prize was £100,000 so that they could finally purchase land to build their own facilities. Not bad going for a small hurling club in a football stronghold, who had to rely on the local football clubs since their formation for use of facilities.

[Oakleafer93]

We have just built a massive new state of the art complex with 3 astro turf pitches, that are suitable for playing all GAA sports, as well as a gym and new changing rooms.

Are there any concerns about the financing of this project or is that all under control? Is it being made full use of?

It had been more or less funded beofre the recession  totally kicked in. It's not opened yet for another month.

[Drumanee 1]

oakleaf has mentioned her own club lavey,they have built a fantastic indoor astro turf pitches and new changing rooms,when you are coming down the glenshane take a look to your left and in the distance you will see it,it's like a mini version of the o2 arena in london and if you take a look to your right you might see if your lucky tobermore utd ground,even though lavey are our great rivals it makes you proud to say your a gaa man.

[Oakleafer93]

oakleaf has mentioned her own club lavey,they have built a fantastic indoor astro turf pitches and new changing rooms,when you are coming down the glenshane take a look to your left and in the distance you will see it,it's like a mini version of the o2 arena in london and if you take a look to your right you might see if your lucky tobermore utd ground,even though lavey are our great rivals it makes you proud to say your a gaa man.

http://www.laveygac.ie/newdevel.aspx

Bellaghy man?

[Drumanee 1]

oakleaf has mentioned her own club lavey,they have built a fantastic indoor astro turf pitches and new changing rooms,when you are coming down the glenshane take a look to your left and in the distance you will see it,it's like a mini version of the o2 arena in london and if you take a look to your right you might see if your lucky tobermore utd ground,even though lavey are our great rivals it makes you proud to say your a gaa man.

http://www.laveygac.ie/newdevel.aspx

Bellaghy man?

through and through but credit where credits due

[bingobus]

Some great and ambitious plans there so far.

These house schemes though in the past, how much would have been actually netted 100k - 200k.

While that is a great amount and no doubt took a massive effort, I don;t think it would have been enough to carry out the developments on display.

Are these clubs stretched now and is ongoing fundraising in the pipeline for x number of years? Plus these developments would be expected to generate a few quid towards there upkeep which must also be hard on clubs.

I assumed that loans and grant aid of some sort where also secured.

[Drumanee 1]

my own club (bellaghy) purchased ground to develop 2 floodlit pithes and a astro turf pitch mostly for training and under age development,our second pitch has just been finished and will be ready this time next year.we have received quite a bit from grant aid but still have to raise at least twice that amount.

[WeeDonns]

bingobus, to get a grant from the sportscouncil etc, you first need to have raised X% of what size of grant you're looking.

Not sure of the figures. But raising 200k yourselves as a Club, along with a good business plan put forward to the sports council, might be as good as raising £1million

(you probably have to raise much more than that for such a grant, but you get my point)

[Oakleafer93]

my own club (bellaghy) purchased ground to develop 2 floodlit pithes and a astro turf pitch mostly for training and under age development,our second pitch has just been finished and will be ready this time next year.we have received quite a bit from grant aid but still have to raise at least twice that amount.

We had alot of funding to do ourselves as well, people around Greencastly/omagh/cross and places might recognise the name Lavey as there were ticket seller out there.

[bingobus]

bingobus, to get a grant from the sportscouncil etc, you first need to have raised X% of what size of grant you're looking.

Not sure of the figures. But raising 200k yourselves as a Club, along with a good business plan put forward to the sports council, might be as good as raising £1million

(you probably have to raise much more than that for such a grant, but you get my point)

Any idea what the % is? I know from talking to people that assist in grant applications and have experience that the allocations in NI are far more generous than in the south (unless you are in a TD's pocket).

The point I was prob getting at is that the initial fundraising is only the start of the procress and its a very long time before the club can rest on its laurels when taking on something of this size.

Fai rplay to those that are and its great to see it.

[Drumanee 1]

i know the last grant we applied for was for 100% which we were told was available but by the time we got our application in we got about 70% towards the new pitch which included lights,since London were awarded the 2012 Olympics grant aid has been severely cut,i know magherafelt and bellerin both benefited from the same grant aid as ourselves and also they didnt get what they were hoping for but still a great amount at the end of the day.