Memorial plaque to Michael Gaffney
Fáilte…
Dia dhaoibh. Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur romhaibh go léir anocht chun an fáiltiú seo. Welcome one and all tonight and thank you for joining us to kick off the festive season.
Purpose…
We decided to kick off the festive season with a small reception for members and friends because we are always anxious to acknowledge, even in a small way, the support and help that we get throughout the year from members and friends.
Of course, we get that support every year and the Club has been fortunate down through the years with the level of support and help that we get from everyone including the wider community here in Malahide. As a Club we realise that we are a vital and important part of Malahide community and that we can and do play a positive role by providing facilities and access to our national games for all age levels from the very young, through teenage to adulthood, men and women, boys and girls.
Another reason we decided to arrange tonight was to ‘show off’ some of the renovations that we have undertaken here in the Club House. !!! We are delighted with the work done and we hope it meets with everyone’s approval. Our thanks go to Anthony, Rod, John and Paul for the quality of their work, their advice and their dedication in helping us. I should say also that we also had a number of people who helped out financially and this is greatly appreciated.
We believe that our facilities here are ‘good to excellent’, fantastic really!!!, combining a central location in the heart of our beloved Malahide village with good value. What we need now is to attract more people to better use these facilities to help us pay our bills but, more importantly, to generate a much needed income stream for the development of our sporting facilities generally.
We could not have done the renovations and improvements without having a building and, of course, without your help. I should make special mention of the late Micheál Gaffney without whose, vision, inspiration and generous assistance we would not be here today. Thanks to Michael Howard for making the introduction and for his help in giving expression to Micheál’s vision.
Of course, I cannot mention Micheál without mentioning his great friend and companion, Colette, and I am delighted to see her here tonight. I am also delighted to see some of the other great stalwart supporters of St Sylvester’s GAA Club and Malahide here tonight. You are all welcome. And I know there are others who would have liked to be here but sent their apologies.
Year gone by….
The year gone by has been a very interesting and exciting one. There has been plenty of activity on and off the field. Many match-day battle encounters and some silverware and titles hard won. We have had some disappointments, some misfortunes, some set-backs but always enjoyment, enthusiasm, eagerness and passion. Our thanks go to the Club’s many managers, mentors and other helpers who work tirelessly week in week out, training and managing teams and dealing with all the attendant tasks that arise. With the range and spread of teams that the Club fields every week that is a sizeable number of people and they are the backbone of the Club.
Off the field, as everyone will know, we eventually managed to get the agreement of Fingal County Council on the location for our long awaited ball wall at Broomfield. A lot of work has been done over the years to get to that stage.
Since then we have been involved in resolving the legal issues of securing the lease. Unfortunately, these can and do take time but I am glad to be able to say that the lease has now been secured and we are now moving on to the next stage of agreeing terms with CSSO and the Department of Sport.
I am a bit slow to make any further predictions in relation to timing but I will share with you my hope that we can clear the remaining procedures early in the New Year.
Finally on this, I just want to acknowledge the promised support with this project that we have been so generously offered. Míle buíochas.
The building of the ball wall will greatly improve our sporting facilities and I expect it to be the start of the general development of our Broomfield facilities to include work on our dressing rooms, better facilities for our thriving nursery section and a lot more.
If you ever feel a bit low and want a boost visit Broomfield on a fine Saturday morning and see for yourself the fun and games of the young boys and girls, their excitement and enthusiasm; their enjoyment knows no bounds. The future of our Club is there every Saturday morning for all to see. Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí.
Finances…
Back to Club finances for a minute. The Club’s finances are in a reasonable shape. While I would say that they have been stabilised to a great extent thanks to the hard work of many people we are always under pressure. There are many developments that we could undertake some of which I have mentioned if we had additional resources. However, our approach is to continually improve facilities bit and bit. And we need to keep at it. De réir a chéile a thógtar na caisleáin
Each year we need to raise additional resources through various fund-raising activities – we have run quizzes, organised walks, golf classic event, grocery packing etc. This is necessary to supplement our membership income and the generous assistance we get from our sponsors and I am glad to see some of them here tonight.
Recently, we had a new fund-raising event where a team from our Club took on Malahide Rugby Club at the Wright venue for a ‘white-collar’ boxing event. Not for the faint hearted I can assure you !!! The event was properly named ‘The Pride of Malahide’ and our band of merry men and women won out convincingly on the night. Some of them are here tonight and I would like to thank them specifically for putting themselves forward, for putting in the training effort over the weeks and for raising valuable funds for their Club.
Our next fund raising event is also a first for us. When we did not organise a sponsored walk earlier in the year we thought we might do so over the Christmas period. But some people had other, arguably better, ideas and so we are now planning a sponsored swim or dip after Christmas. So, you are all invited to either participate (a dip will do !!) or to sponsor some of our brave souls who are volunteering again for our Club.
The event is scheduled for 29th December at Low Rock – more details on our web site and sponsorship cards are available for anyone interested. One way or another please come out and support our brave members.
But back to tonight….
When we started on our fund-raising drive a few years ago to clear our Club house debt we promised that we would ensure recognition for people here in the Club house and tonight you can see our Patronage Scheme board which lists all those people who contributed directly to clearing the debt. The board is dedicated to the memory of our most generous benefactor and pride of place goes to the late Micheál Gaffney.
I would also like to remember tonight with gratitude, the pioneering bond-holders whose contributions made it possible to take the initial steps in acquiring our Clubhouse well over 25 years ago.
And finally, I would like to thank everyone, on the Club’s behalf and on behalf of the future generation that attend our nursery every Saturday, for your support and help and for your continuing efforts this year and over the years.
Without this we would not have a thriving Club; enjoy your evening. Happy Christmas to you and your family and best wishes for next year.
Thank you for listening.