An Update from the Chairman
Firstly, congratulations to Leonard O’Carroll , his Management and Coaching team and, most importantly, our Adult Hurlers on winning their league and gaining promotion to senior hurling status. St Sylvesters now joins an elite group of clubs which compete at Senior league and championship level in both hurling and football.
Broomfield Development & Improvement:
Lights:
Phase 1 was to upgrade the lights on the Training Pitch, this has been completed and we will shortly see a massive improvement in the lighting.
Phase 2 is in progress and this is the installation of more and better lighting along the side of Pitch 3 (old senior pitch), opposite the existing lights.
Both these developments will provide a bigger and better quality lighting footprint in Broomfield for all sections of the club in time for the longer nights.
Pitches:
Our pitches were in need of a lot of work and we have invested in bringing them to a standard that befits a club like St Sylvesters. All sections of the club use these pitches, from the Nursery to the Ladies section, some of the older juvenile teams and of course the adult footballers and hurlers.
I would like to thank all those who have supported our request to protect the pitches whilst we improved the playing surface. I would ask you to continue to work with us as we continue our work on the pitches and to ensure their availability when required.
Pitch Signage:
Over the next couple of week we will be installing the signage of our new sponsors along the side of the Senior Pitch. There are still a number of prime positions available and if you know anybody that might be interested in locating a sign in Broomfield, please contact Ger O Flynn on 087-2889902.
Changing Rooms:
To advance the strength and conditioning development of players, allowing them to improve athletically while helping prevent injury, we are extending the gym in Broomfield, works commencing 13th October. The work on our gym will be completed due to the sponsorship of CQA Design and Build who are a new sponsor to the club and we thank them for their help.
Ball Stops:
We completed some work on the ball stops on the training pitch and on the main pitches but there is still some work to do.
Further Development:
We have a small group looking at our options in relation to improving further our facilities in Broomfield, we hope to have a more detailed update at our meeting in November.
Our Games:
The most important part of any club are the games and a lot of work has been put in to the Adults, Ladies and Juvenile sections over the past months.
Adult:
While our senior footballers were beaten by All Ireland Champions, St. Vincent’s in the County Championship, significant progress has been made in developing a young, home grown squad while remaining in the top half of Division 1. Our Juniors won their championship and we continue to field 2 other adult football teams, Intermediate and Junior B.
As already noted above, our hurlers have qualified for senior status for the first time in the clubs history. It’s not long ago we were in the junior ranks and huge credit must go to all involved in this squads success.
Nursery:
It is often said that the Nursery is the most important part of any club and it has always been a priority in Syls. Many of you will have seen the launch of this year’s Nursery which has been an overwhelming success. Rod Fitzpatrick and his team are organising bigger numbers of boys and girls than ever before at 1.30 on Saturdays in Broomfield, drop in to watch the future stars of Syls being put through their paces .
Coaching:
We recently launched a new coaching policy in the club led by the Juvenile Section and which included the Ladies Section. Investment was made in coaching manuals and media purchased from Croke Park and in a number of workshops. Following on from Jim Gavins recent presentation on Motivation in Sports, former Dublin and current St Vincents’s coach, Mickey Whelan, will give a workshop on the 31st of October. Further development of our club coaches is planned.
Winter Training Facilities:
In addition to the work done on the lights in Broomfield, we have now negotiated with the different Stakeholders to gain access to the All Weather Hockey Pitch. There was an outstanding legacy payment that has now been resolved.
Club Developments:
Our Annual Golf Classic takes place on 17th October, details are on our website www.stsylvesters.ie<http://www.stsylvesters.ie>, this is always a great day out and is an important fundraiser for the club.
Many of you will have noticed that the lift shaft has been removed in the clubhouse to create more space. We have put a group in place to look at the options for the Clubhouse and how it can generate more income to support the games side of the club.
We have some major challenges ahead in relation to cash flow and the general costs of running the club. We will share and discuss details with members at the meeting. We continue to struggle to fund our games despite exceeding € 100,000 in membership subscriptions this year. While reaching this level of subscriptions is a great achievement, it took until September to collect. We can’t/won’t allow this to happen next year.
There is a lot of progress being made and a lot of volunteers working really hard at all levels in the club and the above are just the headlines. We will provide more detail at our upcoming meeting.
Until then please continue to support St Sylvester’s and if you want to discuss any of the above, or have ideas that you think will help us, please contact me on 087-2524902. I prefer a call to an e-mail.
Yours in Sport,
Ciaran