The 132nd club AGM took place in the club bar last night Tuesday March 6th. Although the attendance on the night could certainly not be described as ‘substantial’ there was fairly good contributions from the club members in attendance.
The meeting heard the Honorary Secretary’s address. The Honorary Secretary congratulated and thanked Pamela Cooper who on the night would be stepping down having spent ten years as Ladies Captain. He also paid tribute to the club treasurer Eoin Murray for the job he had done with the club’s finances in recent years. He also outlined that one of the challenges facing the club arises as a result of the booming numbers and that is the availability of individuals who would act as coaches or assistant coaches, this is one of the challenges facing most clubs particularly with athletes nowadays staying in the sport on a competitive basis longer and longer which meant that there was less available volunteers to help with the very important job of coaching and indeed volunteering generally with the club. He encouraged club members who may be thinking of ‘hanging up the spikes’ to consider helping the clubs coaches. He also encouraged members generally to continue to assist with the volunteering for various events held by the club which increased enormously the club profile and also assisted with the club’s finances. He also thanked the people who had assisted with the PR in the club generally and in particular Stephen Harkness for his work on the club’s social media and Shane Rooney for his reporting of various races and the social functions and Liam Hennessy for his reporting on the Grand Prix Series. He also suggested to members with the club now going to compete in Group A of the European Track and Field Club Championships in Birmingham on the weekend of May 26th and 27th that it would be a great boost to the team if as many club members as possible could see their way to travelling to Birmingham for that weekend. He thanked the club’s officers, committee and members for their continued support and wished all in Clonliffe continued and great success in 2018.
The Club Captain outlined a successful year for the club with the winning of the indoor and outdoor track and field Championships a particularly notable achievement, he also outlined the successes of the club in the winning of club titles at National Marathon and Half Marathon, with the teams finishing 1st and 2nd in both competitions, he outlined that the team had finished 3rd at the European Clubs Group B in Leiria Portugal and that the club had been recognised with performance club of the year for the third successive year. Whilst it was a disappointing year at Cross Country level the team would be redoubling its efforts. The individual achievements of the club members and team members were all documented on the club website. He thanked the athletes for their support, the coaches and committee for their full backing throughout the past year and thanked all members who had helped out at various club events over the year and again appealed to club members to attend Birmingham to support the team competing in the European Group A.
The Honorary Treasurer presented the club account and took the members through the account which showed that the club continued to be in a very healthy state. He outlined the continuing excellent work which was being carried out by the Bar Committee and that this had been reflected in the performance of the bar and he encouraged members to continue to use the bar for various functions. He also outlined the very successful financial position of the ‘athletics’ side of the club and took the meeting through the overall club account. He thanked the members, the club captains and officers for their continued support in all aspects of the club’s finances.
Pamela Cooper the Ladies Captain confirmed that she was stepping down as lady’s captain after ten years, she took the meeting through the major improvement in the lady’s section over the previous ten years from a handful of athletes to now where there were 60/70 athletes in the lady’s section competing on a regular basis. She outlined the individual successes enjoyed by the club members over the previous twelve months in particular the success of Snezana Bechtina at World Masters Indoor where she finished 2nd in both the 200 and 400. She also outlined the team success enjoyed by the ladies section of the club over the previous twelve months.
The juvenile captain outlined for the meeting the continued growth in the juvenile section and thanked the juvenile coaches who put in enormous amounts of time and commitment to looking after the club’s future athletes. She outlined recent matters which had been undertaken by the juvenile section including a recent bag pack by way of a fundraiser for a future trip. With regard to the successes enjoyed by the juvenile members over the previous twelve months attached is a comprehensive report of those achievements: Juvenile Captain AGM report 18
Paddy Marley then addressed the meeting with his President’s address, he outlined that once again 2017 had been an enormously successful year in the life of Clonliffe Harriers with successes on and off the track. He paid tribute to the work which had been carried out by the club captains and in particular by Pamela who was stepping down after ten years as Lady’s Captain and indeed two years prior to that as vice-captain and commended her on the outstanding commitment she had shown to the club. He thanked the individuals who headed up the club’s various activities in particular Noel Guiden for the Morton Games and Brother Schools Cross Country, Mick Kearney for the Clonliffe 2, Eoin Murray for the ERP Christmas Cracker 2 Mile, Maurice Ahern and his subcommittee for the Grand Prix Series, he thanked the various club sponsors and in particular Helen Flynn and Hireco who are the club’s main sponsor, he also thanked the various other sponsors, Brother for the Schools Cross Country, Kavanagh’s for the 2 Mile, ERP, Behan & Associates for the Grand Prix Series and the various club members who sponsored the 16 races throughout the course of that series, he thanked Colm Doran for his sponsorship of juvenile events and John Shields, Loki Sports for their sponsorship of the club athletes of the year. He also paid tribute to the work carried out by the treasurer in presenting such a robust club account, to Noreen Keane and Johnny O’Leary for their work on the club lotto, George Maybury and Alan Worrall on the health and safety work, the bar subcommittee of Paddy Tuite, Caroline Tuite and Joe Cooper and thanked the various individuals who stewarded at events and built courses and in particular paid tribute to both Sean Callan and Alan O’Neill. He congratulated all of the athletes on their successes throughout the year and in particular those who had received international recognition and he thanked the committee for the superb work put in throughout the course of 2017.
Elections were held and the following officers and committee were elected to serve the club into 2018:
Honorary President: Paddy Marley
Honorary Secretary: Noel Guiden
Honorary Treasurer: Eoin Murray
Captain: Joe Cooper
Lady’s Captain: Orna McGinley
Committee Members: Caroline Tuite, Alan Worrall, Stephen Harkness
The trustees were re-elected: Johnny O’Leary, Maurice Ahern, Tommy Griffin Senior
Under the heading of any other business there was a discussion surrounding the availability of club gear and it was agreed that club members would look into the availability of performance gear to have this branded and would obtain costings and would submit this to the secretary for onward consideration by the incoming committee.
It was also agreed that the incoming committee would consider how appropriate to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Billy Morton in 1969. There was a discussion surrounding this.
The Committee meeting concluded at approximately 10.40 p.m.