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Newtonmore
Camanachd Club
Newsletter 2 2008
1] Open Day Many thanks to everyone who
donated beverages and home baking which helped ensure that the large
numbers of visitors were able to receive our hospitality. Lots of
positive comments were received about the memorabilia display by Rob.
There has been excellent feedback from the Ceilidh
which was pulled together at relatively short notice by Elspeth Buxton.
There was a variety of song, music, dance and we are indebted to the
Pipe band, waulking group and others that gave freely of their time. The
audience was mainly parents and grandparents of performers, but I am
sure that if we repeated the event many more would come. The evening
with Davy Holt and friends went down well as usual and the volunteers on
the bar were kept busy.
It was a very enjoyable day and with season ticket
sales, match ball sponsorship, merchandise sales, the raffle [which made
£293] and the profit on the evening events more than £1500 was raised
for club funds.
2] Coaching project This is making some
progress. You may have seen the advert in this weeks Strathy looking for
a coach to take an after school club at Kingussie High School from
Easter till the summer holidays. The major step forward has been that
the two new heads of the PE Departments at Kingussie and Grantown have
agreed in principle that shinty will be one of the core sports taught as
a 6 week block on the curriculum from August this year by the staff
themselves. Our role is now principally to facilitate training of the
school staff, run the after school clubs and purchase the equipment.
Accordingly the costs of the project have been
reduced from £20k/annum to about £14k in the first year and should be
about £10k for years two and three. Apart from the commitment from the
two clubs we have £3k in grants confirmed for this year [thanks to the
Council Area Discretionary Fund and the Badenoch and Strathspey Sports
Council] so we are hoping to order helmets and sticks shortly [helmets
cost £35 + carriage].
3] Sponsorship We have a lot of good
feedback on the home fixtures leaflet which was supported by Blasta and
if anyone can get it displayed at a venue it is absent from please let
me know. We are very grateful to long term supporters Dalwhinnie
distillery who have sponsored the website this year. New board sponsors
that will appear shortly are Russwood and the Post Office [Graeme
Irvine].
There are still match ball sponsorship
opportunities at £15 for the 1sts [Oban, Kilmallie, Lochaber and
Inverary] and 2nds [Lochaber, Kilmallie and Lovat]. There are also
raffle prizes or £10 sponsorship needed for the following 1st
team games [Inverness, Oban, Lovat, Kilmallie, Bute, Lochaber and
Inverary].
We do not yet have a main sponsor for the Family
Sunday which is £400.
4] Additional land acquisition There are a
number of rumours circulating! The shinty club has enquired if the
landowner who owns the field between the Eilan and the rivers Spey and
Calder would be interested in selling the land to us. There are two main
reasons for this request: the committee would like additional playing
facilities that could be used by the community for a variety of sports;
the committee is concerned at the increased risk of flooding and is
investigating whether there may be advantages in a community group
owning the land in terms of access to finance to undertake remedial
works. We are consulting with SNH, SEPA and HIE, but cannot do much
until we know whether the landowner has any interest in selling to us.
If that is the case the committee will be required to call an Emergency
General Meeting to get the approval of the club membership.
5] Membership Players over 18 are reminded
that the benefits of membership like insurance for loss of earnings due
to injury are only available if you pay your £10 and join! As all
Camanachd members are now allocated a unique identifying number they can
now make spot checks to ensure that anyone who plays for the club is
actually a member.
6] Season tickets These also include the
membership fee for the club. They will be available for sale at the game
on Saturday 1st v Strathglass and anyone who has paid their
admission that day will get that deducted off the price of the season
ticket.
7] Volunteers Graeme Irvine and Claire
Jenkins have volunteered to be the main people at the gate which means
missing most of the first half. Christine Crichton and John Hewer have
offered to provide help at the busy times just before and after throw
up. I am still looking for a volunteer to make announcements and also to
take a collection at 2nd team games.
8] Youngsters The Badenoch are qualifier for
the national first shinty Scottish finals takes place at the Badenoch
centre Kingussie on Sunday 2nd march 10am to noon. The winner
of the Primary 5 and under and Primary 7 and under competitions go on to
represent the area at the finals to be held in Perth in April. Both
Newtonmore and Gergask schools will have teams competing.
9] Fundraising We are very grateful to the
Newtonmore COOP for choosing us as the group to benefit from their local
fundraising. They particularly would like to support youth shinty so we
have passed them a list of items that we need.
The players have come up with a really great idea
of having 26 of them running a marathon up and down the main street [1
mile each!] on the Friday before the Highland games with a number of
competitions for sponsoring people or guessing their time. It may also
be possible to combine this with a dance that might attract some of the
tourist
10] On the Field It is good luck to all the
teams and I hope that there will be a lot of positive vocal support this
year and that we really have something to celebrate at the end of the
season. Back |
