Newtonmore Camanachd Club

January 2010

1] Family Race night Sat 20th Feb This is shaping up to be a fantastic evening with many sponsors already found for the seven races. The doors open at 1630 for a 1700 start and entry is free. There will be food for sale provided by volunteers as well as a bar. The focus of the evening will be the fun to be had placing your bets on the races which will feature some very familiar runners and riders!

2] Open Day Sat 27th Feb The guests for the challenge match this year at 1400 are Beauly. However the day starts at 1230 and once again we would be very grateful for donations of food and refreshments. Rob will be putting on a memorabilia exhibition and there will be both a Tots and a Primary schools challenge match to keep you entertained.

3] 10 mile race Sat 20th March We still need a few volunteers both to help marshal for about an hour from 11am to noon [the club will get a donation of the share of any profits if we have 6 or more volunteers].It would also be great if you could make some sandwiches for the participants.

The dance in the evening will feature the Gary Innes band with the event organised by the shinty club and the village hall committee.

4] AGM A copy of the draft minute will be sent out in the near future. One key issue [that was laboured by the secretary and Treasurer] is that we have been running at a loss and that traditional sources of grant funding are drying up. This means that the fundraising efforts are even more important. It was also pointed out that the profit from the lottery has halved in the last 5 years with many people associated with the club only buying tickets when the prize fund is at £700 or higher. The opportunity to take out a standing order was highlighted and I am glad to report that quite a few people have since done this. A form is attached.

5] Fixtures These are now on the website and I have attached a home fixtures and a complete fixture listing. We will have the fixture list sponsored by BLASTA in time for the Open Day and this will be distributed to all houses in Newtonmore, Dalwhinnie and Laggan.

6] Oral History project The National Park have expressed interest in supporting a researcher to do a partial inventory, some oral recordings and some kind of analysis of the potential material culture available as well as a basic thematic analysis of the existing recordings. This would serve as a starting point for a much bigger PhD research project which we are trying to get the University of the Highland and Islands interested in. A possible output could be a book on the history of the club in due course.
 
7] Camanachd appointment  Torquil MacLeod has been appointed as the senior member of staff at the Association. He brings a lot of experience to the post and hopefully there will now be some stability and continuity for the next few years that will allow the building of better dialogue with the clubs.

8] Primary school shinty coaching Eddy Harrigan has agreed with the new Head Teacher at Newtonmore that we will provide coaches during school time that will allow shinty to be delivered as part of the curriculum for the first time in many years. This is starting in the middle of February and will be delivered by Paul Macarthur and Scott Campbell with help from Steven Macdonald. We will also be reviving the practice of distributing Easter eggs to the pupils from the club and two of our international players will go into the school to do that!

Ian Gibson   Tel 01540 673048   Mob 07817 378729     iangibson12@btinternet.com   30th Jan 2010

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