Killeavy GAC achieves Platinum Award
Club Maith (literally Good Club) is a set of over 100 standards describing excellence in all operational aspects of running a GAA club. The scheme looks at club governance including the roles and responsibilities of committee members; financial stability; games and coaching including all aspects of child welfare, duty of care, recruitment and the promotion of health and wellbeing advice for members; community involvement; cultural activities; marketing strategies and much more. It is not a measure of how successful a club is in terms of cups and medals but is intended to allow clubs to be benchmarked against best-practice standards across the full range of GAA club activity. A Club Maith award makes a clear, proven statement about the quality of a Club, right across the board.
There are four levels of Club Maith award:
– The Bronze award shows that a Club meets the minimal operating standards and procedures set out by the GAA. This means it will deliver a GAA code and will have the basic Club governance procedures in place.
– The Silver award is conferred on good Clubs, ie those which provide at least one GAA code at all levels and which show some involvement in Gaelic cultural activities.
– The Gold award is conferred on excellent Clubs, ie those which are fully integrated, offering at least one male and one female Gaelic code as well as taking part in Scór.
– The Platinum Award is a special award that can be obtained only by outstanding, fully integrated, community-based GAA Clubs. Successful Clubs will meet all the Club Maith criteria and will deliver at least four Gaelic codes as well as taking part in Scór.
Killeavy GAC is delighted to announce that the Ulster Council have decided to confer the Platinum Award on our club. In their message confirming their decision, the Ulster Council congratulated the club on a “fantastic application which reflected an extremely strong and proud club”. This is a tremendous achievement not just by the Club Maith committee who put together our submission but for all our members and friends who serve on committees, coach our teams, promote our culture, help us fundraise and organise all of our activities. It is also not just something that has come about by accident but is a testament to the efforts of many previous generations who have served our club.
While the award is nice in itself, it is also crucially important when it comes to making applications for grants. Funders such as SportsNI or the National Lottery are increasingly looking towards these awards as reassurance that monies that they give out are being used by responsible organisations and for the purposes intended. Note also that the award is not just a one-off snapshot of the workings of the club. In our portfolio for example we had to prove our long term commitment to excellence through attendance records at training courses and seminars and by laying out our future development plans for both personnel and infrastructure.
