CONGRATULATIONS
The final day of the National Indoors brought more fine performances and more medals for GAC athletes Alana Ryan had yet another fantastic day, cruising through her heat of the U16 200m......

..... and winning the final in great style to take another National title. Fantastic running once again from Richael Browne in the U17 800m, where she took the silver medal in a new indoor PB of 2.19.88.  A great run also from Katy Conroy in the U19 800m where she finished in 8th place. Conor Dempsey ran 22.87 in his heat in the U18 200m to qualify for the final where he finished 5th. Noah Daly qualified for the final of the U16 LJ where he finished 5th with a jump of 5.36m and Aodhán Daly jumped 4.49m in the U14 LJ to finish 9th.  Well done to all of our athletes! A little time to recover now, but we are looking forward to a great outdoor season!

HELP NEEDED URGENTLY
Once again we have to appeal for help at the 6-7pm sessions. We have big groups at these sessions and have lost some coaches recently due to changed circmstances. As well as this we have coaches covering these sessions at present who are having to arrange minders and transport for their own children, now all in the later groups, to allow them to cover the 6-7pm sessions. We need to allow these coaches to move to the 7-8.30pm time asap. We have  100 children in the 6-7pm sessions and urgently require parents of these children to come on board and help with the training, otherwise we will not be able to continue with all of the groups. If any adults are available to help out, it would be greatly appreciated. We promise not to throw you in at the deep end and we will get you on to a coaching course asap. If you can help out once a week, or alternate with another parent every other week, please let us know.
Help is also urgently needed to cover check-in at 6pm & 7.30pm please. We are down to a small number of parents who are trying to cover all the sessions, or back to coaches trying to do this which delays the training, resulting in us being late finishing. This only takes about 15-20 mins max. but is a huge help to the smooth running of our training sessions.

ATTENDANCE AT TRAINING
There are a number of athletes who’s attendance at training is very poor indeed. Athletes are expected to attend training regularly and Group 1 & 2 athletes have committed to attending a minimum of two sessions per week to enable them to keep up with the training level. We have a constant waiting list for places and we can not be expected to hold places for those who do not use them. Once again we must remind everyone that athletes who disappear for over 3 weeks without letting us know why, (ie illness, injury etc.) are deemed to have left the club and their places are offered to those on the waiting list. We will always hold the place for an injured/ill athlete and once we are made aware it is not necessary to notified us at every session. Lists are reviewed at the end of each month.

AWARDS NIGHT
We remind you all that our awards night for 2014 has been arranged for Tues. 21st Apr 2015 and will be held at Charlesland Golf Club at 7pm. Consequently there will be no training that night! Awards for Attitude, Achievement & Attendance will be presented as well as our 5yr & 10yr club memberships awards, team awards and Senior and Juvenile ‘Athlete of the Year’ for 2014. Refreshments will be served afterwards. All athletes and their families are most welcome. As this is being held on one of our regular training nights we hope that this year everyone will be available to attend. This is a great opportunity to meet the coaches and have a chat!

2015 REGISTRATION CARDS
This year all athletes are being issued with  Life Registration cards. Many of these have arrived this week and we will hand them out to parents at the Awards night.  These cards now have just a Life Number., which members will have for their entire athletic career instead, of getting a new registration number every year. This is the number that will be used for all entries. Consequently athletes/parents need to look after these cards, as they will no longer be replaced every year.

SPECIAL COACHING SESSION
Well done to all the athletes who attended the coaching session on Good Friday. This was another great success and we thank the coaches who did such a great job on the day. We will organise a follow up session for these athletes over the next couple of weeks.

RELAY SQUADS
Apologies for the error with the Relay Squad date as we were not training on the given date. Our next training night for our Relay Squads is this Fri. 10th April. It is particularly important that all members of the squads attend these training sessions!

UPCOMING COMPETITIONS
COUNTY ROAD RACE.
The Athletics Wicklow 5k Road Race Championships for Junior & Senior men & women will take place in Ashford on Wed 22nd April. Juniors are age 16-19 in 2014. Check in from 6.15 pm.  Start Time 7.00 pm. Names to Theresa by Sunday 19th April latest. No late entries accepted this year..

CO. CHAMPIONSHIPS.
This year’s Wicklow Championships will be held on two evenings & 1 full day, Fri 1st May, Fri 8th May & Sat 9th May. Full programme is posted on the sidebar of our website. All GAC athletes of all ages who want to compete in this year’s Championships must register on our website for each day they intend to compete. You must also list the events you intend to compete in. Form will be up on our web site shortly and closing date for all entries will be Tues. 28th Apr. No entries can be accepted after this date, so make sure you are in on time!


EXPLAINATION OF AWARD SCHEME FOR NEW PARENTS.
Children up to age 10 in 2015 (U11), take part in an award scheme at the County Championships on Saturday 9th May, there are no individual events for these age groups. Each child competes in 3 events, a sprint, a long jump and a turbo javelin throw, and their points are calculated to get a finishing score. All athletes who compete in all 3 events will get a medal on the day. The top scorers will get gold, the next group silver and the remainder bronze.  Those who don’t complete the competition, ie all 3 events,  will not receive a medal. It will take a while to get through all the events for all the age groups and as the relays for the younger age groups are also on the Sat. afternoon, please come prepared to spend the day.  If we are lucky enough to get good weather it can be a very enjoyable day!
There are longer races and Obstacle Relays on Fri 1st May for these younger age groups, which start at 6.30pm and will be done within the hour.  We have not included events on Fri 8th to leave them fresh for the Sat. competitions.