TRAINING ARRANGEMENTS FOR THIS WEEK

Due to very poor attendances during school holidays & breaks, we are not holding training for the 5-6pm or 6-7pm groups this coming week, ie Tues 21^st & Fri 24^th Feb. Training for our 7-8.30pm groups will go ahead as usual.

ATTENDANCE AT TRAINING

A number of athletes have had very poor attendance recently and should note the club rule, 'Athletes who don't attend for three weeks or more without contacting us re injury/illness, are deemed to have left the club'. Places are then given to those on our waiting list & those who wish to return will have to go back on to the waiting list.

All athletes are expected to attend training on a regular basis with those in Groups 1 & 2 having made a commitment to attend at least two sessions per week. Training sessions take place on Tues/Wed/Fri from 7-8.30pm. While we hope you can do all three, if only doing two nights, it is better to do Tues/Fri or Wed/Fri if at all possible, rather than two nights together with 5 off. We also have an organised Sunday morning run at 9.15am, which is a very important part of the training week. If you cannot make this, you will need to do a run yourself later in the day.

HELP STILL NEEDED

We have a very dedicated group of coaches & check-in personnel, but as always we still need more if we are to continue facilitating the large number of athletes we have in Greystones AC. If you are in a position to help out with coaching, even occasionally, please let us know, as we are always looking for additional coaches. We will make sure you get training. Recently the check-in has been falling back on to the coaches on a fairly regular basis, so if you can give 20 mins to help with check-in when you are dropping your athletes down, it would be a great help indeed.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congatulations to Aoife Conroy, Alana Ryan, Ara Freeman, Richael Browne, Rosa Kirwan, Alannah O’Carroll, Claire Earls, Laura Kavanagh & Niamh Conroy, who made up the Slí Cualann women’s team in the National Indoor League recently. Terrific performances from all the girls in both rounds and a great battle in the final won them the Silver medals. A great effort from the men’s team saw them make the final also, with some top class individual performances. Well done also to all who competed in the AAI Games and again some terrific individual performances on the day.

We had a big entry in the Leinster Championships, with a number of first timers taking to the Indoor track for the first time. Unfortunately quite a number of those who entered didn’t manage to make it to their events and we take this opportunity to remind everyone that while we pay all the entry fees for our juvenile athletes, those who fail to turn up to compete are expected to refund these fees to the club. On this occasion the entry fee was €3.50 per event, but fees can be up to €15 an event and the club cannot continue to pay these and then not have the athletes turn up to compete.

Well done to all who took part over the two days. Some really top performances, with a big number qualifying for event finals and several medal winners and qualifiers to Nationals at the end of March. Gold for Alana Ryan in the 60m & 200m, James Vance in the Long Jump, Ben Jones in the 800m & Ailbhe Gordon in the Shot Putt, Silver for Joe Prendergast in the 800m and James Nicholson & Ellen McNally in the LJ, Bronze for Richael Browne in the 800m & for Aodhan Daly, Sophie Nicholson, Jack McGlone & Daniel Quirk in the LJ and 4^th place and qualification to Nationals for Rachel Casey in the 1500m walk, Emma Quirk in the Hurdles & LJ, Ellen McNally in the HJ, John O’Connor in the 800m, Marcus Lennon in the 200m & Joe Prendergast in the LJ. Best of luck to all those competing in the 1500m & Relays next Saturday and to all our Juniors, Seniors & Masters competing on Sunday!

UPCOMING COMPETITIONS

1. Leinster Juvenile Indoors Day 3+ Relays in Abbottstown on Sat 25^th Feb. Entries closed

2. Leinster Junior/Senior/Masters Indoors in Abbottstown on Sun 26th Feb. Entries closed.

3. Sportshall, Shoreline Community Hall, Greystones Saturday 4^th March 2-5pm.

4. National Masters Indoor Championships, Athlone Sunday 5^th March. Entries close

5. National Juvenile Indoor Championships Day 1 25^th March, Athlone (Must qualify)

6. National Juvenile Indoor Championships Day 2, 26^th March, Athlone (Must qualify)

7. National Juvenile Indoor Championships Day 3, 1^st April, Athlone (Must qualify)

CLUB AGM

The club AGM will be held on Thurs. 2^nd March at 8pm at Shoreline Sports Park. All members and parents of juvenile members are invited and encouraged to attend. The AGM is an opportunity for members to find out more about the running of the club, put ideas/suggestions forward and maybe get involved in helping the club to progress in the future. While we would welcome new members on to the club committee or any of our sub committees, we will not put pressure on anyone, so please come along on the night.

SPORTSHALL COMPETITION

Our Sportshall competition for our younger athletes will take place on Sat 4^th March in the Community Hall at Shoreline swimming pool from 2.00-5.00pm. This is a really fun event, where the athletes are put into teams and take part in a number of running, jumping & throwing events, finishing with a relay. As this is a team competition, athletes must be available for the entire event. If an athlete leaves early, their entire team loses out, as they will not be able to finish the competition. Open to all athletes up to U14 in 2017 (born 2004 or after). Teams will be made up on the day! Please arrive on time as once the teams have been made up we will not be able to include late comers and we don’t want to disappoint anyone! Lots of help will be needed for this one, so if you are available, please let us know asap. Help from our older athletes is invaluable for this event, so please let us know if you can come along and help. As we need to get an idea of numbers taking part we’ll have an entry form on our website which will close on Wed 1^st March.