This article is from page 64 of the 2007-12-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 64 JPG
CLARE ladies football celebrates 25 years in existence in 2008 and with new Chairman of the Clare ladies football county board, Johnny Hayes at the helm, the board hopes to pro- pel the sport forward significantly in the coming year. Hayes, who took temporary charge of the board after the resignation of James Lafferty in October, was ratified to the chair af- ter The Banner’s Paul McKenna and Fergus Rovers’ Mary Keane with- drew their nominations leaving the position open for the Fergus Rovers’ delegate Hayes.
In his speech following the ap- pointment, Hayes placed the provi- sion of a county field for Clare ladies
football as top of his priority list for the coming year. The new chairman also spoke out against the increas- ing threat of drink and drugs in Irish society and felt that everyone must work to eliminate that ‘evil threat’ before it causes serious long term problems for the clubs and games as a whole, stressing the need to support the headquarters promoted drug and alcohol prevention programme.
Mr Hayes also paid tribute to his predecessor James Lafferty who held the position for two years until his resignation in October.
Outgoing county secretary, Michael Fitzpatrick in his report to the delegates outlined the past year’s achievements in Clare ladies football. He praised the Clare U16
team on winning the All-Ireland B championship as well as the West Clare Gaels on their impressive and historic run to the All-Ireland Junior championship final, only losing out to Foxrock/Cabinteely a few weeks ago. He dwelt on the heartache suf- fered by the Clare Intermediate team in their second successive one point defeat in the All-Ireland semi-final and wished them better luck for the year ahead. Finally, he saved spe- cial praise for the work of everyone involved in the sport in Clare from team management, players, match officials, organisers, county board officers from all codes, sponsors and anyone who assisted and promoted the game in the past year.
The finances for 2007 were dealt
with by outgoing treasurer Christy O’Connor who gave a detailed report and of all the board’s funds during the year. At the beginning of the year, the board had an opening balance of €12,169.50. The income for 2007 was €98,626.68 while the overall ex- penditure came to €82,523.55, leav- ing a surplus including the opening balance of €28,272.63.
The income was broken down fur- ther by O’Connor who revealed the main source of revenue was from church gate collections (€9,193.78), race night (€14,088), Flag day (€2,360) and a bucket collection (€2,480) while the main expenses were the central council registration costs (€31,278), Clare Intermediate team (€18,273.55) and the Under 16
B team (€6,898,55).