Can you believe it … apparently Central Council took no decision at all back on 8 December! Well, at least that’s the thrust of their opening defence to our DRA submission (as leaked to the media today). Central Council’s response to the DRA is that “no binding decision has as yet been made” … this from a body that on 8 December publicly proclaimed: “Ard Chomhairle now approves, in principle, the agreement reached in November 2007″.Part of our problem with the pay-for-play debacle was the total lack of consultation with units and the membership. These recent developments suggest Central Council has been, and remains, all at sea here. Even more disappointing, it evidently now hasn’t the courage of its convictions to defend its stance to its brothers and sisters across the GAA via the mechanism Congress put in place to do precisely that.

The GAA we were all reared in was one where you always tried to do the decent thing.

What about it, Central Council? If you didn’t decide anything on 8 December then what actually did you vote for? Why has the central leadership of the GAA spent a month trying to tell us it was now all a done deal? If it was to come back to a later Central Council meeting why did you not allow the rest of us the chance to develop a discussion during those months? And what exactly does the word “principle” mean any more?

That strange sound you hear in the distance is a combination of chickens coming home to roost and the bottom of the barrel being scraped. Sic transit gloria GAA.

A New Year … Same Issue!

Anyway, welcome back … and a happy New Year to you all! We’ve taken a break since before Christmas but you have grown significantly in numbers and there’s now 830 of you registered here. Let’s see if we could get 1,000 on board!

The Cavan Meeting

Contrary to what some parts of the media reported, almost 150 people turned up at the meeting in the Cavan Crystal Hotel on 19 December … though they looked a bit lost in an outsize room!

What was interesting was that 13 (yes, 13!!!) Counties across three provinces were represented. Included were a County Chair; an immediate past County Secretary; a County Vice-President; several County Committee people; and one of the GAA’s leading County sponsors.

The discussion replicated that in The Elk and a summary of it (courtesy of Fermanagh’s Hugh Kelly and Derry’s Seamus Mullan) can be downloaded below:

cavan_crystal_meeting.doc

The conclusions remain largely the same, ie it’s up to all of us to keep the pay-for-play deal on the agenda all the way to Congress.

Dublin Debates!

Good old GAA democracy is obviously alive and well in Dublin. The Dublin County Committee has asked the County’s GAA Clubs to discuss the pay-for-play deal during January. A number of Clubs are holding special meetings on the issue so if you’re A Dub (native or otherwise) make sure you’re at your Club’s meeting … or make sure your Club holds one.

The coming weeks will determine the type of GAA we’ll hand on to the next generation. Don’t let this core issue go by default!

Other Meetings?

A number of you have emailed about the possibility of holding more public meetings on this issue. The key thing about the meetings to date is that they’ve been locally-organised by local gaels. That’s the only approach that will work. This can’t be about “rent-a-crowd” or about “small rumps” parachuting in to push this agenda in different places across Ireland.

If you think a meeting’s a good idea in your place then go ahead and organise one. Given Central Council’s current manoeuvres it’s all the more important to keep the momentum going. If you email us we’ll send you on an outline of the format that’s worked very well so far.

Don’t worry about numbers. The important thing is to keep the debate going. After all, it only took an attendance of 14 in Hayes Hotel to start the whole show!

“Small rumps …???”

Re-Shaping This Website

All this work is done on that good, old-fashioned GAA basis … ie on a volunteer basis and because we think it’s worthwhile. But it takes a lot of time and has a financial cost involved. Several of you want the site/page to be a bit broader. Resources mean it can’t be inter-active and a number of you have expressed a bit of disappointment at that. We’ve tried to get back to people who have made specific comments … but not all the email addresses submitted here will accept emails back from us.

Anyway, we’re going to try to extend the site, primarily with a view to posting on it information and background pieces that spell out what pay-for-play in the GAA will mean. Hopefully we’ll have that up-and-running in the next couple of weeks. But in the meantime be patient with us!

And Finally … Keep This Issue Alive!

The mantra for opposing pay-for-play in the GAA remains the same:

• We work within (and want to protect!) the GAA’s structures and systems
• Bring the issue up in your Club
• Bring it to the National GAA Club Forum on 9 February
• Bring it to your County Committee
• Make sure it reaches the floor of Congress
• Ask your Central Council delegate just what went on at the 8 December meeting
• Talk to people about the damage pay-for-play will do to the GAA … and how Ireland will suffer as a result
• Keep hammering home the point that nobody in the GAA has to do anything: we’re all volunteers … and if the burdens are too much we should just walk away or reduce our input
• In the GAA we don’t pay people to play our games

Thank you again for your support!
There’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel!
Beir bua!