Westmeath CG chairman questions changes to National Finals
THE Chairman of Westmeath Community Games has questioned the decision made at national level to again alter the running order of the National Finals from 2014.
In recent years, the Community Games National Finals have taken place in Athlone with the first weekend of Finals hosted in May and two further weekends of action taking place in August.
However, speaking ahead of tonight's Westmeath Games AGM (Thursday, November 7), Johnny Crowley expressed disappointment that the May weekend has now been moved to August as well.
“At a recent National Executive meeting the delegates were informed that the two National Festivals in 2014 will now take place on the weekends of August 15 to 17 and August 22 to 24,” Crowley said.
“This decision to move the May weekend to August was made by the National Officers and Directors without consultation with the NEAC Members, the Areas or Counties, and will cause a lot of problems for us in trying to organise the large programme of events.
'We raised a number of issues as a consequence of the move and they are to be considered and published later. The meeting left us with more questions than answers, i.e. can children take part in both weekends as they currently do? Will athletics and cross country be on the same weekend? Will the rule that a competitor may only take part in one individual and one team, or relay, or squad, be changed?
'The Board are insisting that the medals for U8s and U10s are phased out over a period. All the new proposed changes sent out to Secretaries, plus the above questions, should be given careful consideration and will be discussed at the County Annual General Meeting this Thursday, November 7 at 7.30pm in the Community Games Office,” he added.
A member of the National Officer Board will be in attendance at Thursday’s meeting and Crowley said he hopes that all Westmeath Areas will have at least two delegates present to ask questions and put forward their views and recommendations.
He said: “Remember, these are the people’s Games. Your voice should be heard and there’s no better way than to come along on Thursday evening to let the National Officer know your true feelings. They will bring your views and recommendations back to the Board, but if you say or do nothing, the Board will go ahead with whatever changes they wish and we will have to accept them.”
Leinster draw
Meanwhile, the following is the draw for the first and second rounds of the Leinster Community Games. Westmeath have home advantage in both rounds. Zone 1 – Meath v Louth; Longford - bye. Zone 2 – Kilkenny v Carlow; Wexford - bye. Zone 3 – Westmeath v Laois; Offaly - bye. Zone 4 – Wicklow v Kildare; Dublin - bye. Semi-finals – Zone 1 v 3 and 2 v 4 on Saturday and Sunday, June 28 and 29 (venue tba).
The County AGM takes place on Thursday, November 7 in the Community Games Office at 7.30pm. The County 'Involvement Award’ will be presented at the meeting and refreshments will be served.
The Leinster AGM is pencilled in for Sunday, November 10 in the Annebrook Hotel, Mullingar at 2pm.
The HSE Community Games National Area Awards have been fixed for Saturday, November 23 in Derry City Hotel, Co. Derry, and the National AGM will take place on Saturday/Sunday, February 22/23, 2014.