The Westmeath Movathon Lake County Challenge
The response to the Westmeath Movathon Lake County Challenge has been very positive and our county players in all four codes have been participants and encouraging their friends and associates to do the same.
Officers of the various boards and team managers have also been seen out and about clocking up the kilometres and making the donations to the GoFundMe account which can be found at the WestmeathGAAofficial Facebook page. The money raised through this initiative will be invested equally in our Gaelic football, hurling, camogie and Ladies Gaelic Football county teams (50%) and in the essential refurbishment of TEG Cusack Park to make the venue fit for purpose for our players and patrons. It is essential that this is a success and in a sense the Westmeath GAA community is on trial with this venture. If our playing and development ambitions are to be realised serious amounts of finance will be needed. The Movathon is just the beginning.
This week in the Westmeath Movathon Lake County Challenge we hope to see lots of families taking part. Some prizes (footballs, hurling balls, helmets etc) will be available on a random basis for family participants. Barry Kelly is doing some motivational work with the referees who are in full support of the history making donate and participate challenge. Conor Moore, that man of many identities, has been clocking up the mileage from the first day. Next week, centred on St Patrick' s Day, we hope to engage with the Westmeath Diaspora and expect to see Westmeath people all over the world taking part and using the wonders of modern technology to send in the pictures and short videos telling the Westmeath public the story of their involvement. Coralstown native Leanne Quinn has already sent her story all the way from Qatar.
Anyone taking part is asked to send in the pictures to [email protected] and to use the hashtag #lakecountychallenge and #westmeathgaaoffical
Coaching and Games Development: progress report
We might be in lockdown but there is still a fantastic amount of work taking place in coaching and games development in the county led by Darren Magee and his staff. All this work is conducted remotely of course thanks to the magic of Microsoft Teams. It is important that this work is recognised and acknowledged. Webinars and remote sessions may not be ideal but bringing the GAA into people's homes and displaying the superb content and professional presentations does have certain promotional value for the GAA.
Darren Magee, the former Dublin footballer, is the Games Manager for the county and his primary responsibility is to lead the county's games development programme, to provide co-ordination and integration, liaise with the club's and meet their coaching needs whilst working within the structures and programmes developed at Leinster Council level. At the moment the county has four Games Development Administrators (GDAs) employed and two Games Promotion Officers all funded by the Leinster Council and Westmeath GAA. Kieran Martin, Tommy Gallagher, Thomas Mount and Bernie Corroon are the GDAs and Alan Fitzpatrick (Caulry) and Declan Campbell (Kildare) are the GPOs.
Kieran Martin's position is jointly funded with the Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) where Kieran is the college's GAA officer. Both the GPOs and the GDAs work within the Leinster Council structures and their work includes overseeing projects, working with the county development squads, working with primary and post-primary schools and with the clubs of Westmeath in developing their coaches and games promotion programmes. Our county senior football star, Kieran Martin's responsibilities include the development and delivery of strength and conditioning programmes for the county development squads.
The work of the GDOs and GDAs is conducted within the principles of the Leinster Council's Turas programme. Turas is the official coach development programme of Leinster GAA and its aim is to assist coaches develop the whole player by providing individualised age appropriate programmes aligned to the player pathway. The player is central, and based on the idea that better coaches make better players, the emphasis is on imparting coaching knowledge and developing a coherent county wide approach to coaching by engaging with coaches and the young players of Westmeath at club, school (both primary and post primary) and academy level.
Some great seminars have been organised and delivered by the games promotion staff in recent weeks. A superb seminar open to all club coaches was delivered on 27 February, a response to club demands. The many topics covered included (i) Club Nursery- Information and Ideas (Under-5 and Under-6); (ii) Coaching through Covid-19 (Under-7 to Under-11) and (iii) Youth Strength and Conditioning guidelines (Under-13 to Under-17). Each topic consisted of a 40 minute webinar followed by a 30 minute live coaching session. The Youth Strength and Conditioning section for example included topics such as warm-up activities, body weight exercises and some sample programmes were also outlined. The coaches that attended this seminar received a 4 week coaching programme pack. Over 400 club coaches both inside and outside the county registered for this three hour seminar which was a brilliant response and the type of positive engagement that points in the right direction for Westmeath GAA. Coaches registered for the sessions that were most relevant to their needs and their clubs; over 200 took part in the nursery session and over 260 logged into Tommy Gallagher's strength and conditioning session and Alan Fitzpatrick's Under 7-11 presentation.
During the month of March, Darren Magee and his staff are running the Future Stars Athletic Development Programme using the Microsoft Teams platform. These are live half-hour strength and conditioning sessions for players from Under-13 to Under-17 and began on Monday evening (8 March) and will continue to the end of the month. The Under-13 to Under-15 sessions take place on each Monday from 7.00 to 7.30 pm and the Under-16 and Under-17 sessions take place on Wednesday evenings at the same time. Registration details are available on any of the Westmeath GAA's social media pages. The sessions are conducted by Kieran Martin with the support of students of the AIT.
In addition, and again based on feedback from seminars and responding to the needs of clubs, live on line sessions are being delivered on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings over the next two weeks for the Under-7 (Nursery) to Under-11 age groups focusing on the skills of hurling and football presented by the Coaching and Games Development staff. The hour long sessions for the Nursery group takes place on Saturday morning from 10.00-11.00 am and on Friday for the Under-8s to Under-11s from 6.30-7.30 pm. The emphasis is on developing fun activities with skill demonstrations in hurling and football using items found around the household and organising simple games. Club coaches engaging with these sessions become are introduced to appropriate skills and will in turn present their own sessions at a later date.
There were also other very worthwhile contributions: Jack Cooney and Shane O'Brien delivered well supported webinars on the theme of 'Fitness with the Ball' which was very positively received; individual clubs including Mullingar Shamrocks, Shandonagh and Cullion had e-learning coaching workshops delivered; during lockdown engagement with schools included a combination of live internet sessions and pre-recorded sessions and at post-primary level Tommy Gallagher and Thomas Mount delivered an on-line Transition Year course that enabled participants to achieve a Foundation Level Westmeath coaching qualification and a Go-Games referee qualification.
The next stage of the work will involve the delivery of a more formal coach education programme where the staff will work with club coaches to achieve Foundation and Award 1 level certification.
All this work is supported by the Westmeath Coaching and Games Committee which is chaired by the county's Coaching Officer, Niall O'Brien (Rosemount). This committee of Johnny Greville, Keith Quinn, Ronan Farrell, Ollie Baker, Jack Cooney, John Keane, Joe Fallon, Dara Ferrriter with Darren Magee as secretary has held a number of meetings since it was ratified by the County Committee. This committee plans to concentrate on a number of key areas over the weeks and months ahead and in particular it intends to maximise the promotion of the GAA in Westmeath and on developing a player and coaching pathway.
You can keep in touch with the work of the Coaching and Games Development people by following on twitter @coachingwh and by checking into westmeathgaaofficial Facebook pages or on the @wesmteathgaaofficial twitter feed.
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