O’ Hara Motors Sponsors Oak Leaf Cycle Slam
The Oak Leaf Cycle Slam is a new fundraising initiative by Club Derry and the County Coaching and Games committee with all proceeds in aid of the Derry Schools GAA Coaching Programme. The gruelling 700 mile cycle will begin on Sunday 22nd August from Owenbeg with all the cyclists hopefully returning back to Derry on Tuesday 31st August. Those cyclists confirmed at present taking up the challenge include County coaching staff Chris Collins, Richard Ferris, Diarmuid Scullion and Emmett Stewart. Chris Collins, Derry’s Coaching and Games manager explains the rationale behind the idea, “Currently we have 14 full time coaches in place within our schools throughout the County providing services such as physical literacy coaching to children at key stage 1, Gaelic games coaching to key stage 2 and secondary school pupils, GAA foundation and child protection certification to sixth form students, professional development for teachers and supervisors and, of course, a substantial programme of games and blitzes for players to compete and demonstrate their skills in.
We believe that the schools within our County are an essential element in building future success on the field of play. We therefore see it as a matter of paramount importance that we keep our level of support at the standards we have set over the past twelve months. We have always provided these services free of charge to the schools. Last year Club Derry thankfully funded a Coaching and Games deficit of £42,000. In the current economic climate we understand that everybody is facing constraints, and although we are adamant that we don’t want our schools to suffer, we also don’t want to start charging for our services as the majority of our competitors already do.
As a solution to help ease the financial pressures we have come up with the novel Oak Leaf Cycle Slam with all the proceeds going towards the County School GAA Coaching Programme. We are hoping the school children and the wider public will get behind us and sponsor the cyclists whatever they can afford to help us to consolidate our services for the 2010/11 school year totally free of charge to the schools.”
“Obviously there is a lot of planning and preparation to be done behind the scenes for an event of this scale on the route, accommodation, pit stops etc. We’d like to thank O’ Hara motors, Greysteel for kindly sponsoring us with a magnificent motor home for the 10 days, it’ll be an excellent addition to the cycle slam team!”
Route details, training logs, sponsorship forms and online sponsorship will all be available from the Derry and Club Derry websites www.derrygaa.ie / www.clubderry.org There is also a live log kept on facebook: www.facebook.com/oakleafcycleslam
The event involved many long hours of planning and preparation for what was a gruelling but hugely enjoyable event for the participants. Club Derry commends Richard Ferris, Diarmuid Scullion, Emmett Stewart and Chris Collins on all their efforts. A huge deal of thanks to all those who sponsored the team, whether via personal sponsorship, taking part in the Sperrin Challenge, or the many businesses who provided their goods and services free of charge for the cause.
