Passage West GAA Club – March Newsletter

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Passage West GAA Club are delighted to be working on a new website for the club. Our club PRO’s are currently working on obtaining a new website domain to host our new website. Stay tuned for more updates about website development.

As many of our members have heard already, we have been working hard over the last few weeks to launch our new, 4 number lotto draw. We are delighted to announce that we have made the switch on the 7th of March and are very thankful to all that have supported our lotto over the last couple of years. The lotto is our primary source of income at the moment due to the current pandemic, and every ticket contribution each week ensures that the gates of our club stay open to all in our local community. Your contribution is helping us build a better Passage West GAA Club for all of our members, and over the last couple of years, we have been able to fund some amazing projects such as the addition of our astro-turf pitch, and much needed updates to our grounds and clubhouse due to your generosity.

However, only 30% of our members actually support our lotto. If you are a member of our club, we would be grateful if you could help support our lotto. Your €2 lotto ticket will go a long way at Passage West GAA Club and will be re-invested into improving our club facilities and making our club a better place for our members, from our newest recruits in the Pasáiste Og section all the way up to the senior members in our club.

To make it easier for members to support our lotto, we have got an online portal in which you can buy your tickets through the following link https://play.clubforce.com/play_newa.asp?ll_id=2811#Anchor. We also have two physical lotto stands in Passage West Post Office and Brendan’s Butchers. On our stand, there are envelopes in which you can write in your details for the lotto, and your 4 lotto numbers. We also have Direct Debit forms on both of these stands if you wish to sign up to our lotto through a monthly payment that is taken from your bank account.

The Irish Life Every Step Counts challenge drew to a close on the 3rd of March and we finished on a fantastic total of 29,968.8 km, and 11th place in Munster – we were delighted with the result and would like to thank all participants from the different sections of our club and wider community for joining us in such a great challenge!

Due to the popularity of participants in the MyLife challenge, we decided to do a draw for 5 participants to win some club merchandise to give back to all who joined us on this challenge – a big well done to our winners Elaine Morris, Eddy Higgins, Norman White, Laura Finlay and Lauren Hickey!

Following the success of last year’s Let’s Run As One fundraiser where, thanks to the generosity of our club members and the wider community, we raised more than €3,000 for Pieta House and Heroes Aid; we have decided to run it again this April 9th, 10th and 11th. The charities we have selected are ALONE, Cork City Hospitals Children’s Club and PACE Passage West. To help in raising funds for these 3 worthy causes we are asking you to walk, run or cycle 5km (while maintaining social distancing and adhering to government guidelines) and make a donation to our GoFundMe page which will be made available soon. Please send on any photos or videos to our social media page or tag us. Wear you club colours and get the whole family involved, pets included! All donations are very much appreciated.

After a lengthy information gathering process we are delighted to announce that our main pitch will undergo major improvement works, starting in June 2021, and costing in excess of €110,000. This work will be carried out by HSD.

We took our time on this very important project in considering what the best option is for the pitch. Some of the work to be carried out will include a new drainage system, levelling of the pitch, the placing of a sand carpet into the pitch, and a new grass surface.

Due to popular demand, George Durrant of Resolution is holding another 5 weeks of the Weekly Zoom HIIT sessions for women – thanks George!

The Lidl Level the Playing Field initiative has been running since the Monday 15th February! Help us to hit as many targets as possible; each club that achieves a minimum of 50 completed digital stamp cards is guaranteed a reward, starting from a set of Lidl sponsored jerseys up to €5,000 for clubs that collect 500 or more completed stamp cards.

Just download the Lidl Plus app, select Passage West as your club and start collecting stamps each time you spend €30 or more. This initiative runs until April 11th so please support if you can!