Dear Parents,

As we recover from the battering received from the various storms I wanted to update you on developments in the club, on and off the pitch.

It has been a frustrating few months with the weather impacting on grass pitches and our ability to play football. We are very conscious of trying to keep our girls and boys active and playing matches so have taken on additional all weather facilities to achieve that aim. While we rent a number of facilities for midweek training, it has only been feasible to rent pitches at the weekends in recent times as some new facilities come on stream. We now have midweek training facilities at Carysfort NS, St Andrews, St Killians, Blackrock College RFC and Newpark School and weekend facilities at Nord Anglia School, Carysfort NS, IADT and the DLR facility at Blue Pool in Monkstown. These facilities don't come cheap and we will double our spending on all weather pitches this year to over €50,000. While securing weekend facilities is good news, those facilities are only suitable for our younger members. It is impossible to source suitable all weather pitches for our  9 a side and 11 a side teams due to the scarcity of such facilities. However, through our ongoing discussions with the county council they have offered us exclusive access to two very well drained full sized grass pitches in Loughlinstown. While one is undergoing minor repairs we used the other over the last two weekends, even though most other grass pitches in the county were unplayable. This is a fantastic development for the club and should ensure regular football through the winter for all of our teams from Under 12 upwards in the future. We are very grateful to Donal Kearney and his team in DLR for their support with the new facilities. 

Given further changes in the scheduling of the football season in the latter half of 2019 we took a decision to charge fees for eighteen months - from January 2020 to June 2021. Given that we now have over 800 playing members it simply isn't feasible to be collecting fees for a six month period and then starting again for a twelve month period. I am aware that other local clubs are operating differently but we have to do what works for Granada. At the time of writing, we have almost 500 players registered and paid so I am appealing to those of you who haven't registered yet to do so as soon as possible. If your child isn't registered, they are not covered by the club's insurance, and could also be deemed an ineligible player if there was a challenge from an opposition team. This would result in your Granada team losing points and the club being fined. We would obviously prefer that this doesn't happen. Installment plans are available and hardship cases will be treated sympathetically, as always. We want every child to play football. 

As I have mentioned previously the club celebrates its 50th birthday this year. To mark the occasion we have a range of events planned including: 

• Two tournaments in Hollypark on Good Friday - one for Under 9 boys and the other for U10 girls - with invited clubs that we have had close links to over the years;
• A very special event for our playing members in early September involving some very famous footballers - full details to follow;
• A gala dinner in the Killiney Castle Hotel on Saturday 17th October for parents, former players and special guests - tickets available soon;
• A new club strip for all players which will be available for the new season in September, subject to obtaining a sponsor or sponsors - see below;
• A new look for the clubhouse - coming soon.

As outlined above, as the club membership grows so does the cost of running the club. This means that "nice to have" items such as a new club strip take a back seat to "must have" items such as all weather facilities. The only way we can afford the "nice to haves" is to obtain sponsorship from parents (directly or via their businesses) and local companies. We are launching a sponsorship drive, led by Paddy Cranfield,  to fund the cost of that new club strip and I would strongly urge that you, and / or your business, consider supporting that project. Paddy will be writing to you in the coming days with further details about our unique new strip and the sponsorship initiative.    

Last, but not least, we are running two four day camps over Easter for children born between 2008 and 2013, inclusive. These are filling up fast and further details can be found on the club website.   

We are grateful for the support we receive from all of our parents. and look forward to an exciting 50th birthday for the club. 

Yours in football,

Ciaran

Ciaran Kane

Chairman

Granada FC