Clonoe O'Rahilly's Rising Stars

Aim

To re-energise our players, coaches, parents and families and get everyone back out playing, having fun, socialising and making friends!

Club Background

Clonoe O'Rahilly's GAA club was founded in 1916 and has a distinguished record in Tyrone Championship football having claimed every title from U14 to Senior level.  The club has produced many quality players over the years and have been represented on the inter-county scene and on several All-Ireland winning Tyrone Minor & U21 teams, a number of All-Ireland schools winning teams, successful Tyrone Senior teams and also on successful Inter-Provincial teams.  The club can also boast, in Kevin McCabe, of having produced the player to receive Tyrone’s first ever All-Star award in 1980.  Connor McAliskey, Michael O’Neill & Declan McClure have also represented the club well through U21 and senior level with a number of Ulster championships titles 

Ladies football was established in 2007 with an u12 team, in 2012 we won Grade 4 U14 league, championship and Ulster Feile and grade 4 u16 league. In 2013 u14,16 and U18 grade 3 championships and u16 league. 2014 we claimed u14 grade 2 league and u16 grade 2 championship. 2015 saw another successful year with u14 and u18 grade 2 league and championship doubles. In 2016 we entered our first ever senior ladies football team, the team just came up short in the championship to local neighbours Coalisland who went on to win the title. In 2017 the seniors pushed on and won their first championship at senior level. In 2018 u16 grade two league and in 2019 our u16 girls did the double by winning the grade two league and championships.

With a proud and successful history to build upon, a strong support base within the community and with hard working dedicated members the future for Clonoe O’Rahillys looks set to be as illustrious as the past.

Our Youth v Covid 19

Covid 19 has had a massive negative impact on society as a whole but we can see this first hand with our own members, our Safeguarding, Health & well being and Children's officers have been working hard supporting parents and their children to overcome a raft of issues relating to mental health, social media concerns and the basic lack of exercise. We have also lost lots of volunteers and we want to encourage them back by providing free coach education.

The Project

During lockdown our coaches worked hard to engage with our young people via various virtual skill challenges, online quizzes etc. We even had an awards night where players up to u18 level got presented awards on their doorstep by their own parents.

In Jan 2021 our youth committee decided to engage the youth with a poster competition, where players produced an image or logo etc that would be used as the new promotion image of our underage activity once restrictions were lifted - entries were submitted at the local shop where they received a free Easter egg for entering.

The quality of the entries submitted by the children led the youth committee to lobby the main executive committee of the club to allow the young people to rename/rebrand the youth using the competition entries. It was from here that the Project of 'Ógra Uí Rathaille - Clonoe Rising Stars' was born. A new fresh approach with new branding images, better education of our coaches and like always the right equipment to do the job properly.

Unfortunately covid restrictions hit us hard again and the project never got off the ground. Since 2017 our numbers of boys and girls playing football from u6 to u12 has increased from 120 to 235 and another 160 boys and girls aged 13-18. This is whey we are now initiating Crowdfunding for the first time, we have also had the moto of being here to serve the community but we now need the community to help us get this great initiative up and running so that that we can provide a Fun sporting environment for all these young people and hopefully create a platform for them to stay involved in sport.

How will we spend the Money raised?

Coach/volunteer education - we will embark on a education scheme to ensure every new coach/parent is qualified to a minimum of foundation level. More established coaches will move on to complete their level 1 coaching award. All coaches will also have to update/complete their Safeguarding one qualification as well as first aid.

Equipment - Most of our equipment is outdated so we will plan to have new equipment for each coaching team.

Player/Project identity - we will give every youth player a piece of merchandise with the new 'Clonoe Rising Stars' image.

Health and Well being - we want to run a raft of initiatives/events to promote healthy lifestyles and to create environments for social interaction for all ages but particularly our older members who have become very isolated.

Online Safety - We want to deliver education to young and old on the importance of online safety. We have had to deal with a number of incidents of online blackmailing of young members. We need to get an established education package together to keep them safe. This will require support from external organisations who are experts in this field.

Our Games are about to resume and we want the community to enjoy them all in a safe environment. We know that families are getting it tough at the minute so we will help those who need assistance in getting to games as well as providing free refreshments/food. 

This project successfully funded on 6th April 2022