Naomh Pol Minor Project 2022

Aim

St Paul's will target 15 – 17 years old boys to re-connect with the club and promote long-term engagement in sport and physical activities

Our Project

What we want to do:

St Paul's wants to make a concerted effort, targeting the 15 – 17 years old boys to re-connect with the club and promote long-term engagement in sport and physical activity.

We are asking for support from you, to help us achieve this!

The St Paul’s goal is to run a number of activities in addition to our core sporting programme. These activities will:

• seek to re-engage with the boys that have left sport and encourage them to begin playing again, and
• assist them in developing and maturing, enabling them to understand better the issues – mental and social – that they may encounter and how these can be overcome individually or with friends (via team sports).

 This programme will include:

• 12 week athletic development course – a gym based programme that will improve the wellbeing of the boys. This will also include nutrition advice.
• Linked to the athletic development program, we will also introduce weekly pitch based team building activities, aimed at promoting self-confidence, personal belief, personal empowerment, self-worth and the idea of belonging; (belonging to a group of friends/ belonging to a team).
• Workshops on how the boys can improve their mental resilience both in sport and life and also manage the time demands of work, schoolwork, and playing a sport. This will be a mix of classroom and pitch-based activities.
• Overnight team trip to Dublin to play a match and site see within the city. This objective of this trip will allow the boys to reconnect as a team on the pitch, and also allow the boys to re-connect with old friends and also with St Paul’s as a club. This trip will also enable us to reciprocate the Dublin team, hosting a festival of football or hurling later in the year (towards the end of the summer) – inviting several teams to St Paul’s for a days’ worth of games. Some of overall cost of our project will cover the costs of us facilitating this, covering the costs of hiring facilities and the costs of referees etc.

We believe this programme will create physically and mentally stronger young men, more ready to deal with the demands of a changing world, where the bond between them will be solid, durable, and reliable. The programme will also help prepare they young men for their departure from our Juvenile ranks as they transition into the senior club ranks in the autumn of 2022.

Why do we want to do this? Current Situation 

As with many sports clubs, Covid 19 has had a huge detrimental impact on St Paul’s playing activities. In particular St Paul’s has noted a dramatic negative impact on the teenage boys of the club. The lack of opportunities to play, and the lack of club-based activities over the past 2 years has led to a decrease in the number of teenage boys playing our games.

In 2019 St Paul’s was able to field 3 teams at U14 level. In 2022 St Paul’s will be only able to field 1 team. Whilst there it is a common problem in sports with teenagers ceasing their participation, the impact of Covid has caused the bond between the boys and the club to be broken. 

In addition, for many of the players this is the last year of their juvenile career before they move to senior squads. Again, this is usually a transition point in young people quitting sport.

Whilst the immediate impact is the loss of physical activity, St Paul’s is aware that the boys are also encountering social developmental and mental problems as many have also left that structured school environment and have entered post education worlds. Our projects main aim will be to help the boys develop within themselves to better deal with social or mental health issues.

Club Background

St Paul’s GAC is a Gaelic sports clubs based on the Shaw’s Road in West Belfast. The club fields teams in the sports of hurling, Gaelic football, Ladies Gaelic football, camogie and handball and has approximately 500 members including juvenile, seniors and volunteers, fielding in total 42 teams. Our Juvenile’s range in age from 4 – 17 and account for 300 members. The club will be celebrating its 80th anniversary in 2022 and as such is striving to grow and provide opportunities for all members. 

St Paul's facilities include:

• grass pitch, 
• 3G MUGA, 
• 2 handball courts and community gym. 

The club’s administrative committees primary focus is to continuously develop our facilities however a consequence of the size of the playing membership means an extensive number of external facilities need to be hired.

This project successfully funded on 27th May 2022