Sport Northern Ireland Project Re-Boot: Activate has provided £5,000 of match funding
"Active Ageing" in Dorsey
Newry, Newry, Mourne and Down, United Kingdom
Aim
Being Fit & Healthy Should Never Get Old! So, Our Crowdfunding will allow older people in Dorsey access to NEW sports opportunities in 2023
Who are we?
Since reforming in 2000, the club has achieved a number of notable successes both on and of the pitch. Just 3 years after reforming, in 2003, the Club took on their most ambitious project which was fundraising for their own pitch. The Club raised £100,000 through local community donations and ticket draws to purchase 7 acres of land and transformed it into a full size playing pitch. Subsequent years followed with further Community fundraising to develop Clubrooms, state of the art gym and a walking trail most recently.
On 15th April 2007, Dorsey Emmets played their first league game in the newly developed Rory McGee Park.
In 2012, Dorsey Emmets achieved a Gold Standard Club Maith award; only the seventh club in Ulster, and the second club in Armagh to do so. Club Maith is a club accreditation scheme which allows clubs to be benchmarked against best practice standards across the full range of GAA activity. The Gold award is only conferred on excellent clubs.
The existing facilities cater for 100+ members across senior (aged 18+) and Juvenile (aged 6-18), both males and females. We have Club activity at the facility going all year round, with training starting from January. We have teams commencing from under 6, 7.5, 9.5 senior. And we have joint teams with a local club under 11.5, 13.5, 15 and 17.
Why are we crowdfunding?
After a successful 2022 Crowdfunding programme, we have lots of support to fundraise again to support those most in need in our rural community. Therefore, the reason we need to raise money is because we want to deliver a completely new older persons health, sport and wellbeing programme in Dorsey. This will help older people in our community who have been most effected by Covid19, for example those who have been isolated at home for a long time with no access to sport, exercise, health or wellbeing programmes.
Fundraising will allow us to deliver a 12 week programme from March 2023 (March / April / May) to include a walking programme for older people in our walking trail, deliver indoor circuits, exercise and aerobics etc, as well as deliver health specific projects at our club facility.
Our Crowdfunding will support older people directly, as well as older people living in a rural community who have limited opportunity to access sporting facilities.
Our project will also support Older People with long term limiting illness, Older People on a low income, Older People living in areas of greatest social need such as Dorsey and Older People living in rural areas as noted.
Challenges faced during Covid19
Our Club has been financially affected by the pandemic because of the following reasons:
- Lack of fundraising opportunities
- Lose of members during the pandemic
- Lack of sponsorship which resulted in a drop in Club income
- Loss of donations which resulted in a drop in Club income
- Loss of volunteers which resulted in us cancelling programmes
- The wellbeing of our coaches, members, and wider rural community suffered. Such as, health and wellbeing.
- In particular, older people in our community were isolated, for 2+ years which is why we want to Crowdfund to deliver specific projects supporting older people across our rural community and surrounding rural areas here in Dorsey.
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. If you want to run your own fundraiser to support us, maybe a sponsored activity or similar, use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!
How we’ll spend the money raised
Any money raised will go directly to the following:
- Covering the costs of expert coaches to deliver our walking programme, qualified walking instructors, qualified aerobics instructors, qualified health and wellbeing facilitators for older people, and qualified coaches to deliver circuits specific to delivering to older people.
- Crowdfunding will enable us to cover marketing of the programme to ensure we reach as many older people as possible in our rural area, and surrounding rural areas, as well as cover some equipment specific to delivering programmes to older people.
- All money raised will go towards supporting our older people across Dorsey.
Community impact
The wider impact of our Club and Crowdfunding is for the whole community of Dorsey, and is that our Club is to promote not only participation in Gaelic Games, but also exercise and other health improvement activities within the rural community, as well as to provide accompanying services which support other social and economic challenges in our community such as supporting older people.
As such, we recognise the role we can play in addressing various issues that can provide better opportunities for our local rural residents such as older people in a wider sport and more inclusive way for older people for example.
We also recognise the value of providing support in uniting communities and bringing people together from different backgrounds, and thus we are putting a big onus moving forward on promoting our premises as a community hub for all members of the community to utilise, regardless of age, race or religious background. The Club is located within the Silver Bridge Super Output Area. Where we are located is defined as a deprived area. Considering this, our GAA Club is at the heart of the Community locally because of the lack of similar community facilities for residents to use. Our Community facilities is much more than just a GAA facility therefore.
This project successfully funded on 1st April 2023