Club AGM on Thursday 25th Feb 2010 @ 9.30pm

Your VOTE IS NEEDED

At the club EGM held on 11th February 68% of club members voted in favour of the agreement between the Hurling and Football Sections as to how the club should move forward (copy attached).

A more streamlined form of executive was proposed to operate on a ‘cabinet’ type basis with specified responsibilities and portfolios assigned to each member. While a second vote fell just short of the 66.6% required to give the structures envisaged by the agreement constitutional effect, it is clear there is a strong mandate for the Hurling and Football Sections to come together and to press on with the badly needed development of our overstretched facilities.

To build on this mandate the Hurling and Football Sections are jointly proposing the people named below for the six officer positions on the 2010 Executive at the Club AGM to be held on Thursday night next at 9.30pm in Glenalbyn:

• Chairman: Pat Fenlon
• Vice Chairman Pat Duggan
• Secretary Seamus Kennedy
• Asst. Secretary Peter Walsh (who will act as Commercial Officer)
• Treasurer Patricia Lloyd (Camogie)
• Registrar Tom Rock (who will be responsible for membership and child welfare)

Nominations for these positions have closed and there are no other nominations.

On the night of the AGM nominations can be made for a number of ordinary positions on the executive. To put into effect the agreement endorsed at the recent EGM the Hurling and Football Sections request your support for the following five candidates:

Robbie Kelleher, John Shovlin, Brian Geraghty, Martin McDermott and Michael McNicholas.

If elected Robbie will take responsibility for the Grounds portfolio and John for the Development portfolio. It is intended to keep a position open for a representative from Ladies Football.

Before we can progress, we have to deal with a motion to change the club constitution that is before the AGM and which has the potential to undermine all the good work done and progress made so far.

This new motion is a revised version of the proposal submitted to the EGM (and ruled out of order) purporting to adopt the model constitution in the official guide of the GAA in place of the current club constitution. We ask you to come to the AGM on Thursday to vote against this motion. The proposal is entirely inappropriate to a club like Kilmacud Crokes and should be rejected for several reasons including:

1. Contrary to first impressions the proposal is not the official guide model constitution. It is an amended version of it.
2. It is a long and extensive document that has been brought forward without consultation with the other stakeholders in the club. Neither the motion nor the proposed draft constitution were submitted for discussion, comment or approval to any committee other than the ladies football committee. A proposal with such revolutionary impact should not be just circulated a week before an AGM and cannot be properly debated in such circumstances. These were among the reasons the Chairman at the EGM ruled the motion out of order at the EGM. In the intervening period nothing has been done by the proposers to address the shortcomings that resulted in it being ruled out of order.
3. The proposal ignores the cabinet type executive approved at the EGM. It makes no reference to the responsibilities envisaged by the EGM (Development, Commercial, Membership, Child Welfare etc) and would in fact frustrate what the EGM approved.
4. It does not take into account the fact that our constitution was drawn up designed for the specific needs of Kilmacud Crokes and the fact that almost uniquely for a GAA club Kilmacud Crokes reaches into a number of non-GAA sports.
5. The four game, four section model where each committee (football, hurling, Ladies football and camogie) is elected at its own general meeting and runs its own games has worked well and brought a great deal of success to the club. This model was copper-fastened by the agreement between the Hurling and Football Sections and endorsed at the EGM. Two weeks later we are being asked to ditch this model completely. If the proposal is passed no longer would we have football committees, hurling committees, camogie committees or ladies football committees elected by their own activists. These bodies would now be appointed by the executive (7.15 in the draft constitution circulated on 18th February) and their roles “defined” by the executive (7.16). This would produce a totally different form of club to what we have now. It is far too radical a change to contemplate out of the blue.

PLEASE DO NOT leave it to others. Your vote is essential to ensure we can move on with the positive and progressive work that is needed in the club. We ask you to:

(a) Vote for Robbie Kelleher, John Shovlin, Brian Geraghty, Martin McDermott and Michael McNicholas.

(b) Vote against the motion to change the constitution Many thanks. Kilmacud Crokes Hurling