Clare PRO, Brid Mcnamara and Catherine Carmody travelled to Croke Park for the Media & Volunteers awards night on Saturday evening where they were presented with their well deserved awards.
Brid accepted the prize on behalf of Clare Camogie board for the fabulous match programme which she compiled for the 2018 county final. Rumour has it that this is award number 13 to take pride of place on Brids mantlepiece.
Catherine was nominated by her club, Ballyea, for the Clare Volunteer of the Year award and was selected to take the honours.
Well done and well deserved to both....
Clare Camogie Volunteer of the Year 2018
Catherine Carmody – Ballyea Camogie Club
Catherine has been a member of Ballyea Camogie Club with nigh on a decade. In 2018 she held the role of Chairperson as well as Child Protection Officer, she was a team mentor, did great work with compiling match reports and was also the Ballyea Camogie Club rep at monthly County Board meetings.
Catherine works tirelessly for the Club as a coach, manager and is heavily involved in coordinating club fundraising. She fulfilled all these roles throughout the year, in fact she has more or less carried the success of Ballyea Camogie during 2018.
Catherine mentored the Ballyea Feile team who achieved All Ireland success for the first in the clubs history winning their Division, and she was also involved with the U16 team who won the Clare U16B title in October.
Her commitment never wanes, from the moment the year started she was thinking, planning and preparing training programmes for the year ahead. Due to her commitment, indoor training was organised for the months of January and February combined with endurance training in Ballybeg woods so that Club players would be physically ready for the start of the camogie season. She was relentless in arranging challenge matches, pushing for extra training, arranging match times, venues and referees. This si a huge time consuming effort, requiring numerous text messages to suit the needs of players and so that the club could have the best possible team taking to the pitch.
Having organised matches, Catherine was on the sideline throughout games, involved with team selection, player positioning, team talks, substitutions. That in itself is a huge involvement, however Catherine never failed in providing refreshments for half time (well hidden at the bottom of the kit bag there was always a few packets of jaffa cakes and a bag of jellies!!). Her encouragement throughout games helped drive the teams on to victory, encouraging players to give their best regardless of the score.
Catherine is always available on any occasion, ever reliant would be an understatement, notwithstanding her duties as Chairperson which involves the day to day running of the Club including arranging meetings, advising and willingness to give her years of experience of mentoring to all grades and making sure the Club provides appropriate training equipment, along with sorting out pitch slots when issues arose.
Catherine is a huge supporter of Camogie in general, attending matches all over the county, that could be also to check out the opposition!! She’s a huge supporter of women sports and could be seen supporting her Camogie gals when they competed in Ladies Football games also.
Catherine embodies all that we understand of the word volunteer – her effort, commitment, loyalty and endless passion have certainly benefitted Ballyea Camogie Club and make her a very worthwhile recipient of the Clare Camogie Volunteer of the Year award for 2018.
