OFFICIAL GAA HANDBOOK

By KEVIN CARNEY
This year will see – for the first time since 1986 – Monaghan GAA County Board proudly proclaim ownership of it’s own official yearbook …
9th, is destined to be a red letter day in the annals of Monaghan GAA when the eagerly-awaited 2011 official county yearbook hits the shop shelves. The brainchild of outgoing county board chairman Paul Curran, the 2011 county yearbook will be launched on Thursday next, coinciding with the staging of this year’s County Convention. The production of an official yearbook forms an integral part of the county board’s Strategic Plan and the book is being viewed by its creators as a major fundraising vehicle for Monaghan GAA in the long-term.
The county board yearbook showcases all that is best about Gaelic games in Monaghan, focussing in on all of the codes, Gaelic football, hurling, handball, ladies football, camogie, Scor etc.
It’s a project that has been realised thanks to a massive amount of teamwork, all carried out under the aegis of Club Monaghan. Club contacts have been augmented by the help of editorial people, proof readers, photographers and others besides.
Project co-ordinator John Kieran (Killanny) is effusive in his praise of the hands-on effort put in by so many people and he is confident that it’ll be a winner with GAA folk and the uninitiated alike:
“I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who rowed in behind us and who came forward to support the project and who made themselves available to do whatever they could to get the ball rolling and keep it rolling and who were a mine of ideas.
“I have to give an awful lot of credit to our contributors and to our three main sponsors, McElvaney Recycling; Greenfield Foods and Eurotech.
“We think the book will appeal to a wide cross-section of sports fans, not just those within the GAA family, because of the quality of the writing.
“Overall, it’s a quality product and a hard-back, rather than a magazine-type, production. “We would like to think that’ll it be a collector’s item and the first of many official yearbooks to be produced by the county board in the years ahead.”
Although running to over 360 pages, the yearbook, according to Kieran, is aimed at delivering quality rather than quantity in terms of its reading material.
Articles on the GAA’s Director General Paraic Duffy (a native of Castleblayney), Monaghan GAA exiles in London and a raft of other features will excite and delight even readers who aren’t ordinarily part of the GAA’s mainstream support.
There are articles on national GAA as well as domestic GAA matters and special ‘guest’ writers have lent their talents to bolster the book’s appeal.
The official yearbook is a full-colour production which is certain to catch the eye of the most discerning of Christmas shoppers, the yearbook will also be easily identifiable by its emblazoned Monaghan GAA crest.
Pointedly, for all the richness of its features, photography and interviews, the novel production is purposely poor on the advertisements’ front.
“Our primary objective with the yearbook was to get the book onto the market, make it extremely readable and not have it polluted with ads,” the aforementioned Kieran explains.
“We’re fortunate that our ads this year will cover our costs, allow us to at least break even and that’s all we really wanted from our first effort.
“The fact is that every cent that accrues from the sales of our yearbook will be ploughed into helping defray the costs relating to the management and upkeep of our complex at Cloghan and also associated costs involved with looking after our various county teams.”
FULL STORY IN THE NORTHERN STANDARD