JUVENILE MEMBERSHIP CLOSED FOR CHILDREN BORN 2015 & 2016

Due to the pressure of space and the large numbers already in the group, Carrick AC have closed membership for the 2025 for children born in the years 2015 & 2016.

A quick note to let you know that Juvenile training begins for 2025 on Tuesday January 14, with the following details applicable:

TRAINING TIMES

• Children Born 2016: Tuesday 5pm to 5.50 pm, indoors at Sports Complex
• Children Born 2015: Tuesday 5pm to 5.50 pm, indoors at Sports Complex
• Children Born 2014: Tuesday 6pm to 7 pm, indoors at Sports Complex
• Children Born 2013: Tuesday 6pm to 7pm, outdoors - meet at Sports Complex
• Children Born 2012 & before: Tuesday 6pm to 7pm, outdoors - meet at Sports Complex

INDOOR CIRCUIT / EVENT SESSION: Wednesday 5.30 to 7 pm - For athletes born 2013 or before - only for athletes intending on competing at Regional & National level

FRIDAY OUTDOOR SESSION: Meet at Carrick Sports Complex at 4pm - only for athletes intending on competing at Regional & National level

CLUB REGULATIONS

• Parents must check if there is sufficient adult supervision at each training session. If there are less than three adults present, training WILL NOT be held. All athletes must be on time.
• All athletes must be on time for training. Warm-ups are vital to help avoid injury
• Athletes must participate in all designated activities at training, unless injured.
• The use of bad language, spitting, physical assault, verbal abuse or name calling will not be tolerated and may result in a warning and/or instant dismissal from the club.
• Athletes must wear appropriate training gear (runners, track-suit, shorts, t-shirt).
• Athletes are requested to respect their fellow athletes, officials, competitors and coaches.
• Equipment is for club use and no abuse of it will be tolerated.

POST PRIMARY GROUP TRAINING

1. Meeting point for all training is the Sports Complex and all athletes must be on time and have their weekly fees paid before 6 pm

2. The group will leave from the Sports Complex at 6.05 sharp. If you are late, details as to training venue will be left with a club official in the Complex.

3. Athletes must participate in all designated activities at training, unless injured. Training groups are divided based on ability, experience and what events athletes are aiming for. If an athlete is injured or unable to complete a session, they must return immediately to the Sports Complex.

ONE-WAY TRAFFIC SYSTEM

The management of Carrick-on-Shannon Sports Complex have asked us to point out to the parents of all our members that a ONE-WAY SYSTEM operates in the car park of the Complex. All motorists MUST enter by the entrance on the main road and exit by the entrance nearest Aura Leitrim Leisure. 

With the safety of our members our primary concern, we ask that all motorists exercise the utmost caution in the Complex car park particularly at 5pm and 6pm when there are a lot of young children entering and exiting the Complex. A failure to do so would see the car park closed for our member's use in the future. 

​​​​​​​USEFUL LINKS

Carrick-on-Shannon AC website: http://carrickac.blogspot.ie/ 

Carrick-on-Shannon AC Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/carrickonshannon.ac

Carrick AC JOMA Club Online Shop:http://www.teamwearireland.com/carrick-on-shannon-1340-c.asp

Athletics Ireland:www.athleticsireland.ie 

HELP WANTED

We are always on the look-out for help, be it coaching, taking an officer’s role in the club, collecting weekly fees on Tuesday evenings or just being a traffic cop to help deal with the big numbers at primary school groups. If you are interested in any role but particularly in a coaching role, we’d be more than delighted to have you. Contact any club official for more details.

CONTACT POINT

If you have queries, contact Club Secretary John Connolly (0879446961), email connollyjohnb@eircom.net or message us on Facebook.

Our Facebook Page is closed to Friends Only so submit a Friend’s Request which will be returned promptly.

2025 Membership and return to training

We hope all our members and their families had a wonderful Christmas season but now it is time to get back to training! And to register yourself for the new athletics year which starts officially on January 1, 2025.​​​

The Juvenile groups are back in action from this Tuesday, January 7, in the Sports Complex at the usual times. Adult groups continue as normal under the guidance of Graham Allen, meeting on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Anyone who attends organised club training MUST be a fully registered member of the club. We cannot allow anyone who is not fully paid up to take part in organised club activities due to insurance considerations. This applies for anyone wishing to take part in competition.

​​​​​​​Our registration system is through the Athletics Ireland Online Membership System which means that our members will be able to renew their memberships from the comfort of their own home.

Unfortunately, for the first time in many years, we have had to increase our membership fees across all categories this year due to an increase in our registration fees with Athletics Ireland.

Our membership fees for the 2024 season are as follows: 

• Juvenile (U18 on December 31, 2025) - €35 

• Senior/Masters - €42 

• Family (3 Juveniles or more) - €90 

There are several ways of renewing your membership or applying to join the club.

2024 MEMBERS

For existing members, the club will send out a membership link via email to any club members whose email address is inputted into the system. Simply follow the link attached and pay your membership depending on your age category. 

If you do not receive an email notification from the Athletics Ireland Membership system, contact Club Secretary John Connolly and provide your email address and a renewal notice will then be sent out. 

FORMER MEMBERS

Depending on when you were last a member of the club, your details may still be stored in the system. If they are not stored in the system or you do not receive an email, you must reapply via the link at membership.athleticsireland.ie

NEW MEMBERS

For new members, the process is a bit simpler. Simply click onto the following link membership.athleticsireland.ie and follow the instructions, an application to join the club will be lodged and approved by the club. 

If the link is not showing up, the address is as follows:membership.athleticsireland.ie

If you have any queries, contact Club Secretary John Connolly at connollyjohnb@gmail.com

AGM Secretary's Report

Carrick-on-Shannon Athletic Club held a successful Annual General Meeting on Thursday September 26, 2024 at The Hive.

Secretary John Connolly presented his report to the meeting which can be read below:

Carrick-on-Shannon AC Secretary’s Report 2024

After quite a long gap, it gives me great pleasure to look back over an extended period of almost two years as I present my report to the Carrick-on-Shannon Athletic Club Annual General Meeting.

First, an apology that we didn’t get around to holding an AGM at the end of last year, the long finger is a curse with the meeting being put back time and time again - eventually, the long finger got so long that we have only got around to it tonight. So once again, apologies.

Looking back over our club’s performances since January 2023, it has been a remarkable period for our club. For many years, our Juvenile section led the way but nowadays, it is our athletes of an older vintage that are making headlines. 

Gerard O’Donnell returned to the top spot of the podium at the Athletics Ireland Senior 110m Hurdles after twice missing out by fractions of seconds over the previous two years, a fitting reward for a man who combines his own athletics endeavours with coaching some of Ireland’s best athletes who won medals at the World Relays and European Athletics Championships and competed at the Paris Olympics - truly no club could ask for a better ambassador.

Michelle Lannon and Ann Wynn plundered a sackload medals at National, European and World Masters level over the past two seasons, at cross-country and track, wearing the Irish vest with pride while Mickey Duignan, safe to say our longest serving club member as he joined the club the day it was founded, won gold medals in the Over 60 1,500m and 10K at the World Firefighter Games in Denmark - all three are an inspiration to us all. Deirdre Martin won gold and silver medals in the National 50Km while also finding time to win marathons in Galway, Westport and Longford and help coach our youngest athletes.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Kevin English won gold in the U12 100m at the National Community Games Finals so we really are a sport that caters for literally every age group.

It didn’t win medals as such but it would be remiss of me not to mention Liam Cox’s extraordinary efforts in his Lap of the Map in aid of North West STOP in 2023 a charity dear to many of us - to run from here to Sligo is some going but Liam kept going around the entire coastline of Ireland in a truly remarkable feat of endurance, perseverance and sheer determination. Congrats Liam.

All this wouldn’t happen without the efforts of our coaches and officials who dedicate hours of their time to ensuring that the children and adults of the area are able to pursue their dreams in a safe and welcoming environment so kudos to each and every one of you - we wouldn’t be the club we are without you.

A special mention to our Adult Running Group which continues to thrive under the leadership of Graham Allen. I know Graham has a great group around him and to see what seems like a horde of runners on the roads of Carrick on Shannon is truly uplifting. The link up with the Leitrim Sports Partnership and the Couch to 5K series has been wonderfully beneficial to both parties and it is a sign of the welcoming nature of the group that so many stay on and join the club afterwards. Well done Graham.

We celebrated our 50th Anniversary by giving each of our members, juvenile to Senior, a special commemorative t-shirt, with the support of Brady Insurance. As a promotional tool for the club, I don’t think anything could have gone better. My thanks to Fergus Daly of Daly Sportswear for his incredibly quick turnaround in getting the t-shirts out before the end of 2023 and I know the t-shirt is a prized possession for young and old alike.

I would also like to thank Jane Brady and Brady Insurance for their wonderful support of our club and also Noleen and the staff of Carrick Community School for the use of their facilities, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do without them. Also thanks to Ken McManus for his unfailing good humour on our trips to Sligo track - that initiative has been funded by the support of Brady Insurance and was a brilliant experience for many young athletes over the past year.

I know our chairperson Siobhan has a few words about the Shannonside Recreational Campus in her address, all I will say is that we are counting the days down to when we will have a track on our doorstep. The development of quality facilities has a proven relationship with the development of athletes so we are eagerly awaiting a new chapter in the history of Carrick-on-Shannon AC.

Thoughts for the future compels me to mention that we, as a club, can always do with new faces with new ideas to bring the club forward. The Club was founded in 1973 and has grown hugely over the years which brings its own challenges - as of 4 pm today, we have 317 members, 97 of whom are Seniors. Examining those figures, we don’t have a lot of members in the 14 to 19 age range and that is a concern - our numbers in those age groups haven’t recovered from the Covid years but I’d be hopeful that the strong numbers and enthusiastic athletes we have coming through can alleviate that problem in the coming years.

But it is more in terms of leadership that I ask the question of what we can do better - going over the minutes of the previous AGM, we had plans to celebrate our 50th anniversary but between personal commitments, work and life in general, those plans never got off the ground and I want to apologise for that lost opportunity.

It is why I am conscious that new faces at the top table can bring fresh energy and new ideas - our chairperson Siobhan is a great example of that. It was only when I was going over the old AGM minutes that I realised I took over as Club Secretary from the late, great Michael O’Brien in November 1998, making this my 26th year serving as Secretary - boy that time has flown and Michael had the role for the guts of 20 before that!

Now before anyone thinks I’m chucking it all in, I’m not stepping down but as a club looking to the future, it is something we need to be thinking about - it is only good practice that we open these roles up to new faces who will bring fresh energy and life to the role. Seeing the same people in the same roles for so long can deter people from getting involved and as a club, that would not be good.

I’d encourage anyone to get involved as an officer of this club - you couldn’t work with better people and I really mean that. Siobhan, Karen, Mary O’Donnell and all of our officers are not just great officials, they are great people and wonderful friends but we’d all be delighted to see some new blood coming in.

Moving on, on a sombre note, I’d like to express my sympathy to all those who suffered bereavements since our last AGM. I won’t list everyone but I will mention the passing of adult club member Pat Heffernan and former member Dominic Keenehan. Both their families and communities were devastated by their passing and I want to pass on my deepest sympathy to their family and friends.

I conclude by thanking everyone for their support and patience over the past year, particularly Siobhan, Karen, Mary and Donnacha. I want to thank our athletes for all their efforts while representing Carrick AC on whatever stage they are on and I  look forward to the coming year with optimism and excitement.

John Connolly

Secretary

Just a quick note to remind all our members over the age of 16 and parents of Juvenile members that our Club Annual General Meeting takes place tomorrow, Thursday September 26, at 8pm at The Hive on the Castlecarra Road.

Everyone is welcome to attend, we don't expect people to take on jobs - we'd be delighted if someone wants to join our coaching or officials team - but everyone is welcome to attend and hear a review of our activities and our plans for the coming year.

JUVENILE TRAINING RETURNS NEXT TUESDAY OCTOBER 1

A final reminder that training for our Juvenile members returns next Tuesday, October 1. All the details are in the link below but just a reminder that we are accepting new members in all training groups up to the deadline day of Monday September 30, but after that, we won’t accept any new members in the indoor training groups until the New Year. We are not accepting any child born in 2016 at this time but will be accepting members in those age groups in January 2025.

You can submit a membership application via the Athletics Ireland Membership system at https://membership.athleticsireland.ie

Full details on training times and how to register are available on our website at

https://carrickac.blogspot.com/2024/08/juvenile-return-to-training-october-2024.html

JUVENILE RETURN TO TRAINING OCTOBER 2024

A quick note to let everyone know our plans for our return to Juvenile club training.

RETURN DATE: TUESDAY OCTOBER 1, 2024

TRAINING GROUP TIMES

To help us accommodate growing numbers seeking to join the club, there will be changes in the scheduling of groups. From our return to training on Tuesday October 1, the following groups will train at the following times:

• Athletes born 2015: Tuesday 5 to 5.50 pm (Indoors Carrick Sports Complex)

• Athletes born 2014: Tuesday 6 to 6.50 pm (Indoors Carrick Sports Complex)

• Athletes born 2013: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Outdoors, meet at Sports Complex)

• Athletes born 2012 & before: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Outdoors, meet at Sports Complex)

• Athletes born 2011 & before: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Outdoors, meet at Sports Complex)

On Wednesday, there is an indoor session at the Complex for athletes born 2012 or earlier, from 5.30 to 7 pm, specialising in event specific training and circuits. This session is for athletes who intend to compete in regional and national competitions only.

There is also a session on Fridays, outdoors at the Sports Complex at 4pm for children born in 2012 or earlier - again for athletes who will compete in regional and national competitions only

Thanks to our sponsors Brady Insurance of Carrick-on-Shannon for their wonderful support

CROSS-COUNTRY

With the cross-country season soon upon, training for those who wish to take part in Cross-country will start next Tuesday, September 3, meeting at the Sports Complex at 6 pm sharp. This is only for those who will compete in the Regional & National competitions and will entail training three times a week. Please contact John Connolly at connollyjohnb@gmail.com if you wish to take part.

NEW MEMBERS

We will be accepting new members in all training groups up to the deadline day of Monday September 30, after which we won’t be accepting any new members in the indoor training groups until the New Year. We are not accepting any child born in 2016 at this time but will be accepting members in those age groups in January 2025.

You can submit a membership application via the Athletics Ireland Membership system at https://membership.athleticsireland.ie

PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY NEW MEMBERS WHO JOIN BEFORE OCTOBER MUST RENEW THEIR MEMBERSHIP WHEN THE ATHLETICS IRELAND MEMBERSHIP YEAR BEGINS ON JANUARY 1, 2025

TERM FEES

All Juvenile members are asked to pay their Term Fees of €30 per athlete on or before the first session on October 1. This covers the entire term up to Christmas. We will be in touch with details of term fees and how to pay them before our return to training.

HELP

As always, we are urgently seeking help from parents to act as supervisors and coaches at training - this will help us accommodate more members in the future as we are greatly restricted at the moment by space and the number of people willing to volunteer - every bit of help would be enormously appreciated

QUERIES

Any queries to Secretary John Connolly at connollyjohnb@gmail.com

MEMBERSHIP REMINDER & TRAINING DETAILS

A quick reminder that we're back to juvenile training from this Tuesday, January 9, at Carrick Sports Complex and another reminder that anyone who attends any organised club training MUST be a fully registered member of the Club due to insurance and membership regulations.

All Adult members must also be fully registered to train with Graham Allen's group on Mondays and Wednesdays.

​​​​​​​Our registration system is through the Athletics Ireland Online Membership System which means that our members will be able to renew their memberships from the comfort of their own home. 

Our membership fees for the 2024 season are as follows: 

• Juvenile (U20 on December 31, 2005) - €28 

• Senior/Masters - €35 Juvenile 

• Family (3 or more Juvenile members) - €70 

There are several ways of renewing your membership or applying to join the club.

2023 MEMBERS

For existing members, the club will send out a membership link via email to any club members whose email address is inputted into the system. Simply follow the link attached and pay your membership depending on your age category. 

If you do not receive an email notification from the Athletics Ireland Membership system, contact Club Secretary John Connolly and provide your email address and a renewal notice will then be sent out. 

FORMER MEMBERS

Depending on when you were last a member of the club, your details may still be stored in the system. 

NEW MEMBERS

For new members, the process is a bit simpler. Simply click onto the following link membership.athleticsireland.ie and follow the instructions, an application to join the club will be lodged and approved by the club. 

If the link is not showing up, the address is as follows: membership.athleticsireland.ie

TRAINING TIMES

From our return to training on Tuesday January 9, the following groups will train at the following times:

Athletes born 2015: Tuesday 5 to 6 pm (Indoors Carrick Sports Complex)

Athletes born 2014: Tuesday 5 to 6 pm (Indoors Carrick Sports Complex)

Athletes born 2013: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Indoors Carrick Sports Complex)

Athletes born 2012: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Outdoors, meet at Sports Complex)

Athletes born 2011: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Outdoors, meet at Sports Complex)

Athletes born 2010 & before: Tuesday 6 to 7 pm (Outdoors, meet at Sports Complex)

IMPORTANT - ALL NEW MEMBERS BORN IN 2015 WHO HAVE RECENTLY JOINED THE CLUB WILL HAVE THEIR FIRST TRAINING SESSION ON TUESDAY JANUARY 16, AT 5PM AT CARRICK SPORTS COMPLEX

On Wednesday, there is an indoor session at the Complex for Athletes born 2011 or earlier, from 5.30 to 7 pm, specialising in event specific training and circuits

There is also a session on Fridays, outdoors at the Sports Complex at 4pm for children born in 2011 or earlier

HELP NEEDED

As always, we are urgently seeking help from parents to act as supervisors and coaches at training - this will help us accommodate more members in the future as we are greatly restricted at the moment by space and the number of people willing to volunteer - every bit of help would be enormously appreciated

Any queries to Secretary John Connolly at connollyjohnb@gmail.com