Foróige

 

Club Leaders:    Carmel McGinty,  Collette Nyland

The club was founded in September 2003.   Ballycastle is a small town and has few amenities for its teenagers.    The Junior Club, as the name suggests, is for the younger age group, we cater for teenagers from the age of 12yrs to 15yrs.    The senior club was in existence for many years but found that a lot of their members did'nt leave the club after 4th year in school, which would have been the tradition.    Instead they wanted to remain in the club until they finished their schooling.   This caused a shortage of places for the younger age group.   Collette and myself both had daughters in this younger age bracket, so following discussion we approached the senior club leaders and said we were interested in starting a new group.     The senior club leaders were very helpful.    They put us in touch with Richard Morrisey who is regional youth officer for this area.   We got lots of encouragement and training.

We then put a notice in the Parish bulletin to find out how many teenagers would be interested in joining.     The response was better than we had anticipated and we got 22 members.     We then became affiliated with Foróige, paid our membership fee and then we could begin.    We use the Ballycastle Parish hall on a Thursday night from 8p.m. to 9.30p.m.

The leaders just offer guidance as the club is managed and run by the elected members of the committee from the foróige group.    During the second meeting of the group the following people were elected:

Chairperson:   Margaret Bonner

Secretary:   Fiona McGinty

Treasurer:   Christine Murphy

PRO:   Collette Langan

The members then got training and completed a very successful year.    We attended many of the events staged locally by Foróige e.g. discos, sports events, talent nights. We also went to the movies and travelled to Castlebar and Ballina.

During a typical evening in the local hall the committee have a meeting, we have discussion time and anything of interest is discussed.    We then get to relax and play games. This could be a game of football, basketball, volleyball, table tennis or badminton.

As leaders we are looking forward to the start of a new year and meeting new members and helping them develop within the rules of a successful organisation that is Foróige.

By Carmel McGinty