Healthy Club Project

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Bantry Blues GAA are now part of the Irish Life GAA Helthy Club project, an initiative we are excited to be a part of that can benefit all our members.

If you’re interested in getting involved, please contact us via Clubs Social Media Channels or email  bantryblueshealthyclub@gmail.com

WHAT IS THE GAA HEALHY CLUB PROJECT ?

The Healthy Club project aims to help GAA clubs explore how they support the holistic health of their members and the communities they serve. GAA clubs already contribute to the health and wellbeing of their members by providing opportunities to develop their physical, social, emotional, and psychological health.

The project aims to help GAA clubs identify what they are already doing well, identify areas where they can or would like to improve, and empower them to ensure that everyone who engages with their club benefits from the experience in a health-enhancing way, be they players, officers, coaches, parents, supporters, or members of their local community.

The healthy club model, which is based on best national and international practice, also aims to embed a healthy philosophy in a club while integrating health into the day-to-day club activities in a sustainable way. It also aims to place the local GAA club at the heart of the community, making it a beacon for health in the locale.

OFFICIAL LAUNCH : BANTRY BLUES HEALTHY CLUB PROJECT 

 (20th May 22 -Wolfe Tone Park )

Healthy Club Committe Chair, Mark ODonovan welcomed Club officers, Mentors, Supporters, our local Councillor, Cllr  Danny Collins, parents, local press  and most importantly our young players to the Launch

The future of our Community and Club rests with the youth of today, the importance of our club being intrinsically linked to our community cannot be underestimated and needs to be strengthened…This was very evident when we supported our local shops with grocery deliveries to people that were isolated during the pandemic…. Thanks again to anyone that helped out at the time.

Our Bantry Blues Healthy Club project aims to explore how we support the holistic health of our members and the Bantry community as a whole. We already contribute to the health and wellbeing of our members by providing opportunities to develop their physical, social, emotional, and psychological health through the medium of games. We aim to develop this further through our Healthy Club project.

Current Healthy Club Initiatives include:

Ball4All sessions for kids with additional needs   

These fully inclusive football sessions presently run biweekly for primary school kids and will soon be available to post primary teenagers also, we already have players travelling from Caheragh, Drimoleague and Kealkil, and the feedback is incredibly positive. Thanks to Caroline Hodnett, Christine o’Donovan and all the coaches involved with getting this off the ground. It’s a fantastic addition to our club and we look forward to it flourishing in the years ahead.

Social games

A  7s tournament was held at Christmas where past & present players and others in our community participated in a fun ansocial event.We aim to provide more non competitive games to bring enjoyment to players and encourage participation. The Christmas 7’s was organised by  Jessica Coakley, Laura O’Sullivan, Kenneth Deane, John Harrington and Joe Coakley.

This is an area of our club that can be expanded if we have enough help..

 The Club has  fantastic facilities available to us now, congrats to the development committee on this.

Coming Up

Presently we are  planning to get our Green project up and going, starting  with a sensory garden and play area in Wolfe Tone park, Debbie Delaney is heading this up and I have no doubt that she will ssucceed.

Walk and talk

We will be organising a walking evening weekly from the start of September, encouraging people of all ages to come along and walk at their own pace, bring a friend, a relative or just come along and enjoy a chat followed by a cuppa in our clubhouse afterwards.

Nutrition and Mental Health Workshops

We will be running nutrition and mental health workshops for whole community, the first one will be with Seanie McGrath in the end of August.

Youth Leadership Programme

This will hopefully be run in 2023 if we have enough help.

All these initiatives will be open to the whole community.

The Healthy Club Project would not have been possible without the support of the Club Committee and special thanks must go to Club Chair, Philly Spillane and all the other officers for their support so far.

Thank also to Liz Campbell for attending, we look forward to being regular contributors to Grapevine, and using their magazine to let everyone know what we are up to and help build our involvement in the community.

None of this work would be possible without the tremendous work of our Healthy Club committee, of Caroline Hodnett, Debbie Delaney, Stephen Coughlan and Elaine Courtney. And Eddie Wiseman who helps out with our PRO work.

Fresh Fruit for the launch Event was Kindly sponsored by OKeeffes Supervalu