COVID- 19
On Monday 19th, the Government moved the country from Level 3 to Level 5 for the next 6 weeks, restrictions kicked in midnight Wednesday, until 1st December. We were delighted to learn that, although matches continue to be off the cards, training in PODS may continue.

This has been working really well over the last number of weeks with over 140 parents now volunteering to support the club by becoming COVID Supervisors.

Each age group now has a parent in charge of ensuring that every training session has a Covid Supervisor. Chris Steele has provided huge support and knowledge to the setting up of this system.

TRAINING OVER MIDTERM
PLEASE NOTE – there will be training over both weekends of the midterm break.
Friday 23rd – Sunday 25th of October & October 30th – November 1st.
Keep an eye out for any changes to this, that will be communicated to parents in the usual methods from Chris!

GAISCES
One of the many initiatives we are undertaking with this year’s GAISCE group is to hone their literary skills! Last week Hannah McKenna & Louis Peuch gave us an overview of their typical week of training. This insight was certainly of interest for our more junior members who could see how much work and time commitment is involved in developing one’s skills.

This week, another member of our 20/21 Gaisce Group, Emma Montgomery ( who plays both Inter 1 and Ladies 1st this year ) gives us her take on the Umpiring Session they had 2 weeks ago with Ali Keogh.

In her own words :
An Gaisce – October 2020 – “Umpiring with Ali Keogh”
We began the training session by Ali teaching us how to properly blow our whistles, as we were all being very nice in terms of how loud we were being. She took us through our first learning point of umpiring, which was knowing what part of the pitch belongs to which umpire. It was hard to get used to, as I kept blowing frees in the wrong areas. Two of us would umpire a mini match between the rest of us for a few minutes, and then Ali would take us through another learning point.

We were taught that umpires should move as much as possible to see the game, so we tried to move as much as possible when practising. We also learned the few hand signals we would need to umpire an U10s game and when not to blow frees. Ali said that the main goals when umpiring U10s are that the players learn about the game while playing it and are safe. We had great fun playing the non-contact mini match with each other. I did not think I would enjoy umpiring, as I have a habit of not enjoying umpires a lot, but I was pleasantly surprised!

We all learned a lot about this important role on the pitch and I have also gained a new level of respect for umpires, their job is a lot harder than it looks! We also had a socially distanced birthday party for our teammate and friend, Ella Power, after the session ended and stuffed our faces with cake.

The session was a great experience, thank you so much Ruth for organizing it.

Next week we hope to get a report from 1 or 2 of the Gaisce students on their experiences of their first weeks of coaching.