A chairde
An appeal for your assistance
Oisín CLG was founded in 1904 and is part of local life and routine promoting and developing Gaelic Games and Scór at all levels in a parish steeped in tradition. It is based in Glenariffe a small, isolated, rural community located on the north coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, with just over 1500 residents and 500 households. With the nearest town seventeen miles away, Glenariffe suffers from the negative effects of rural isolation, poor transport links, very few local facilities and services, and limited opportunities for inter and intra community interaction.
In 2011, our only community space, Glenariffe Parochial Hall, was condemned and permanently closed. Following an extensive community-wide survey the need for a new community space was identified along with a range of facilities and services felt to be lacking in our local area. To address this on grounds leased by Oisín CLG,Friends of Glenariffe (FoG) was subsequently formed to manage the design, build and running of a new Community and Recreation Centre. Our joint objective is to provide a fully inclusive, accessible community and recreation facility which will promote community health and well-being and bring people together of all ages, abilities, interests, backgrounds and beliefs.
For the past 8 years we have been assisting Friends of Glenariffe with fundraising for the project. We were finally able to afford to start the Centre construction in January 2018 having raised over £280k ourselves, with the support of the local community, along with £420k grant funding secured from the Big Lottery Fund NI Space & Place Programme and £180k from Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council. In addition, Friends of Glenariffe have secured a loan from the Ulster Community Investment Trust. The building construction, which now stands on our club GAA-vested land, will be completed in December 2018. However, despite our best efforts, we still need to raise further funding in order to fit out, furnish and equip the Centre. So far we have secured £54,500 of the £150,000 we need.
This new Centre replaces our previous club facilities which we had outgrown and which were in need of modernisation. It will provide Oisin CLG with fantastic new facilities that our members and visitors can be proud of. We will have four large modern changing rooms accommodating males and females, a fitness suite, a kitchen which will enable us to cater for visiting teams and presentations and a lift giving access to people with disabilities. In addition to providing much-needed match changing and training facilities, the community space will help bring local people together again providing a central location in which to enhance our heritage, culture and history.
This facility will serve as a community hub offering a whole range of activities:
- Social and community activities and events
- Community health and well-being activities
- Fitness suite
- Fitness classes for all ages, levels, abilities and interests
- Arts, crafts, music, dance and drama classes
- Play groups
- Pre and After School Clubs
- Training, information and advice sessions
- Meeting space and development opportunities for local clubs and associations
In our final push to raise the additional funds needed we are now approaching business and charitable organisations in addition to members of GAA clubs throughout Ireland and the rest of the world to ask not only for donations –but their assistance in raising the profile of our fund raising effort.
Our CLG would also be very grateful if you could kindly circulate the donation link below to your club members, local businesses and also your local community.
Gerry Cosgrove – Rúnaí
Niall Wheeler – Cathairleach