GAA membership

The club I play for in Meath have reduced it for a playjh adult from €150 to €135. And they said they can't go any lower due to operating costs. We didn't get a refund for gym membership despite having no access at all to the gym for over a year so that left a slightly sour taste personally.

My club at home in Kerry have reduced everything. Kids will be €20 and an adult player will be €50 with an ordinary member being €30 and I've paid that to contribute some small bit to the club.

I still havent paid my membership to play, I'll wait and see when we are allowed back and then get onto the manager for a reduced rate because after losing my job, I couldn't justify €135 for less than half a year and only a handful of games.

blue note wrote: »

You're not paying your club for a service. You are a member of the club. And paying membership is part of sharing the cost of running a club amongst it's members (along with fund raising and the like).

The pandemic has put a hole in many clubs coffers and clubs will be reliant on their members to help them get back to financial health. Sponsorship and fundraising will have taken a huge hit over the last 12 months. I'd encourage all members to make an extra effort with fundraising over the next year to help their clubs.

In the case of someone hitting financial difficulty due to the pandemic (or for any other reason for that matter), you can contact your club. I'd suspect that most club will have concessions for people who are struggling financially. I know we have an unemployed rate of €40. And it's always mentioned that if the membership is difficult for someone to contact few treasurer.

I agree with what you're saying. But it has put a hole in my own coffers too. Trying to pay my mortgage and bills on 350 quid a week has been a challenge to get used to.

The club though, will be able to apply for a GAA grant to help with any expenses they have so I'm not going to be in a major rush to contribute what I can't afford.

I will look into the unemployed rate and see if they offer anything.

Slightly related to this are affiliation fees for clubs reduced by county boards? My understanding is they aren't and they are still due soon at a time when fundraising is impacted too. I would assume all of that would means some clubs wouldn't reduce fees.

No discount on my club dues. I don't mind.

dobman88 wrote: »

I agree with what you're saying. But it has put a hole in my own coffers too. Trying to pay my mortgage and bills on 350 quid a week has been a challenge to get used to.

The club though, will be able to apply for a GAA grant to help with any expenses they have so I'm not going to be in a major rush to contribute what I can't afford.

I will look into the unemployed rate and see if they offer anything.

A lot of clubs have a policy of reduced rates/zero rates if a member contacts a club offician and advises they are having a tough time coming up with membership. This is a good policy and generaly most clubs implement it well.

That said, people tend to have issues with paying membership for GAA clubs for one reason or another. I don't think people realise the costs involved in running a club and/or teams within a club.

The GAA centrally, despite a lot of misconceptions, do not generally fund clubs in any major way (if at all) if anything it is the other way around - and this is generally what is going on at the moment also.

If you want to look at a value that people get from membership - well it depends on the age profile of the person involved.
A club close to us charge about 240 for family membership. Generally, 2 adults (playing or non playing) and upto 4 kids. A playing child is around 100 euro - which would be deemed expensive in the locality for a GAA club.
The club is a relatively new club however and has some of the finest facilities around.

If you were to work it out as cost per 1 hour training session, Under 10s and above do training twice a week at least 32 weeks a year and would play a number of matches on top of that.
So you pay 100 euro for 64 hours training and god knows how many matches on top of that.

What other organised physical activity which requires facilities, insurance, maintenance costs, affiliation fees etc would cost you less than €1.60 an hour?
Tremendous value in fairness.


All that being said, if times are tough, approach a committee member and discuss your options.

€100 for juveniles in our club, two for €150, family of three or more €200

on GAA memberships, does anyone know if you can be a non-playing members of 2 clubs, each based in a different county. Want to stay a member of my club I grew up with but also want to support the GAA club in the village I’m now living in.