Throughout the month of July, clubs across Monaghan were a hive of activity with children taking part in the Kellogg’s GAA Cul Camps in their local club. In total just over 3,000 children took part in the camps. The biggest camps where in Clontibret(235), Scotstown (210), Inniskeen (210) and Truagh (207).

In total, 20 camps took place over a 5 week period, with one new camp taking place this year in Blackhill. This is a very busy time for Monaghan Coaching & Games and we must pay a special thanks to each of the host clubs in helping us promote the camps and help with the organisation and clean-up at each camp. It was evident a lot of work was put in by each and every host club in promoting the camps in their locality. We would just like to pay particular thanks to all the host club Coaching Officers who distributed application forms, put up posters and signs and attending meeting in relation to the Summer Camps. All your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed and we thank you for the excellent promotion of our games to the younger members of our community.

We were lucky enough to have a number of our county players working on the camps this year from Minor, U20, Senior and Ladies Football. We have no doubt this had a great impact in the massive numbers attending the camps and it was great opportunity for the children to get a meet their heroes. Following on from the success of our County Minor Team this year, we also had a number of the players attend the camps with the Minor Championship Cup. We also had our County Minor Ladies team visit the camps with their Minor Championship cup. This was a great opportunity for all of the kids to get photos and ask questions of current players from both minor panels and hear about their Cul Camp experiences in years gone by.

We would just like to thank all our coaches and assistant coaches. It was evident that they all brought something new and different to the camps which the children really like. The coaches play the most important role in ensuring all the children enjoy the camps and come away each day with a smile on their face. We would just like to thank the ladies which helped out every Monday morning at the registration on the camps namely Dorinda, Eileen and Marion. Our coaching and games staff namely Colin Malone, Ann McKenna, Rory Beggan, Cillian Cromwell and Michael Keane acted as the Camp Coordinators and we would just like to thank them for all the tireless work they do and the camps each and every year.

Finally last but my no means least I would just like to thank all the host clubs for providing the facilities for all our camps. We would also like to thank them for providing a facility to store all the gear. This saves our coordinators a lot of time each and every day loading and unloading the gear.

We would  encourage parents to pre-register nice and early for the camps next year to avoid the disappointment of not receiving the kit and backpack during the camp. Online bookings will from March for the 2020 Camps. If you have any queries in relation to this please do not hesitate to contact Paul O’Connor (email: developmentmanager.monaghan@gaa.ie or phone 087 837 4827)

We are already looking forward to you all attending the Camps next year! Hopefully we will see another increase and more clubs looking to host a camp.

Please see below for a selection of photos from the camps this year.