Dear all
First of all, on behalf of the European GAA Management Committee
("Board"), I would like to this opportunity to wish you and your club a
Happy and Sporting 2014 and we look forward to seeing you on the playing
fields of Europe and/or at other ECB events
during the year.
This year promises to be
yet another great year for gaelic games in Europe with more clubs, more
games and more activities than ever before.
However, increased activity levels also mean increased costs and a
need to be stricter in our implementation of various rules and
procedures.
As in any membership based organisation, the GAA has various rules, procedures and
deadlines. Details of membership registration, club affiliations, various fees and competition entry requirements are detailed below.
Please read this email carefully and bring relevant items to the attention of your club officers and committee etc.
1. GAA members registration
The GAA membership year commences on January 1st each year. All details of club members currently on the GAA
(Servasport) Online Membership
System will be reset to "unregistered" on January 1st 2014. Existing
members can be easily registered for 2014 by simply updating their
membership status after
January 1st.
Please note that all members must be
registered by March 31st. Only new members can be added after this date.
Former members who wish to re-join a club must be treated as "new"
members after this date. This entails extra administration
and data entry. All players must be registered at least three days
before playing for a club. This will be necessary in any case as teams
must produce team lists from the membership system and hand to the
referee before each game.
Only those members registered by March
31st are permitted to be members of club committees, vote at general
meetings or be appointed as delegates to European Conventions or hold
any office with the GAA, the LGFA or Camogie associations. In
addition, only registered members may apply for, or be allocated, tickets for All Ireland finals.
The ECB also hopes to extend the
benefits of GAA membership by year by arranging certain benefits/deals
with various "commercial partners". These benefits may include special
offers on products or services e.g. discounts with
hotels, car rental companies, airline tickets, playing equipment, etc.,
but they will only be available to registered GAA members.
It is in everyone's interest, whether
they are members, clubs or the ECB, to have members registered as early
as possible and before other responsibilities and activities such as
training, arranging travel to tournaments start
to add to club officer's administrative burdens!!
2. GAA membership and ECB management fees
One key decision taken at the 2013 Annual Convention was to change
the system for collecting various fees. The former "ECB Management Fee"
which was due from each club (based on numbers of members in "bands" of
1-50; 51-100 etc) along with the individual
GAA membership fee has been replaced with a more equitable arrangement
which combines both.
The new ECB management Fee will be
€10.00 per adult member per year,
(this applies to all adult members of the GAA whether players or not)
and will be collected by clubs and payable to the ECB quarterly in
arrears i.e. the first collection date
will be March 31, with fees for additional members who join after that
date, payable on June 30; September 30 and December 31st.
This fee which is payable by every member of a GAA club in Europe, without exception, will be allocated as follows:
- €2.00 to be forwarded to GAA
H/Q as required by the Official Guide ("GAA Rule Book")
- €8.00 to be retained by ECB and/or recognised federations and subsidiary bodies.
The €8.00 retained by the ECB will then be distributed as follows:-
- €2.00 to be forwarded to national (or multi-national) oganisations/federations
(if such body exists and is recognised by ECB. The only current such federation is the FFG in France). The national federation
will use this amount to fund their activities and those of subsidiary bodies.
- €2.00 to be forwarded by the national federation to other subsidiary bodies
(if such body exists and is recognised
by the ECB. Currently the ECB recognises two subsidiary bodies, the Ligue Breton in France and the Galician Federation in Spain). If there is no national
federation, the ECB will forward the €2.00 directly to the subsidiary body.
- remainder retained by ECB
((replacing "old" management fee)
Some examples of how this work are as follows:-
A: A
member renews his/her membership of the Rennes club in Bretagne in
France in February and pays €10.00
(in addition to any club membership fee, insurance fees etc.). This
amount will then be sent by the club to the FFG on March 31st. €2.00 is retained by the FFG to support their activities; and the FFG then sends €2.00 to the
Ligue Breton to support local competitions etc. The FFG will then transmit the remaining €6.00 to the ECB. The ECB will send €2.00 to the GAA and retains €4.00
to fund the expenses of organising, administering and developing Gaelic games in Europe generally.
B: A
new member joins the A Coruna club in Galicia in Spain in May and pays
€10.00 (in addition to any
club membership fee, insurance fees etc.). This amount will then be
sent by the club to the ECB on June 30th. The ECB will send €2.00 to the
GAA and as there is no recognised national federation, the ECB will
send €2.00 to the Galician Federation to support
their local leagues etc. The ECB retains €6.00
to fund the expenses of organising, administering and developing Gaelic
games in the "Iberian region" and Europe generally.
C: A
former member re-joins the Helsinki Harps club in Finland in August and
pays €10.00 (in addition
to any club membership fee, insurance fees etc.). This amount will then
be sent by the club to the ECB on September 30th. The ECB will send
€2.00 to the GAA and as there is no recognised national federation or
subsidiary body, the ECB
retains €8.00
to fund the expenses of organising, administering and developing Gaelic
games in the "Nordic region" and Europe generally, this reflects the
additional costs and operational requirements
for the ECB where there is no national federation or other recognised
body
The majority of clubs will pay their €10.00 per adult member direct to the ECB. Clubs in France will transmit the €10.00
to the FFG.
Please note that the ECB receives details of each club's membership on a weekly basis. Invoices
will be
issued for clubs who have not returned their fees on time. However, as
we are all volunteers, we would hope that clubs will assist the smooth
operation of the system by transmitting their fees to the ECB bank
account within
TEN days of the end of each quarter, without having to be reminded!
3. GAA Club Affiliation fee
Every GAA club in the world is
obliged to pay a €20.00 annual "club" affiliation fee before March 31st
each year. The ECB has no discretion in this matter.
4. ECB Competition Entries & Fees
Every team is required to pay a
€20.00 entry fee per competition to the ECB. This small fee helps to
cover costs of running competitions such as referees travel. medals
etc. Newly formed
clubs, in their "foundation" year, may be allowed late entry to a
competition and/or exempted from entry fees at the discretion of the ECB
Management Committee.
Please note that the entry fee is "per team", not per club. Thus a club entering two teams (e.g. "A" and "B" teams) in a particular competition would be liable for €40.00
entry fees.
The ECB plans to organise the following competitions in 2014:-
Pan-European
European Hurling Championship
European Camogie Championship
European Ladies football Championship
European Ladies football Shield
European Premier football Championship (15-a-side)*
European Senior, Intermediate and Junior football Championships (11-a-side)
European Football 7's (To be confirmed)
* NB: Entry fee for this competition is €50.00 per team
Regional
Iberian Ladies football Championship
Iberian Football Championship
Benelux Ladies football Championship
Benelux Football Championship
Benelux Football Shield
Nordic Ladies football Championship
Nordic Football Championship
Central & East Ladies football Championship
Central & East Football Championship
Italy-Switzerland Ladies football Championship
Italy-Switzerland Football Championship
North-West (France & Channel Islands) Ladies football Championship
North-West (France & Channel Islands) Football Championship (organised on a "conference" basis)
Clubs will also be sent a link to
electronic entry form which is required to assist the Competitions
Control Committee (CCC) in planning and organising the various
competitions.
The closing date for completing the 2014 ECB Official Competition Entry Form will be March 1st.
Late Entries
Late entries (if permitted by the CCC) may incur an additional late entry fee of €30.00.
Withdrawals
Clubs will be refunded their entry
fee for any team which officially withdraws from a competition provided
that notice of the withdrawal is sent to the European Secretary at least
14 days prior to the date of the first round
of a competition.
NB: Due to the
logistics involved in the organisation of the Premier (15-a-side)
Football Championships, the date for withdrawals will be decided by the
CCC but will be at least 30 days prior to the
first round of fixtures.
5. Club & Officer Contact details
Every organisation needs to communicate with it's constituent units
from time to time. The ECB regularly communicates with clubs via email
and posts information to our website and Facebook page.
Whilst all official European GAA communications are conducted by
email to official GAA email addresses, we are also required to hold on
file, certain basic details in relation to each club and the club
officers. An electronic
form to collect this information will be issued shortly to all clubs.
Completion of this form is mandatory and we request clubs to cooperate.
6. Affiliation & Entry forms
In order to assist
both clubs and the ECB, and make the process easier for all, the 2014
ECB/GAA affiliation form will be shortly be issued as online form.
7. Failure to comply with regulations
In the GAA we are all volunteers and giving up our time to organise
club and ECB activities and this includes administrative and financial
matters. With almost 70 clubs in Europe, the ECB officers have a heavy
workload and many are also active in their
clubs as well. Therefore we appeal to all clubs to supply requested information and pay fees on time.
We do understand that problems arise
and clubs have difficulties too and we try to be as flexible as possible
however clubs who have problems should alert us as soon as possible,
outlining their situation. Unfortunately, we
must advise that it is unlikely that we will be able to waive fees for
clubs due to general economic conditions as almost all clubs are
suffering to a greater, or lesser, degree in these difficult times.
However, in order to be fair to those who respect the rules, clubs who fail to supply requested information by the due date will be penalised by fines and/or other sanctions
such as non-participation in development or coaching activities, not being allowed to host tournaments etc. Clubs who are in arrears in the payment of fees will NOT be allowed to play in any competition
or participate in other GAA activities until fees are paid. This requirement will be strictly implemented this year. Clubs
are asked to bear this in mind when commencing activities for the
season ahead, contacting members, collating contact details and collecting fees for the season and
also when accepting new members.
My apologies for such a long email and thank you for taking the time
to read it and on behalf of the ECB, I again wish you a super 2014
season.
Kind regards
Tony
Tony Bass
Secretary, Europe GAA
