3 October 2020

Irish Division 2020 AGM Chairman’s Report:

When I became Chairman last October it was both an honour and a privilege to be representing the Irish Division. My first duty was to attend the Division & Region Chairman’s Meeting late last year. Aside from much talk regarding the Club National there was a presentation from the Club’s Social Media person on how they want to push Facebook as the main platform for sharing information amongst our members. This is by far the most popular Social Media platform for the over 55’s. They were looking for a Social Media Champion from each region or Division and we were very lucky to have Geoff Hayes to step into this role to help pull together and share any Irish Division related club content.

Following this was the Club AGM where Grenville was re-elected for another year and John Gass was elected as Vice-Chairman of Events Committee. As of this meeting the Club has 350 thousand members, 47 thousand of these are registered with centres but unfortunately less than 10 thousand of these actually rally. 

At Christmas time there was a lovely get together organised for our past members in Dublin before Christmas. It was a fantastic opportunity for our past members to see their rally friends that they may not have seen in a long time. Many thanks to the Leinster Centre for organising this event – it was very much appreciated by everyone whom attended and a lovely gesture.

Before we knew it 2020 had arrived and the Irish Division Council were busy planning for our 1^st ever Irish Division Easter Rally. We had our working weekend in Galway Racecourse where we met the manager of the racecourse and went through our plans. The location being so close to Galway and newly built ‘building’ is absolutely perfect for our event. But unfortunately, Covid landed in Ireland and after a very depressing meeting the Irish Division Council decided to postpone the Easter rally. Little did we know at the time how long this would last. It caused all centres to cancel and rearrange any rallies that had planned. We were planning to have a Question Time event in late summer where a representative from East Grinstead was coming over and we were planning on inviting all registered members with a view to pulling in some of the Irish members that were not regular ralliers. This event unfortunately will have to wait until safer times. I would like to thank our three Centre Committees who despite Covid and all the new regulations still managed to arrange for us to get out and about and meet each other, while social distancing, during the summer. Unfortunately, our Naas Diner Dance had to be cancelled also but hopefully in the not too distant future some level of normality will return and we can get back to our favourite pastime, rallying and meeting our friends!