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GUESS WHAT I DO LAURA FITZGERALD GAELIC 4 GIRLS A s Gaelic4Girls 2021 wraps up, we spoke to Val Herbert, programme coordinator from the Kilcock club in Co. Kildare, to get her thoughts on the programme, its lead up and the lasting impact on the club. Val, thanks for taking the time to speak to us after such a busy 8 weeks delivering the programme in your club. Can you talk a bit about the preparation and lead up to the commencement of the programme and also some key messages from both coaches and participants? The preparation to delivering the programme within the club was key. We advertised throughout the community and also on social media. All of the tools were there for us on the E-Learning portal so once we got up and running we were able to access the session content both before and during the sessions. The coaches really THE IMPACT OF GAELIC4GIRLS loved the experience of having the session plans and videos at their fingertips. Not only was it accessible but it was also fun to coach on the evenings. Coaches and participants really enjoyed the variation that the station-based format facilitated. They got such a wide-ranging experience where they would move from a fun game station to an FMS station and then on to a skills station. The weekly themes allowed us to implement some very relevant ideas for our sessions going forward whilst being able to hand-pick which ones we felt were most relevant to the group. Bringing new participants to the club is one of the main goals of the programme. Has the programme achieved this for Kilcock? It absolutely has. We have 55 new players coming to the club and this also meant 55 new sets of parents or guardians, so it has achieved the goal to grow the club from a solid foundation. The girls were spread over the different age groups so all teams in the 8-12 years bracket benefited hugely from the programme. We also had a number of new coaches who came on board. They had been looking to get involved for a while and this was the perfect opportunity. They will continue to coach the girls and are now looking into going down the route of becoming referees. So we've seen growth throughout the different areas of the club. What do you see as the lasting impact of the programme in Kilcock? The programme has definitely raised the profile of the club within the community as a whole. Over the past number of weeks the G4G posts got the most hits on our social media pages. We are now looking forward to a community event in partnership with Glenveagh, who have just completed a new development adjacent to the club, that will take place in the coming weeks. We also met as a club over the last few weeks and have decided to take the learnings and tools of the G4G programme and implement them in our own recruitment drives in years to come. Having this sustainable growth model will no doubt benefit Kilcock's participation levels going forward. Would you recommend Gaelic4Girls to other clubs? Absolutely. Go for it!!! 32 | AUTUMN 2021 | www.ladiesgaelic.ie