The costs of running a club the size of Simonstown Gaels GFC are significant and are, as they are across every household and business, growing year on year.  I want to take a quick opportunity to explain to our members the headline running costs on an annual basis and in doing so, it will underscore the critical importance of your contribution as members and that of our sponsors and supporters. 

 

In order to keep the roof over our heads (mortgage and rates), keep the heat, power and lights on (gas and electricity) we pay approximately €90,000 a year.  In order to enter our teams into competitions and provide them with the equipment, coach training and medical support they need we pay €45,000 approximately.  We also have additional service costs of approximately €45,000 (insurance, pitch maintenance, accountancy, waste disposal, legal, equipment hire, catering etc) and miscellaneous costs of approximately €20,000 (laundry, printing, broadband, alarms, stationary, donations etc).  In summary, it costs about €200,000 to run the club before we even consider developing new facilities or improving or repairing our existing facilities.  These costings are based on our 2024 accounts and are summarised in relative terms in the above image. 

 

In the context of the above a reasonable question might be ‘what was all the HSE rent money used for?’ and the answer is simple.  Those monies funded our new fencing, the development of the juvenile pitches, the purchase of lawnmowers, the installation of ball stop nets, funded a significant portion of the front pitch lights and kept us afloat as a club over the last few years.  

 

What are we doing about this challenge? The Finance Committee, chaired by Alan Sweeney are in coordination with the Executive looking at opportunities to reduce our running costs where we can and there have already been significant savings.  We are also looking at the income side and in particular improving our fundraising and commercial revenue streams and there is also significant progress already this year in that regard. 

 

So what can you do as a member?  Firstly pay your membership or become a member if you are not one and encourage your family to do the same.  Secondly, where possible do the weekly Lotto and support, if you can, the club’s other fundraising efforts as they roll out across the year, including buying a coffee.  Finally guide and encourage our efforts to increase our commercial revenue streams (commercial sponsorship, corporate events) where you/your employers and commercial contacts can. 

 

Its not all gloom and we are in the process of turning things around financially but it will take time and your input as members and time as volunteers.  In a few weeks I will set out how we intend to develop our facilities in the short term on the basis of recent successful sports capital funding applications and with hopefully, an improving financial outlook.