How can your club get involved in the GAA’s Healthy Club Project? GAA Community & Health Manager Colin Regan discusses the GAA’s Community & Health Departments flagship project, the Healthy Club Project, and outlines the future plans for this innovative and exciting work – talk taken from the 2015 GAA Health & Wellbeing Conference.  

GAA #littlethings Campaign

The GAA and the HSE are working in partnership to bring the messages of protection, resilience and support for mental wellness to local communities.

The #littlethings campaign highlights that we all experience difficult times in our lives, and that when we do, there are some evidence-based little things that can make a big difference to how we feel. For more information go to http://www.yourmentalhealth.ie.  

Campaign ambassador, Galway’s Gary Sice, talks about the little things he does to improve his game. What little things do you do? 

Remember to reach out to Den Haag Healthy Club Officers if you need support as an expatriate in The Netherlands, we are here to help.

Another Campaign Ambassador, Cork’s Ashling Thompson, talks about the little things she does to improve her game.

Do contact Den Haag Healthy Clubs Project Team if you are facing difficulties as an expatriate. 

 

The Healthy Club project aims to help GAA clubs explore how they support the holistic health of their members and the communities they serve. GAA clubs already contribute to the health and wellbeing of their members by providing opportunities to develop their physical, social, emotional, and psychological health.

The project aims to help GAA clubs identify what they are already doing well, identify areas where they can or would like to improve, and empower them to ensure that everyone who engages with their club benefits from the experience in a health-enhancing way, be they players, officers, coaches, parents, supporters, or members of their local community.

The healthy club model, which is based on best national and international practice, also aims to embed a healthy philosophy in a club while integrating health into the day-to-day club activities in a sustainable way. It also aims to place the local GAA club at the heart of the community, making it a beacon for health in the locale.

GAA Healthy Club Project

 

A healthy club is a happy club

Friday 12 October 2018

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By Colin Regan, GAA Community & Health manager

Living in student squalor in 1994 in the upstairs of a Georgian building on Richmond Street, Dublin 2, we band of seven brothers decided something was required to fire up our maternal side.

We certainly weren’t mothering ourselves. At times our two-bedroom hovel resembled the decrepit flat called home by Withnail and I in Bruce Robinson’s eponymous cult movie classic. While we never resorted to smothering ourselves with deep heat to fend off the cold, we did at times run the risk of creating new life in the kitchen sink as aging food particles and strange organisms intermingled. The thoughts.

Goldfish were decided upon to give our lives meaning and purpose. The pet shop next door, long since gone, was reminiscent of the establishment in which mogwai was bought; he of Gremlins notoriety. Two fine specimens were selected after very little deliberation. The words of the old shop owner as we departed his store have stayed with me ever since. ‘A hungry fish is a happy fish, and a happy fish is a healthy fish,’ he sagely offered.

Neptune died within days. Not from over-feeding I can assure you. But Lucile lived happily (hungrily anyway) for many years.

The phrase returned to me last Thursday night as I laughed loudly as James Patrice stole the show at the St. Sylvester’s GAA Healthy Club launch. I’m often asked to describe in a sentence what the Healthy Club project is all about. I usually try to draw on my previous life as a journalist to come up with a fancy definition that ticks all the boxes about sport, and health, and life, and community, and wellbeing. Then it came to me. A healthy club is a happy club and a happy club is a healthy club. The hungry bit is superfluous. Nobody likes a hangry club.

Read the full article here: GAA A Healthy Club is a Happy Club