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| Chairman Adult Rugby: Ian's apparent role within the club is to chair the adult section of rugby within the club. He has carried out this task with aplomb and a degree of success the club could not have dared to hope for. For the first time in years Balbriggan RFC is fielding two adult teams every weekend (in Leinster League Division 3 and in the McGee Cup at J3 level). Both these teams are competitive and are made up primarily of local lads who have come up through our Youths section. Both teams are also very young. Ian was instrumental in getting players interested in playing rugby again (after having left the game) getting guys to take up the sport as well as getting players to return to the club from other clubs to which they have drifted over the past few seasons. This has entailed constant work on the ground, all in his spare time, chasing players ensuring that their registrations are in order, that they are attending training and so forth and that they are kept informed of club issues and team announcements. Ian attends every training session on Tuesday's and Thursday's (unless on shift at work). He helps to prepare the grounds before home matches, and then gathers up the first team gear after matches. He never misses a club meeting! During a recent match in January against Railway Union, a player received a head injury that required hospital treatment (CAT scan and so forth). Thankfully the player is fine, however, Ian travelled to hospital and stayed with the player overnight to ensure that he was ok. That is serious dedication from a volunteer that cares about his players. Club Facilities: He has been instrumental in ensuring that the club obtained changing facilities at its new grounds in Balrothery and he was responsible for sourcing the changing facilities whilst also ensuring that the facilities were appropriate for the Clubs needs and were installed correctly. He had the vision to realise that the club will be exposed in future years to enormous costs in maintaining its grounds when water metering costs will increase. To this end he sourced a rain water harvesting (submarine size) tank/plant that will help defray/reduce the clubs exposure to these costs in future. What is more, having thought of this idea and having researched the clubs needs, he convinced a company to donate the equipment to the club free of charge! Ian then went much further. He is a trained medic (as a fireman) and was concerned to ensure that the club had appropriate equipment in case of injury/accident. To that end, Ian sourced two defibrillators for the club, one that is stationed permanently in the North County Cricket Club next door to our grounds and one that is brought to away matches with the team. Ian has also obtained sponsorship for the club (tied to the first pitch) and arranged on his own the club's Christmas draw which was the first fund raiser of the season and made substantial funds for the club. In arranging the Christmas draw, Ian not only sold the tickets, he also obtained all 15 prizes from various sources including local businesses and so on. There is much much more that Ian does for our club...the list is almost endless. We could never have progressed anywhere near as far as we have progressed if it weren't for this man. We in Balbriggan RFC have no hesitation in nominating Ian Lawless for Volunteer of the month. You will be hard pressed to find a candidate that comes near him. |
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