The inaugural Electric Ireland Hurl With Me event was held in the GAA National Games Development Centre (NGDC), Abbottstown on Saturday the 17th of June. 250 young players and 160 female guardians took part in 27 games across the day!
Earlier this year, Electric Ireland announced a new partnership with the Camogie Association, which has seen Electric Ireland become the title sponsor of the Electric Ireland Camogie All-Ireland Minor Championships and the Electric Ireland Camogie Third Level Championships, along with the Camogie Association’s Hurl With Me programme. Having supported the development of future inter-county GAA stars over the last 10 years, Electric Ireland will now extend its commitment to female players across the country, using its invaluable sponsorship experience to bring Camogie to a new audience and to help raise the profile of the sport, which already boasts over 100,000 registered players globally.
A key part of the partnership is to extend beyond competition and encourage participation among young girls, through the Electric Ireland Hurl With Me initiative. This 4-week programme for 7 – 10-year-old girls; encourages parents and their daughters to get involved in Camogie and learn the basic skills through expert coaching and mentoring.
Over the past few weeks, mentors delivered 4-6 skills sessions to the parents/sisters/older adults in each of the participating clubs, who then coached the younger girls with the new skillsets they had gained from the Hurl With Me Coaching Tutorial. At the end of the 4–6 weeks all the clubs who took part in the Hurl With Me programme were invited to attend the National Day at the GAA Centre in Abbottstown.
It was a fun and exciting blitz where both the parents/adults played a game of camogie, followed by the younger kids. Despite the rain on the day, it didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits and it was a great day for both the kids and the adults. There were treats and t-shirts for everyone who attended to take home as a souvenir from the day.
The aim of this programme is to encourage parents and give them the opportunity to learn the basic skills of the game in a fun and supportive environment. For the young girls, having someone older to look up to in the game will help to increase their interest in playing and further encourage them to stay in sport, assisting with player retention.
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