CUMANN Pheadair Naofa scooped a third large club award at the Irish News School, Club and Volunteer Awards last year, and couldn’t be prouder of it.
Club PRO Anne McCormack said the Warrenpoint club were “absolutely delighted” to be winners again having also won it in 2011 and 2013.
“The Irish News award recognises the collective achievement of all our club members and I think that’s one of the nicest things about the awards,” said Anne who is currently in her second year as club secretary, as well as being School Liasion Officer.
“We’ve a great slogan – we talk about: “For the whole of family, for the whole of life”.
The award, which Anne herself collected last year, is proudly displayed in the clubrooms, with the signage of the Irish News School, Club and Volunteer awards used at the club field in Moygannon.
For Anne, the award can act as an inspiration not only to the current members of the club, but to the generations to come.
“People buy into that,” she said.
“It’s not just about one individual in the club – it belongs to all of us. It seeks to bring out in clubs the ethos of the GAA, the sense of community and the well-being of its members.
“It goes beyond the delight [of winning the award] to something much bigger in that it engenders a whole sense of community spirit, and inspires us all to do better for our clubs.
“It is often said that success breeds success and I think right across all codes – we would see a confidence growing among our members – both young and old, and a confidence that will hopefully take us into the future.
“And that the current officers and that the current members will leave our club better than we found it.
“And I would have to say, in that, the Irish News club award has played a significant role in encouraging and inspiring.
“It’s just been a tremendous achievement for the club to have been associated with such a prestigious award.”
Cumann Pheadair Naofa, who can boast around 700 members, were promoted to senior football two seasons ago, and although on-field success is very important to them, it’s only part of the story at this well-organised and ambitious seaside club.
“We’re a fully integrated club, we have football, ladies football, camogie, we have hurling and we have handball,” Anne continued.
“And beyond the field, we would be very much involved with health and well-being.
“We have a great health and well being committee and involvement in a lot of projects -from the most recently launched RNLI project – because we’re a coastal town, the recipes for success programmes which encourages healthy eating – particularly for teenagers.
“We would be involved with culture, we have an Irish language group who perform quite regularly at feiseanna, and leadership programmes.”
And with a strategic alliance with St Mark’s High School as regards facilities, and a club/school partnership with St Dallan’s primary school for gaelic games and community activities in place, CPN can indeed look to the future with well-founded confidence.
