from BHAA 1. Our first race of 2010 will take place on Saturday next 09 January 2010 at Tymon Park, Tallaght. It will be the South Dublin County Council cross country races – 2 miles for women at 12.00 noon and 4 miles for men at 12.30 pm. At present, the race is still on and is expected to go ahead. If it is found necessary to call it off, people will be notified via text message, by email and notification will be posted on the website www.bhaa.ie. Obviously, we recognise that road conditions around Dublin are difficult so please do not take any unnecessary risks in getting to Tymon Park. Registration and changing facilities will be at St. Jude’s G.A.A. club.
To get there from the southbound M50, leave the M50 at the Tallaght exit and head left towards Templeogue/Rathfarnham. You will pass the Spawell complex and golf course on the left. Go left at the roundabout and St. Jude’s is a couple of hundred metres down the road on the left.
If you are new to cross-country, you would be well-advised to have a pair of spikes as the ground in the park (i.e. grassy/muddy) is likely to be slippy. Also wear plenty of layers of clothing as well as hats and gloves.
2. Many of you who were members for 2009 will have received automated emails prompting you to renew your membership. This will be the most efficient means of ensuring that the records are updated correctly. You can pay online using your credit card or your PayPal account for a total cost of €15.89 or you can print out the registration form and bring the payment to your next race. If you did not get one of these emails, you can register as a member on the BHAA website at
https://bhaa.ie/staticpages/index.php?page=20090310125712247
Membership entitles you to be included in a company team or an industry sector team at races and to be included in winter and summer leagues which have separate prizes.
3. Not every BHAA runner works for an employer that has enough runners to form a team from that company. A means of dealing with this was industry sector teams – i.e. if you work for a company in the I.T. sector, you were allocated to a team for that sector in each race. For a number of reasons, many people regarded this method as being unfair to company teams who had to pick from a small pool of members. So, there is a new solution to this. Emails have gone around to people in each of the various sectors inviting them to form teams with runners from employers in the same industry sector.
More details of what is involved are in one of the attached pdf document. Note that unless you arrange to put together a team, the BHAA will not, by default, allocate you to a sector team as was the case in the past. Note also that the BHAA committee is relying on individuals with each sector to register their own teams. Needless to say, a dim view will be taken of any team that includes someone who is not employed within the specified industry sector. If you want to form a team, ask at race registration for a list of possible names and email addresses for your sector or send an email to registrar@bhaa.ie.
4. The BHAA annual general meeting took place in December. One significant rule change is that runners in races may not wear headphones during BHAA races. This is for safety reasons and applies to road, cross-country and track races. Although runners participate in races at their own risk, safety is of paramount importance for the BHAA committee. There were instances during 2009 of people wearing headphones failing to hear warnings from stewards or the sound of cars approaching them from behind in road races.
One area of recurring difficulty was highlighted at the AGM – the problems of getting people to assist in the work of putting on races, stewarding etc. This explains the relevant question on the membership application for 2010 and it is hoped that the organisation and race promoters will be able to call upon all runners to assist at one race at least during the year. Don’t be surprised to be asked to help at some stage.
Of course it is probably fair to say that the most significant change in the organisation is that the Chairman for the past five years, Charlie Cronin (ESB) stepped down at the AGM and has been replaced by Paul O’Connell. Charlie did an enormous amount of work at races over the years but he also did a huge amount of work behind the scenes. Many innovations came from Charlie – results systems, equipment, the Land Rover etc. The members of the BHAA owe a huge debt to Charlie and hopefully his skills will continue to be available to us at races. Well done and thanks Charlie. The new Chairman is Paul O’Connell who has been responsible for many of the new features appearing on the website – results databases etc. We wish him well. There are also some new committee members who have taken on various tasks and hopefully the committee will steer the organisation successfully through the year ahead.
That’s all for now.
The Editor