Prenty losing patience over Mayo GAA plan

Patience is running out over Plan


Connacht GAA Council deadline looms for Mayo

Daniel Carey

THE Connacht GAA Council are “beginning to lose patience” over the delay in completing the Mayo GAA Strategic Plan, according to Secretary John Prenty.
The Ballyhaunis-based official told The Mayo News that Mayo’s plan should have been finished “at the beginning of 2010”. The Connacht Council expect to have “almost a final draft” presented to them when county GAA secretaries in Connacht meet next month, according to Prenty.
In an e-mail sent to clubs last Wednesday, Mayo GAA Board Secretary SeΡn Feeney said it would be “necessary to bring forward any submissions” to Mayo GAA Board’s Strategic Plan “by two weeks” in order to have the plan completed in time for that May meeting.
Mayo GAA Chairman Paddy McNicholas had initially asked clubs to meet and again make submissions to the plan within a month. That suggestion had come at the end of a lengthy County Board meeting where Liam Horan, chairman of a group who have drawn up a controversial Draft Strategic Plan for Mayo GAA, answered question from delegates.
McNicholas said that while some of the recommendations in the Draft Strategic Action Plan drawn up by Horan’s committee were contrary to GAA rule, “70 per cent” would be incorporated into the Board’s own plan.
Explaining that the deadline for completion of the Strategic Plan “has been extended several times”, Prenty said: “We’re beginning to lose patience. There is a template that has to be adhered to and we’re waiting for that to happen.
“We meet with the county secretaries every quarter, and Adrian [Hassett, Operations Manager of Connacht Council] has also been dealing with the county secretaries in the meantime regarding strategic plans. This thing should have been put to bed at the beginning of 2010.”
That initial deadline explains the timing for the County Forum, which was held in Castlebar in November 2009 and saw club officers and delegates put forward ideas for the Mayo GAA Strategic Plan. Prenty says that Connacht Council are “hoping that we’d have almost a final draft in our possession” by the time SeΡn Feeney meets his counterparts in May.