A warm welcome to our new members and while it's greatto see our athletes settling in to training again, the attendance by quite a fewhas not been great so far, especially on Friday nights. Please remember that we have a waiting list for places at all times, so if you are only turning up once in a while we may have to consider giving the place to someone who really wants it. We cannot hold places indefinitely, unless notified of ongoing injury or illness!

CONGRATULATIONS

Huge congratulations to all the athletes who competed at the Wicklow XC Championships last Sunday in Avondale, but huge disappointment also that so few of our athletes actually made it to the event! We had so many age groups with just 3 athletes when one more would have given us a full team and team medals. Grace Rush was our only U8 runner as our only other entry Evan was injured on the day. And she had a great race to finish a close 2^nd. We have at least 60 U8's in the club and up to 50 eligible athletes for each of the other age groups.The best turn out of the day was at U10, with 6 girls making it and 3 boys. All had terrific runs, particularly Ava Foley who led the girls from start to finish for a great victory. Only 2 girls at U12 & 3 boys and one more runner here would have guaranteed the boys team medals. We managed to get 5 girls out at U12 (still awaiting team results) and with our 3 U14 boys finishing 3^rd, 4^th& 5^thanother runner here would have guaranteed the boys Gold medals. A fantastic race from Sarah O'Connor in the U16 for 2^ndplace out of age, but again we missed out as one of the team didn't turn up. Yetanother fantastic race from Ben Jones witha great finish, to win the boys U 16, also running out of age, but again only 3 runners, so no team. Looking good for both these athletes in the U15's next week. We had no U18's or Novice women, but to our delight we did get a team out in the Novice men's race. Cillian Browne had a super race to take the bronze medal and he and team mates Caoimhin MacMaolain, Dermot Hughes & AJ Cotter also await team results. So while we are delighted with the results and the great performances from all who attended, you can understand the disappointment of these athletes at the lack of teams and the frustration of our coaches who work so hard each week to prepare the athletes for these events.

We sincerely hope that this coming Sunday will see a lot more athletes taking to the field for the uneven ages in Roundwood. Sunday's event is not at the usual Roundwood venue, but is opposite the GAA centre on the right hand side of the road. First race is 11am, so athletes should arrive at 10.30am. Most of you will be done and on the way home in under an hour. Entry form is on the website and will close on Fri. Night, to allow time to process entries. Please, please make an effort this week!!!

URGENT APPEAL FOR HELP

We are still very short on coaches for the Tues 6-7pm slot, so we are againmaking an urgent appeal to anyone who is free to help out for 1 hour on Tues to please contact Theresa @ 0868635797. Even an hour every second week would be a great help, if we could get people to share. We will ensure you get some basic training and won't just drop you in at the deep end! Unfortunately, if we don't get some help, we will not be able to continue as we are!

REGISTRATION FOR NEW ATHLETES

We are presently handing out forms to all our new athletes and these can also be found onthe website under ‘Training Times & Club Info’ Fee for the remainder of 2015 is €20 for one child or €15 for an additional child. These need to be filled out and returned to training asap please. Those already registered for 2015, do not need to register again.

WEBTEXT

We use webtext to communicate changes or send reminders, but I must remind you once again that if you have a query that requires an answer then you need to text Theresa on 0868635797, not the webtext number. While I am set up to receive the webtext msg on my phone, I can only answer them from my laptop, so if I am not at home, you may have a long wait for a reply.