A reduction in income close to almost €100k has been experienced by Clare Camogie this year who also saw their costs fall throughout the year.
Primarily as a result of COVID-19, the coffers of Clare Camogie took a serious hit in 2020 but board officials have outlined that the finances were in a healthy position at the end of the financial year.
Addressing the recent Clare Camogie AGM, Martin Kaiser stated, “My second year as treasurer of Clare Camogie has been heavily influenced by the impact of Covid-19 onto our sporting and fundraising activities. The governance structure implemented the year before allowed us to keep control of our finances in a very different year”.
He outlined that their total income reduced by almost €100k. Of this, close to €50,000 was due to “heavily curtailed fundraising activities” and virtually no gate income, €20,000 was from lower capital grants and the remaining difference “came from lower members contributions and sponsorship”. Brid MacNamara’s fundraiser ‘Walk to Croker’ brought in almost €16,000.
“On the cost side, the postponement of most county team activities and the cancellation of some others have automatically reduced cost by €70k, but very stringent cost controls have allowed another saving of €20k, resulting in a total cost reduction of €90,000. While the surplus of income over cost has reduced by €10k we were still able to invest close to €30k into field improvements and the new scoreboard and at the same time kept reducing our debt by €20k,” Martin commented.
Kaiser continued, “At the end of our financial year we are in a very healthy position, but the restart of intercounty activities in the fourth quarter of this year will bring significant cost that we did not have in previous years and our focus has to remain on minimising cost and at the same time get some of the lost income from sponsorship back while the teams are in action”.
Ongoing development of the county grounds is made possible through the membership based 300-Club levy, the Newmarket-on-Fergus clubman advised. “Knowing the difficulties all clubs had to endure during this very special year we have decided to reduce the levy by 50% for 2020, which is somehow reducing our short-term ability for significant additional investment, but with the full levy next year we should be able to work towards our long-term goals”.
Paying tribute to the Treasurer, Joe O’Donnell said it was “a source of great comfort as Chairman to have the finances looked after the way Martin does it”. He added, “The bottom line is that our debt is down €18,000 from last year and we will get it down further”.
