2004 NORTH AMERICAN COUNTY BOARD CONVENTION

By Eamonn Kelly - Outgoing PRO, North American County Board

Chicago's Tom Dolan was reelected Chairman of the North American County Board at the annual convention held recently in Philadelphia. Dolan, a native of County Galway, was returned without any opposition for a second term at the helm. Attendance at the convention, which was staged at the down town Hilton Garden Hotel, was disappointing as just a little over half the registered clubs were represented. Despite the lower than average attendance it was a very competitive and productive convention. While no voting was required for half the positions on the board, close races were the order for Vice-Chairman, Registrar and PRO. The voting for these positions produced three new officers for the 2005 board, Michael Treacy (Philadelphia) as Vice-Chairman, Pete McDermott (Philadelphia) as Registrar and Michael Dermody (Atlanta) as the new PRO. The most competitive race was for PRO which required a second ballot before Michael Dermody had a narrow victory over Raymond Brady of Boston. The position of Registrar, for which incumbent Mary Murphy McGuirk (Chicago) declined re-nomination, generated the closest race of the convention in which Pete McDermott had just five votes to spare over former secretary John Keane. With eight names in the race for Vice-Chairman an extremely close multi-ballot election was expected but because of nominees not present or others declining to run, it ended up just being a two-man race between incumbent Chris Knightly (San Francisco) and Michael Treacy with Treacy being the winner to become the new Vice-Chairman. Eamonn Kelly (Chicago) who had been the board's PRO since 1995 became the new Secretary replacing John Keane (Seattle) who declined to run for reelection. Mickey Coyne (Boston) was returned unopposed to the Treasury position as was Tommy Dolan retained as the board's Central Council delegate.

In his opening remarks to the delegates the chairman said that one of his top priorities in the new year will be the continuous support of youth programs throughout the country and particularly the O'Neill's sponsored Continental Youth Tournament to be staged in San Francisco next summer. He stressed the importance of our participation in any programs offered by Croke Park such as the coaching clinics which were a tremendous success last year. Also, to strengthen our bond with the Munster Council in the relatively new twining program. On that theme, he paid tribute to the continuous support of President Sean Kelly to the overseas units and to the International Dimension Committee in Ireland.

The chairman expressed concern at the state of refereeing throughout the NACB. Most concerning to him is the nasty verbal abuse being directed to referees which is mostly responsible for loosing so many dedicated and high quality referees and a deterrent in attracting new ones. He recommends the formation of a referees pool made up of referees from around the country including New York. He believes such a program would substantially reduce the cost associated with bringing officials from Ireland and more importantly foster impartial refereeing. The chairman spoke of the increased demands and rising costs associated with running the board and asked for assistance in obtaining sponsorship.

Before introducing all the motions to the floor Tommy Dolan updated the delegates on recent meetings with the Bye-law committee in Ireland in the ongoing efforts to have the NACB Bye-laws ratified. He reported that while extensions have been granted for deviation requests for rules related to ladies football, camogie and youth clubs, action has to be taken to replace all Bye-laws covering "home based" players.

Of the 28 motions on the agenda 7 were ruled out of order and 8 were withdrawn, leaving just 10 to be voted on. After the first motion on the agenda, to revert back the deadline for registration of summer sanction players to July 20th from July 1st, passed following little or no discussion, motion #2 was discussed for over 2 hours before an accepted addendum was approved. The motion submitted by the Boston Galway hurling club centered on the sensitive issues of home based and sanction player registrations. The length of the discussion was a result of many delegates attempting to have a rule passed that would comply with the requirements of Croke Park's Bye-law committee. Finally, an amendment that was unanimously accepted by the delegates was passed. It's approval changed Bye-law 11A which now calls for all senior football, Intermediate football and senior hurling teams to have a minimum of 5 non-sanction players on the field at all times. Each team are allowed to make up the remaining positions on the 13-man team from a roster of 10 sanction players, the most permitted to register by each team up to the ending deadline of July 20th. The amendment also stipulated than any player who previously played under a sanction must obtain an inter-county transfer to qualify as a non-sanction player.

The other most important motion to pass effects players with J1 students Visa. The new rule will allow J1 visa students to go back to Ireland to re-sit for failed exams with certain conditions added to the Bye-law.

The 2005 convention will be held in Atlanta.

2005 NACB OFFICERS
Honorary President: Joe Begley (Chicago)
Chairman: Tommy Dolan (Chicago)
Vice-Chairman: Michael Treacy (Philadelphia)
Treasurer: Mickey Coyne (Boston)
Registrar: Peter Jerome McDermott (Philadelphia)
Public Relations: Michael Dermody (Atlanta)
Youth Development Officer: Michael O'Connor (Boston)
Secretary: Eamonn Kelly (Chicago)Posted By:Eamonn Kelly