to go out and do what's
necessary and others who are willing to let them,"
he said.
"We have more than 600 people using this club on a
weekly basis and when you consider we only had 1,000
tickets to sell for the grand draw, there wasn't
that much for each of them to do - little over a
ticket each.
"We had one or two hardworking people who sold about
100 tickets each but others who sold nothing. It's
just not on. They should either put up or shut up,"
he said.
The target was €100,000 but the club only managed to
raise €70,000 - selling 700 tickets at €100 each. Of
this, €30,000 in prize money had to be paid out in
the July 28th grand draw.
Mr. Hallinan said the club cannot draw down the
allocated Government grant aid without first putting
up match funding.
€150,000 has been procured from the Department of
Art, Sport and Tourism for phase two, leaving the
Club to provide €45,000 match funding to draw down
the capital grant. They are currently €5,000 shy of
this target with a further €30,000 needed to draw
down the phase one grant of €200,000. The total
match funding now needed to secure grants for both
phases is around €40,000. The club is at an advanced
stage of preparation for phase two of the
multi-purpose sports hall, which will include the
roof, doors, windows, external plastering and other
site works. This will leave the floor, heating and
lighting to complete the development.
Mr. Hallinan said there was "no question" about the
public support in Buncrana for the club. "The people
of Buncrana were excellent as regards buying the
tickets, encouragement, advice and good wishes. The
support of the town is not in doubt," he said. But
he said more effort was needed from club members and
users in relation to the next round of fundraising,
if a state-of-the-art youth facility was to be
realised for the town.
Meanwhile, it is expected that the existing sports
hall and boxing gym will be back in use by mid to
late September. |
