Category: General

by Andretta Erickson

2022 Nationals Call Out Meeting this Sunday

Chicago Nationals 2022 will be held August 19-21.  Stop what you’re doing and add it to your IOS/Android calendars, circle the dates on your 2022 GAA stars pin-up calendar, and set-up your out-of-office reply!

The stars have certainly aligned for us. Nationals in Chicago is as close as we get geographically to play our games on a national stage.  Therefore, as we come out of a two-year official club hiatus from Nationals participation, we are looking to descend upon Chicago in full force.  We’re talking hurling, camogie, football, friends and family.

We will have a call-out meeting on Oct. 17th @ 1pm at Eugene Burns to briefly set the stage for all things Nationals Chicago 2022.  Please attend!

Serious business to be had in our preparations; habits to form.  Last time we displayed our talents in Chicago, we pulled a double-championship in hurling and football.  This is the year of the triple, or why not a quadruple?!

We hope to see you on Oct 17th to help us begin anew in our quest for cups.  A youth clinic will also be going on at this time, please consider bringing candy to hand out for trunk-or-treat at the end of the clinic.

 “We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”

Aristotle

by Kyle Keesling

Updates for the Week of June 7-13

As we continue to ramp up activities for the year I wanted to take a quick second to put together a list of events and happenings that everyone should be aware of.

In addition to everything below we hope to see you at practice this Tuesday… if the weather cooperates 🌧

June Board Meeting this Wednesday

This month’s board meeting will be held this coming Wednesday, June 9th, at 7:30pm on RingCentral Meetings. All members are welcome to attend and we encourage you to do so, particularly if you have any questions or ideas you’d like to contribute. You can view the call-in details, and add the event to your calendar here →

Pub League Registration Deadline is this Friday

As we announced last week, registration for our club and the 2021 pub league is now live. The deadline to register and ensure you are entered into the draft is end of day this Friday, June 11th. The draft will be held a week from today, Monday, June 14th, at 7:30pm at Centerpoint Brewing.

You can register here, and if you have any questions please reach out to registration@indygaa.com.

Sunday Pick-up Games

This past Sunday we began holding pick-up games/stick tosses at Eugene Burns Fields. We will continue to do this until Pub League starts on July 11th. Hurling/camogie match starts at 11am and Gaelic football starts at noon.

More details can be found here →

July Virtual Referee Course

The Heartland GAA will be holding an online referee course next month, on July 14th, at 8:30pm. The training will be lead by Heartland Treasurer and long-time referee/trainer Brian Mathes.

This a great course for anyone interested in refereeing or even just wanting to get a better understanding of the rules. All skill and experience levels are welcome.

Call-in details are still forthcoming so be sure to check the calendar event for updates.

by Kyle Keesling

Changes to the Board

Now that everything is official we wanted to make the club aware of some changes made to this year’s Board of Directors.

Our esteemed Head Coaching Officer, Paul O’Donoghue, has unfortunately resigned his seat on the board due to the need for his family to relocate. A few weeks ago Paul’s wife was informed by her employer that they would be moving to South Korea. While this is an exciting opportunity for his family it has required them to act quickly.

Paul is currently in the midst of tackling all of the challenges and logistics of moving his family halfway around the globe, but from the very start to the very end of his tenure, Paul has been a tremendous asset to our club. When Paul joined our club he quickly became involved with our youth organization, and from there continued to contribute new and exciting ideas as our Head Coaching Officer. The Indy GAA has been lucky to have Paul and he will be sorely missed while he’s gone.

While Paul’s departure from the board leaves some big boots to fill, the person that is assuming his position is more than capable of keeping the ball (and sliotar) rolling. With that the board would like to welcome Andretta Erickson as the Indianapolis GAA’s newest Head Coaching Officer.

Many thanks to Dretta for stepping up in the club’s time of need, we are excited to keep moving!

by Chris Burrows

Bulk Equipment Order from American Hurling

I’ll be placing an American Hurling order soon for some new equipment. You can get a look at their stock here →

If you are interested in jumping on the order to save on shipping, let me know what you’d like by Tuesday, May 25th at chrisrburrows@gmail.com, and I’ll figure out what the individual costs for folks will be after dividing the shipping.

After that’s sorted, I’ll place the order and will plan on bringing the equipment to practices and/or make other arrangements (within reason) to get the gear delivered.

by David Littlejohn

An Update On Practices and Pub League

With the end of March approaching the days are getting longer and the light at the end of the COVID tunnel is brighter than ever. We are not out of the woods yet, but all of our adult members will be eligible for vaccinations starting  March 31st which is a great first step back to normalcy. This year will (obviously) be different than a normal year, with our focus being solely on the club, and with the weather getting warmer we want to get started with COVID-sensitive practices as soon as we are able to do so. 

What Are We Waiting For?
Getting back on the pitch requires a space to do so, and in order to reserve fields this year we are required to have a COVID-19 event plan approved by the Marion County Health Department.  We submitted our event plan in February and are still waiting on their response.  With COVID-19 tracking, the NCAA tournament, vaccine distribution, and our planned start date, the health department has not been able to review/approve our plan yet, but they anticipate that they will be able to shortly. 

Practice
After our plan is approved we plan to host socially distanced practices until it is safe to introduce contact, with a target start date of some time in April. Prior to the first practice we will be sending out information outlining our safety policies/protocols.  Keep in mind that there will likely be some minor procedures/pre-checks that we’ll need to adhere to (temperature checks, questionnaires, etc.) when attending practices, but it’s a minor inconvenience that’s necessary to help ensure that we provide the safest environment as possible for all of our participants and their friends and loved-ones.

Pub League
We are optimistic at this point that we’ll be able to return to normal play later this summer with Pub League starting in July. The July start to our leagues should provide us enough time to offer a full season, while also giving us some wiggle room for any adjustments that may need to take place.  The delay also allows everyone time to get fully vaccinated, gives players a chance to get back into “game shape” to reduce injuries, and also provides enough time for health recommendations to hopefully allow for more contact. 

Notable Changes
One of the biggest differences to note this year is that we are not planning to participate in Nationals. This decision allows us to concentrate on our pub league games without requiring us to pause our season to practice and travel for nationals. Another change will be that hurling and Gaelic football will both be played on Sundays. This is because the youth American football season will be taking place at Eugene Burns on weekdays in the summer so Sunday is the only available day for us to reserve the fields.

We are doing our best to host practices and games in a safe way this year.  I hope you are excited to get back on the pitch and I look forward to seeing everyone out there. Let’s take this opportunity to focus on our club, our safety, and our camaraderie to keep our club strong and successful for years to come. 

Register for the 2021 Season Now →

by David Littlejohn

☘️ Spring Update

🦠 The Latest Regarding COVID

I hope your 2021 is off to as good of a start as it can be given the current situation.  Hopefully this year we’ll be able to gather and play again, but we are still in a holding pattern as we wait for things to get better.  If this were a normal season we would have already had our draft events, our second round of indoor would be complete and we’d be gearing up for St. Patrick’s Day. 

Unfortunately COVID is hanging around into 2021, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  So far this year our board has been able to hold two meetings to discuss plans for the upcoming year.  At this point we still don’t know when health professionals will recommend that it is safe to play contact sports, but we will keep a very close eye on their recommendations and guidance and we’ll do our best to keep the Club informed of any updates and/or plans for our events and season. 

📋 2021 League Registration

Josh Lane has created potential schedules with varying start dates so we can hit the ground running when the time comes.  We’ve submitted our COVID plan to the Marion County Health Department in order to reserve the fields at Eugene Burns. 

Our main goal is to keep our members and their families safe and healthy which is why we will not host games if there are still restrictions that recommend against it.  With that in mind, our board has also chosen to focus on our local events and season this year and as part of that adjustment we will not be hosting our invitational.

Not knowing when we will be able to start our season makes it a little tricky to ask our members to register for the season.  To help us get a better understanding of who all is interested in playing this year we are asking members to register here at no cost (for now).  When we are able to play we will ask for all members to pay before playing our first games. 

This week, the USGAA has also announced that they will be requiring registration, including the same fee structure as in past years ($63 males/$42 females). Be on the lookout for an email from Rachel soon on how to complete that process.

Having this early registration helps us plan for the upcoming season.  We hope that all of our members will return to play but we understand that each person has their own level of comfort regarding this situation and may choose to put more time between the pandemic and playing.

🏆 February Skills Challenge

Last month we launched our virtual challenge program and are working to continue it to encourage our members to stay active and engaged.  February’s Frigid Digits Challenge has wrapped up and Hope Plumbing won the first round of hurling and Bier Brewery took the win for football. 

We are planning to continue the virtual challenge program and would like to see all of our members submit their challenge videos.  If you have any thoughts or ideas on challenges or how we can improve this program please feel free to send them to the board.

Stay tuned as we will be announcing the March challenge soon.

✏️ March Board Meeting

This month’s board meeting will be held next week, on Wednesday, March 10th at 7:30pm. If you care to join us you can use this meeting link. If you have any issues joining the call please contact Kyle.

📰 Member News & Updates

A by-no-means-exhaustive list of things that have happened over the preceding months. If I missed something big of yours, forgive me and please don’t take it personally, I barely know what’s going on outside of the four walls of my house these days 😆.
If you have updates/news to share with the club about yourself or a fellow member please email pro@indygaa.com to have it included in a future update. – Kyle

  • Aaron Wilder received his MA in English, word on the street is he’s also one helluva bread baker…
  • Break out the tweed and leather-bound books, Chris Bungard was promoted from Associate to Full Professor at Butler University
  • Brogan Sheedy became engaged to this fiancée Erin
  • Mike Monaghan and family welcomed their second child Jackson Patrick
  • Reid Smith and family welcomed their daughter Harper Jo
  • Phil Bar…something and family welcomed their second son Clayton
  • Andretta Erickson, after many rounds of fostering cats with Indy Humane, finally found her forever-cat Ledger, beginning her slow descension to crazy cat lady status
by David Littlejohn

August Club Update

2020 Pub League is Cancelled

I hope you’re doing well.  If this year was a normal year we’d be done with our Pub League season and many of our athletes would be training for Nationals at this time. Unfortunately this hasn’t been a normal year and it looks like we are going to have to sit tight for a while until things get closer to normal.  Last week our board “met” to discuss the plans for the rest of the year and we determined that it is best to pull the cord and cancel Pub League.  If things change and we are able to comfortably host any games in the fall we will try to do so, but at this time we do not anticipate any games for 2020. 

The Annual Awards Banquet is Cancelled

The board also made the tough call of cancelling our annual banquet. We would love to host an event to get everyone together but we don’t know what things will be like in the months to come.  We also won’t have a season to reflect on and acknowledge outstanding efforts on and off the field, so we determined it was best to preserve our resources and cancel the event.  I would still like to nominate Tim Cabeen for the broken hurley award. I know he looks forward to that every year. I also think we can agree that Liam Bonner takes the cake for this year’s “fastest to respond on Slack” award.   

On the bright side we have received our O’Neills jerseys!  I am 100% sure that these are the cleanest Pub League jerseys in an August of all time.  To get yours we are hosting a jersey pick booth at Hotel Tango on August 22nd starting at 4:30 (more details to come).  Depending on the turnout we will host additional jersey pick up events to ensure that everyone gets their jersey to social distance in style. 

An Update on Dues

We understand that Indy GAA was not able to provide the season and the competition that you expected this year.  For this reason we are offering the opportunity to refund your membership if you would like one. If you are not interested in a refund and would like to donate your membership to the club the Indy GAA would greatly appreciate it.  Any donations will help ensure that our club will be around for years to come and that we can cover any costs later this year and early next year.  We hope to be back up and running as soon as we are able to do so safely and comfortably. 

Please understand that the club incurred some costs that need to be paid so we are taking that into consideration for the refunds.  The biggest cost was the jerseys that we purchased for the season in February.  In a typical year our jerseys are funded through sponsorships.  Since our sponsors have been impacted so hard by the COVID pandemic we will not be requesting sponsorship money from most of our sponsors.  To cover the cost of the jerseys the board determined that the best and most fair way to refund our members is to take out the cost of jerseys in each member’s refund. 

For example if a recurring member requests a refund they would be reimbursed $150 minus the cost of a jersey. If a member signed up late and was not included in the initial jersey order they may be reimbursed in full.  The board also agreed that any new members that paid the new membership fees for this year would be able register again next year as a new member.  

To let us know if you’d like to donate your dues, or request a refund, please complete this form.

 If we have not heard from you by September 25th we will consider your dues as a donation.

Wrapping Up

This year has been filled with tough decisions and our board has been doing what we feel is best for our club and community.  I want to thank the board for their hard work this year and all of our club members for working with us as we navigated through these unprecedented times.

The AGM will still take place in November, and we will share more info about that when we have it.

by David Littlejohn

Club Activities Postponed Until Further Notice

Tomorrow’s planned competitions are cancelled and we will be cancelling Sunday events until further notice.

On Thursday, Mayor Hogsett addressed the city with new policies and the Marion County Health Department issued new guidelines in a Public Health Order to combat the current COVID-19 situation in our city.  The new regulations do allow for non-contact exercising in groups and the policies we’ve implemented for our practices comply with the City’s/County’s policies and CDC’s recommendations.  Unfortunately the reality is that things this week are worse than they were last week.  

This Thursday and Friday had the most positive COVID cases issued in Indiana since the pandemic started.  On top of that the numbers look like they are continuing to trend upward.  After hearing the Mayor’s and Health Department’s new policies and seeing the recent COVID positive numbers the board had an internal discussion and then a vote on whether or not we should continue to host events in the midst of this. 

The board determined that at this time it would be best to postpone all activities and we will do our best to gauge when we can get back out there to have some non-contact fun. 

If there is a silver lining with this it is that our competition committee will use this extra time to put together a lot of fun and engaging competitions for the club. This week Coach Shoe and his group put together a great day of fun and safe games.  The group has a lot of other ideas in the works so when we’re able to get back on the pitch we will have a good lineup of games to play. 

I hope you understand that the board made this decision because we think it is what’s best for our club members and our community at this time. 

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at chair@indygaa.com or the board at board@indygaa.com.

by Kyle Keesling

Some Good News – Indy GAA Edition

Some Good News

While I claim to be neither as charming or as handsome as John Krasinski, I figured that we could all use a nice dose of good news right now. As we continue wait out the ‘Rona here are few nice stories we thought might be worth sharing. Enjoy!

👶🏻 Hey Babe

Scarlett Littlejohn

Indy GAA Board Chair David Littlejohn and family welcomed Scarlett Renee to the world on February 20th, just in time for her to get a taste of the before-times.

Baby and family are doing great and are making the most of social distancing by taking long walks through the neighborhood, preferably without any stops, because Scarlett is not a fan sitting still 😊

👨🏾‍🎓Big Man on Campus

Gaelic sports double-threat and proclaimed ‘Dawg with Style‘ Antwain Hunter was recently awarded tenure at Butler University and promoted to Associate Professor.

Rumor on the street says this means he can wear elbow patches on his tweed jacket now.

🇺🇸 Back Home Safe

Ben Kemp has returned from a tour in Kuwait. Thank you for your service Ben, we are glad you’re back home safely and hope we get raise a pint with you soon, first round’s on us 🍻

🌼🐈 Fake Flower?

Fake Pansy

Andretta Erickson has taken to pet fostering. At first Dretta was a tad suspicious of her new friend Pansy as she didn’t quite match her online profile (seems they never do), but she quickly decided to swipe right on her new friend and fostered her until last week when she was permanently adopted!

Don’t call her the crazy cat lady yet, but Dretta has decided to “go her own way” and and will be welcoming a new feline friend this week, Stevie Nicks.

🚚🍻 Special Delivery

Chef Boyar-Mathes

Brian Mathes answered Books N’ Brew’s call to arms for growlers when they ran out a few weeks back. BnB has been a perennial sponsor of the club and has even named a beer after us through their sister brewery Rad!

Brian put out an APB to the club and personally made the rounds to collect extra growlers from members and delivered over 30 of them!

💇‍♂️ Paul the Barber

Paul did it for Dan!

Paul Flynn raised over $3,400 for charity! The young son of a family friend back home motivated Paul to do something, so he set a goal of raising $2,500, with the extra motivation being he’d shave his head if the goal was hit. Amazingly, within four days the goal was surpassed and Paul made good on his bet.

Young Dan was only 8 months old when he was diagnosed with a very rare neuromuscular disease, and the family’s only hope to save his life is to fly him to the United States for a very costly treatment. People from all over the world joined in and have raised nearly 2 million Euros to get Dan the treatment he needs.