Fundraising is an ongoing activity in every Club – it has to be. Every Club in existence has a battle to keep their head above water on a day to day basis, and if there’s to be any possibility of improving facilities the finance question is never far away. Skibbereen RFC is no different to any other Club and it's always a struggle to balance the books.

So the issue of fundraising has to be  foremost on the minds of the Club administrators and generally speaking we do manage to keep our heads above water.

A little background information might help here: Within the Club we have the very obvious and very expensive aspect of Player Insurance – this is a compulsory Insurance imposed on all Clubs by the IRFU and we agree totally with that - if you don't have appropriate Insurance you are not allowed compete in any competitions run by the IRFU.  It is however worth noting that claims against this category of IRFU Insurance is restricted to those who have picked up only very very serious injuries – I won’t go any further than that - sadly it does happen- not very often but it does. Rugby is a contact sport and is no different to any other contact sport - injuries happen from time to time and some can be of a serious nature. 

So from a basic Insurance point of view it is necessary to have something else in place to cover a player in the event of so-called 'ordinary' injuries like broken bones etc.- or injuries that may require consultant and/or Hospital care, so one has little choice but to seek additional cover and pay an additional premium.The Club has a duty of care to its players and we pay into the Top-up policy option also. The Top-up policy basically provides some expenses if a player is out of work due to an injury sustained while playing rugby - but no benefits cut in for five to six weeks and even then it's not great - but it is something. Ther are a host of other options available but all are understandably expensive.

So the Club policy in this regard is simple and straight forward - we appeal and encourage all players to take out personal Health Insurance like BUPA, VHI, Vivas, etc. to cover hospital care or consultant’s charges if such care is required. It is foolish not to have such a policy in this day and age.

Now the hard facts - the kernel of the matter is that the cost of  Player Insurance as outlined runs at about €200.00 per player and Club membership will cost the player €100 – so you can see the need for fundraising straight away. Add to this the cost of the Clubhouse Insurance which doesn’t come cheaply either - and you will see the obvious need to raise funds.

You might well suggest a player should pay his Insurance separate from his membership and that would seem a reasonable and sensible suggestion, but we appreciate the sacrifice the players are making in representing their Club, turning up for weekly training and making themselves available for matches at weekends - and we don't wish to add unnecessarily to their expense - they pay the membership and we are happy to raise the additional Insurance costs.

Apart from Membership income, our chief fundraising event each year is the Golf Classic held in August of each year which long-standing member John Field kindly organises and for which we are very grateful indeed. We hold an annual Flag Day for the Minis and Underage also and we run a few raffles each year for Match tickets and as long as Munster continues its successful seasons we can be assured of some help from that quarter.

We generate some income also from the Bar but given that we open only for home matches we are somewhat restricted – that said we do manage to balance the books – however we still carry a sizeable debt on the redevelopment of the Clubhouse in 2007, so it would be nice to write that one off if we could. We are forever grateful to our sponsors Darren Hourihane of DH Contracts as well as Tim and Marian Looney of the West Cork Hotel who continue to support us.

At the end of the day there will inevitably be debt's to be met with Club's like our's as there will always be new ideas and projects to be undertaken - so fundraising will be with us for a while yet.

So if there is anyone out there with ideas for ‘fundraising with a difference’ please come forward with your ideas and we will be delighted to work through them.