Rosemount GAA Club are midway through a major €400,000 redevelopment of their facilities at O’Growney Park – and supporters all over the world can now support the effort by going online to purchase tickets in the club’s fortnightly Lottery.
By logging onto www.rosemount.ie, Rosemount fans can buy tickets in forthcoming draws and put themselves in with a chance of winning the Jackpot.
The site – which also features club news and photographs – offers an opportunity for Rosemount people all over the world to contribute to the costly business of running the local GAA Club.
The club has spent €150,000 in recent months as part of a five-year redevelopment plan. This phase featured the purchase of an additional playing field, floodlighting of the pitch, construction of a walking track and two new dressing rooms. The club now has four dressing rooms.
In the next few years, they plan to improve the floodlighting, construct an all-weather astro-turf pitch and spectator stand, as well as adding new dug-outs. ‘The expense of running a club is getting more and more significant every year,’ said a spokesperson for Rosemount, who have tied up with Co. Galway company www.locallotto.ie to put the club’s Lottery online.
‘We are constantly looking at ways of improving our finances, and by going on-line we are giving a chance to people all over the world who follow Rosemount to support the club.
‘We have ambitious plans for the club in the coming years. The five-year plan will see us transform our facilities and set us up for many more years at the heart of community activity in Rosemount.’
The Lottery Draw is held every second Monday night in the local community centre, and is a key fund-raising element for the club which fields teams at under-age and adult levels.
The idea for www.locallotto.ie came when founder Warren Healy lived in America, and realised he had no way of supporting his home GAA club, Carna-Cashel in Co. Galway.
‘It grew from there, and now clubs all over Ireland are getting weekly revenue from supporters who no longer live locally, and are therefore not able to buy a Lotto ticket in the local pub or shop,’ said Warren Healy, who runs www.locallotto.ie from An Spideal, Co. Galway.
‘We also discovered once we set up the site that people living locally also started to buy online, which is another welcome development for clubs like Rosemount. We realise how difficult it is to keep a club afloat and this definitely opens up a new source of revenue.’
