The new Kilkenny junior County Board staged their official launch recently at Nowlan Park. The new board has been given the responsibility of managing and staging the All County Junior games, all Junior ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ league and championship games. They will also have full responsibility for the new Under 19 competition. Chairperson of the New Board John Lacey welcomed all the club delegates and club PRO’s to this very historical occasion. He explained what the new board duties and its the boards intention to make it a huge success with the help and cooperation of the clubs and their officers. The main purpose of the evening was to announce and welcome the sponsors of all their competitions. John announced JJ Kavanaghs as the main sponsor of the junior All County League as well as the junior ‘A’ and ‘B’ competitions. They will also sponsor the Under 21 championship later in the year. Paul Kavanagh of JJ Kavanagh said they were delighted to continue their long association with Kilkenny County Board and looks forward to a very successful year. Country Style Foods are the new sponsors of the new Junior ‘C’ league and championship while Iverk Produce will sponsor both competitions in the Junior ‘D’ grade. Tommy Bowe of Country Style Foods expressed his delight that the company will continue their association with GAA competitions in Kilkenny having been sponsors of the Junior ‘A’ competition in South Kilkenny for many years. Paul Brophy of Iverk Produce reciprocated what Tommy said and he and John O’Shea were delighted to continue sponsoring GAA in Kilkenny. Permanent TSB are the sponsors of the new Under 19 competition. Michael Gardiner regional manager expressed his delight with being associated with the new competition and hope they will have a long and successful association with Kilkenny GAA. Chairman John Lacey thanked all the sponsors for showing the faith in the new board and encouraged everyone to spread the word and support local business. Chairman of the senior board expressed his delight with the new sponsors. He said the new junior Board will have charge of excellent competitions and he said that the sponsors will be delighted with the professional way the competitions are run and looked forward to a long association with all of sponsors
John Stapleton PRO of the junior board later outlined details of how they would like clubs to submit reports to the Kilkenny People and to use their local notes to publish match reports and events. He also asked that reports can be submitted to the Kilkenny GAA website via Senior Board PRO Paul Fitzgerald or to the junior PRO. Paul Fitzgerald PRO senior board explained to the clubs that using social media is the best way to get information on games out to the wider GAA supporters. Twitter and Facebook are fantastic he said but he encouraged clubs to continue to use club websites because it is the best way of archiving club events such as reports and photographs. Again he emphasised that he will gladly post reports on the Kilkenny GAA site if they are emailed via their club secretaries.
