It's AGGAAMM time again, (and no a cat didn't walk across my keyboard)
It's time for the Annual General GAA Meeting in Madrid blog post where I check in on everyone's favourite G.A.A. club in Madrid, The Madrid Harps.
Thanks to Coronavirus, the 2019 European Champions were undefeated, and I don't think there has been enough celebration of that achievement considering all the negative publicity that Covid gets.
Maybe the Harps will receive an invitation to the White House if we praise Trump's handling of Covid-19 and at this rate the Harps will soon have a three in a row victory though that depends on the two new vaccines that have just recently been announced.
Apart from all the winning that the Harps have been doing recently,
"So much winning you're going to be sick of winning."
The global pandemic has made things tougher for the club and even my usual AGM group photo has had to been done on Zoom.
ONCE UPON A TIME, Morgybear was the only one wearing a mask but not anymore.
Over the past few years, I have tried to picture the incoming committee at the AGM but this year it was a just screenshot taken on my computer to record the 2020 AGM and the new committee.
Over the years, I have photographed various tournaments and attended many social events but I have had to keep my distance over the last ten months as many events have been scrapped, postponed or have limited capacity.
You have to hand it to all the people training these days and to the patient people organising them. Well done everyone.
I would love to be more involved with the club but now is not the time to buy a new bear costume and get Morgybear back training even though the costume certainly puts the mask into mascot.
These are uncertain times and during the election of officers, JJ raised the issue of having three PROs.
Clearly the team wants to get the word out by electing people from the men's and women's team but I think JJ has a point and they will have a PROtest ahead of them in proving that three heads are better than one.
I tried e-mailing the three incumbents but was just given the one Harps' e-mail address for the PRO.
My advice to the trio is to forget the difficulties of three people doing the same role and to focus on what each person can bring to the role. A couple of years ago while I was taking pictures of the women's finale in Madrid, Isa asked me to send her on some pictures for Twitter which I did.
Isa then sent them to RTVE and the women's team appeared on tv that same night. The same pictures could have sat on my laptop for days but were quickly shown on tv when I passed to Isa.
This year, I took the committee picture from my bedroom and without a camera so do appreciate that there is a team who can share pictures, and take them too, without the need for specialist equipment.
Martin Kirwin and JJ both went for the position of Chairperson and the two committee verterans have certainly seen the club transform over the years and have different approaches. JJ has seen the club develop from the very begining back in 2004 and has focused on the European development over recent years. JJ emphasised the need to look at the larger diaspora group in Madrid who aren't connected with the Harps whereas Martin has focused on sponsorship and the development of the club. Both men have done enormous work for the club and GAA in Spain and Martin Kirwin was elected in the end, in what was a difficult decision with two dedicated people going for the role.
Two years ago, Martin went for the role of PRO after a stint as Chairman and few people were willing to go for the chair at first and I was tempted to run as Chairbear but I don't like runnning after things.
Congratulations to Martin and the incoming committee, it is a difficult task to organise sporting events in the current climate but as I said at the start, if this pandemic continues we might just find ourselves with a three-in-a-row European Championships.
Last year's AGGAAMM: https://www.nohemingway.com/post/tackling-the-tough-stuff
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