St Mary's Ladies live Lidl One Good Club creed

St. Mary’s Ladies were very fortunate to be chosen as one of the 26 clubs across Ireland to roll out the ‘One Good Club’ initiative. In the midst of a pandemic, with many suffering in silence with their mental health, it couldn’t have been a more suitable time to embark on this very worthwhile journey.

The Lidl One Good Club™ programme aims to increase awareness and knowledge of mental health across the LGFA and GAA community. This new initiative offers clubs the opportunity to support all members and engage in activities that can promote their health and wellbeing. Lidl Ireland have launched One Good Club™, a five-step youth mental health awareness programme for local clubs, developed in partnership with the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) and Jigsaw – the National Centre for Youth Mental Health.

St Mary's LGFA “One Good Club” initiative committee John Moran, Linda Mollohan, Sara Crowe, Kasey Bruen, Lorraine Guckian, Kathy Butler and Sinead Barber pictured at the club. Below left: The set of jerseys won by the club and, right, the One Good Club plaque presented to the club

The Programme

The five-step programme was developed using the ‘5 a Day for your Mental Health’, an evidence informed framework, made up of simple actions aimed at boosting your mental health and wellbeing. The steps include ‘Connect’, ‘Be Active’, ‘Take Notice’, ‘Give’ and ‘Keep Learning’.

The programme was run over 10 weeks commencing March 1st 2021,with every fortnight representing a different theme/stage of Jigsaw’s 5 a Day for Mental Health.

The programme saw clubs being encouraged and supported, to undertake a series of mental health and wellbeing activities in line with Jigsaw’s 5 a Day for Mental Health. Below is an overview of each stage completed by St. Mary’s, over the 10 weeks.

• Connect - We connected with our GAA community, virtually, by completing a zoom Bingo, Kahoot quizzes and a family quiz night.
• Be Active - We collaborated with Leitrim County Council and Carrick on Shannon Tidy Towns committee and encouraged litter picking throughout the area. We also completed a Skipathon - 24000 skips in 24 hours!
• Take Notice - A football treasure hunt was created around the town. We had a photography competition, where we encouraged families to take pictures of their local surroundings and we focused on some gratitude/mindfulness activities.
• Give - We provided free fruit salad pots for all the children who returned to the Underage Academy on one of their first mornings back. We also gave up our time to call our adult players who were preparing for return to sport again, as the restrictions eased. Jigsaw Roscommon provided online training and upskilled our coaches with regard to awareness around mental health. This enables our coaches to now be that ‘One Good Adult’, for our young people.
• Keep Learning - Our local Primary schools and families helped us paint rocks for our large art feature wall at the club grounds. We also promoted new skills such as making smoothies and singing the national anthem. We had the pleasure of Guest Speakers, Kevin Mc Manamon, Ryan Mc Hugh and Caoimhe Mohan, who spoke brilliantly to our players and community about all things GAA and Mental Health.

All of the 26 clubs throughout Ireland were in with a chance of winning three awards to the value of €10,000, in categories such as those who demonstrated innovation, most community involvement or the highest level of engagement. Unfortunately, we were not among the chosen three, however we did secure a beautiful new set of Jerseys and training kit. We are also, officially Certified as a ‘ONE GOOD CLUB’ and were presented with a plaque, which is on display at our club grounds.

We would like to thank all those who took part and helped roll out such a valuable initiative. A special thanks to the ‘One Good Club’ Committee of John Moran, Linda Mollohan, Lorraine Guckian, Sinéad Barber, Kathy Butler, Sara Crowe and Kasey Bruen.

For more information you can check out our club Facebook page or simply search #onegoodclub on social media platforms.