The Ladies

In my time in the club, results have gone in cycles with great success following periods notable for their lack of competitive success. This has been particularly true of the women who have, when they were good, been far superior to the men in the club. There have also been periods when the women's section has been virtually defunct. In recent years we have had the first woman president in the club - Aileen Scott did a very good job for two years - and the first woman secretary - Yvonne is doing a super job for which she has to be commended: long may it continue! The other thing about the women is that when they have been numerically strong and competitively successful, they tend to want to have their own section with their own committee and their own treasurer handling their own money. That has happened three times in my time in the club. These groups tend to last for three or four years at a time. So where are we now in the period before the Annual General Meeting?

Well, first, the Ladies Section is strong in competitive terms in open races. Second, many of the top positions in the club are held by women - secretary, minute secretary, press officer, social secretary as well as Ladies Captain. Third there is a good group of young female athletes in the club from Under 11 up to Under 17. The ingredients are there for a good women's section on the not too distant horizon. There is a gap however between the two groups - the senior women tend to be road runners training from the Antonine with the younger ones training separately with Donald and/or Phil elsewhere. It may be that when the club moves into the new St Peter the Apostle School the two groups will come together and a proper women's group will be formed. In the meantime, the younger women have a problem at cross country races in that their events tend to be right at the start of the day with the senior women's being up to three hours later. Fiona McCue has been very helpful at many races in taking the girls round the course and helping them warm up for their event but on several occasions there has been no one filling this function. If this gap could be filled and the two groups brought closer together, perhaps by a women's team manager responsible for looking after the junior athletes and organising numbers, etc for the seniors, then the groundwork would really be in place for a strong women's section in a couple of years time.

It would be good to see them working together.