With the new year upon us, it’s time for a quick look back at 2014 and what it meant for the club.

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Membership : The club ended the year with a record 192 members, up 18.5% on the end of 2013. There was also a jump in the rate of growth, up from the 11.7% the previous year.

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Championship Races : The big change in 2014 was the number of championship races the club fielded teams for. In total, the club won team medals in 11 categories.
a) Road : In the County Novice & Masters County Road Championships in March, the club teams won bronze in the Novice women, bronze in the O35 women, silver in the novice men, silver in the O35 men and gold in the O50 men.
b) In the Munster Half-Marathon Championships in Charleville in September, the women’s team took silver in the senior competition. In the Masters section, the club won silver in the masters women and bronze in the masters men.

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In the Cross Country races at the end of the year, we had a big jump in numbers of those representing the club. In 2013, 15 members represented the club at various cross country events and the club won two team medals. In 2014, we had 34 members turning out and we won three team medals…men’s silver in Novice B, bronze in the masters women and silver in the men’s M50 category. Indeed, at the Munster Masters in Watergrasshill in December, we had the largest turnout ever from the club for a cross country event.

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Club website : The club website was revamped in March of 2014 and it resulted in an immediate increase in traffic. In the 6 month period from the 1st of July to the 31st of December, the site got 19,251 pageviews, a jump of 31% on the traffic to the old website for the same six month period in 2013.

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Facebook : The clubs Facebook page continues to attract a lot of traffic. At the end of 2013, the page had 301 ‘Likes’. At the end of 2014, it had increased to 495….an increase of about 50%. In 2013, there were two weeks where various posts on the page reached over 500 people. In 2014, that had increased to five weeks.

As for ‘Likes’ on the Facebook page….56% are men and 44% are women. 73% are in the 25 to 44 age bracket with 12% between 45 and 54. Just 5% were in the 18-24 group with a similar number in the 55-64 category.