An old friend of the Saffron Gael called at the house this week, no two old friends. Jimmy Gaston and his wife Maureen dropped in to make a donation of £100-00. Jimmy and Maureen from Dunloy are long-time friends, followers and occasionally literary contributors to the site.
As a fellow lover of Gaelic games and Irish culture, Jimmy has followed the Saffron Gael since its launch 18 months ago. This is the second time he has made a financial contribution. Without such generosity the Saffron Gael would not have survived this long.
Despite having had 2,066,822 views and 933,177 visitors in that time we continue to rely on people like Jimmy, our sponsors and clubs to finance the Saffron Gael site. Our sponsors increased this year and a lot of clubs have continued to support us financially, disappointingly others have not.
When John and I took the decision to launch the site in 2017 after both the Ballymena Chronicle and Antrim Post folded it was a decision based solely on promoting Gaelic games and Culture within the Saffron County and a love of those games.
A labour of love but we soon discovered that in order to do it right we had to bring other people on board and while money wasn’t a primary objective at the time the site needed and continues to need finance to exist and grow.
Curly and I are reporters-photographers and we don’t have any expertise on finance or do we like to write about it or keep launching appeals but unfortunately we have to in order for the site to continue and grow.
To those clubs who have not made a contribution we again appeal. It may have been an oversight on your part but we really need all your help. We made a decision from the start to treat all clubs equally regardless of their contribution but your club could never the less play its part.
To those clubs, sponsors, advertisers and people like Jimmy Gaston who have made financial donations we are indebted and we send you our sincere thanks. To those who have not we again appeal to you to do so by getting in touch with John at john.mcilwaine@yahoo.co.ukor myself at ptrckmclwn@yahoo.co.uk.
You can also contribute by going to the Saffron Gael page on the website and following the link to make a donation.
Happy Christmas to our sponsors, advertisers and contributors and we will undoubtedly bump into you at a game soon.
We have included a selection of our sponsors and advertisers over the last year but haven’t been able to include them all and once again we thank you for your continued support.
