National award for Conor Woods
CONOR WOODS has known about his winning of the IFS Volunteer of the Year for County Wicklow since the start of November. After being informed, he was made to keep it secret from those around him. While he told his wife, and the person who first proposed him for the accolade – Ailish Byrne – he was not able to tell anybody else until the news became official.
Woods, a member of the over60s Irish team, has been involved with Greystones Lawn Tennis Club in some way or another for the past 58 year. The 65-year-old first joined the club when he was seven, and went on to hold positions on the junior committee when he was 15, as well as later being treasurer, four-time club captain, President, and general manager; a role he holds to this day.
‘I was on the junior committee when I was 15/16. Myself and a good pal of mine used to run the junior disco in the tennis club in the old pavilion opposite the hotel. We organised the discos, we organised the music. At one stage, we are organising printing tickets and we organised vouchers. We were doing that every week since we were 15/16.’
From that first day on which he and his friend started putting together the club discos, Woods has gone on to become an integral member of Greystones Lawn Tennis Club, and was recognised for his contribution and dedication to the club by the IFS, an achievement which he admitted surprised him.
‘I was absolutely thrilled. I was absolutely delighted. It was a great honour. I was proposed by one of the committee members of the council. I had no idea about it, at all, until I got an email congratulating me about the award, that I had won the award for County Wicklow.
Much like other areas of life, tennis was put under serious strain by the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. By the time clubs opened back up again last summer, significant changes to operations and gameplay were then required. Reflecting on the year that was, Woods admitted that it was extremely difficult for everybody involved, although he is hopeful that things will be back up and running from the end of January.
‘It was very difficult. We spent our time putting up gates, taking back down gates. We had to close down the tennis club. We were putting up hand sanitiser, signs, locking doors, making sure everybody was safe, making routes around the tennis club so that nobody was passing each other.
‘We have spent our time making sure the tennis club is locked, telling people not to enter the tennis club, advising kids not to touch the nets, not to touch the posts.
‘Even the tennis balls, the coaches were picking up the balls themselves, so that the kids weren’t juggling them. It’s been a very difficult last year due to Covid and everything else, but, hopefully, we will come out of it at the end of January.’
Conor will be honoured this week at the virtual awards which will be streamed live on Tuesday, January 12, Wednesday, January 13 and Thursday, January 14 from 7pm each evening on the Federation of Irish Sport’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ federationofirishsport/.
In a statement regarding the awards and Conor’s win the organisers said that Conor is the ‘life and soul of Greystones Tennis Club’.
‘Conor is the life and soul of Greystones Tennis Club, and nothing is ever too much trouble for him. He does everything with good grace and a sense of fun. He is everybody’s friend, and everyone knows him.
‘Conor has volunteered in many capacities over the last number of years and has worked tirelessly in the role of club manager for the last three and a half years. During this time, he completed the grant applications which were successful and enabled the courts to be resurfaced and new lights to be installed. He also spent a huge amount of time getting the club ready for Covid-19 in order for players to return safely. He loves tennis and inspires everyone around him to love tennis too. Conor will be honoured this week at the special virtual awards ceremony.
‘The Volunteers in Sport awards were created to champion the contribution, commitment and dedication of the army of 450,000 volunteers across the country who go above and beyond by giving their time to Irish sport and physical activity each year. These volunteers dedicate some 37.2 million hours of volunteering across the country’s 13,000+ sports clubs and associations every year.
Towards the end of 2020, members of the public, as well as sports clubs and governing bodies were invited to nominate an individual whose contributions to sport has made a real difference to their community, club or county.
The nominations and award recipients were selected by a judging panel consisting of 11 individuals drawn from sports administration, the volunteer community and media, including former Director General of the GAA, Paraic Duffy, RTÉ broadcaster, Marie Crowe and CEO of CARA, Niamh Daffy.