Club Colours is the second of the three projects announced this week as a winner in the Sports Category of the Arthur Guinness Projects.
The project is based in Kerry and provides the facility for sports clubs across the country to ‘build’ their own real and virtual club shop with merchandise ranging from mugs and key rings to ranges of clothing.
The winning projects were chosen by a combination of public vote and the recommendation of an expert panel of judges including Donegal Football manager Jim McGuinness, Broadcaster Matt Cooper, Sarah O’Connor of the Federation of Irish Sport and Rob Hartnett of Sport for Business.
Club Colours was founded by Chris McGillicuddy and has already signed up a number of clubs across gaelic games, soccer and rugby.
The two key elements of why the judges believed this was a project worth supporting were the fact that clubs can order any level of gear and so not be burdened with a high level of unsold merchandise, and that 20% of the sales value of the gear comes back directly to the club as an effective fundraiser.
With online services now the norm for contacting teams, distributing news about the clubs and as a means of collecting revenues by way of team subscriptions, the addition of a fully functional online club shop is becoming more of an attractive option.
With a low overhead, driven by volume, Club Colours is able to provide a simple transactional site that delivers a service and a revenue stream to clubs without their needing to become proficient e commerce experts.
Sport for Business and Ulster Bank will host a Sponsorship Showcase event in Dublin on Tuesday, October 8th 2013. Click here for more details.
The business sources goods and materials around the world and completes the personalisation process using equipment it has purchased and operates from its Killorglin, County Kerry base.
It prides itself on a one to one service with clubs and has a ‘pop-up shop’ which can be booked for club fun days and big games to sell merchandise in a more traditional manner.
You can discover more about the business at www.clubcolours.ie.
Over the coming days we will look at the remaining winner – the Plurabelle Paddlers, a group set up to provide fitness motivation and ideas to women recovering from Breast Cancer, and at some of the other submitted projects who did not make the final three but which will hopefully have learned from the experience of being involved.
The Arthur Guinness projects will run again in 2014 and it is never too early to start thinking if a project you are involved in, that has sport at its heart and which can show a clear benefit for communities and society, might be suitable for submission.
Click below for details of the Sport for Business Events Programme
Sports Sponsorship Showcase
Sports Analytics Round Table
Sports Tourism Seminar
Irish Sponsorship Awards
Sports Philanthropy Round Table
Youth Sports Conference
