As I sit chatting with Róisín Harbison, the thought strikes me midway through our interview that she may have the most eclectic sporting background of anyone I’ve ever met. The new Vice-Chair of Dublin University Central Athletics Club (DUCAC) has tried her hand at a wide variety of sports during her time in Trinity, sampling everything from swimming and sailing, to hockey and snowsports, with varying degrees of success. There was even a two week dalliance with boxing – which didn’t make it to a third, she confides with a laugh.
Something of a DUCAC veteran, having served as Secretary of the Captains Committee last year, Harbison is well aware that DUCAC more commonly finds itself in the headlines when things go wrong rather than right. Some might wonder what makes an otherwise sane individual want to take on the unenviable task of overseeing Trinity’s 50 sports clubs. However, for the third-year human health and disease student, running for the position of Vice-Chair was a natural next step.
“I sat on the Captains Committee, which is basically all the captains in Trinity who all go to meetings, and at the first captains committee meeting a secretary is elected. You literally just put yourself forward if you want to do it”, Harbison explains. “One other person ran from a relatively small club as well so I was like ‘I’ll go’, and I ran against her and I won that election, it literally just happened in 10 minutes.” Having got her first taste of the inner workings of DUCAC sitting on the Captains Committee, Harbison found that she relished the challenges of the job. Having mulled the idea over during the summer, and with the encouragement of former Vice-Chair Monty Badger she decided to take the plunge.
You’re there as a committee to run sport as a whole and to help Trinity sport as a whole, you’re not there for the benefit of your own club
For Harbison, being in the know and helping her club battle through the administrative mire of Trinity Sport made the additional responsibilities worthwhile. “I really enjoyed it. I thought it was so interesting and I really liked having the inside track as well because then I could, if needed, help my own club if they were like, ‘we’re not sure whats going on here’.”
This attitude is central to Harbison’s main goal of creating effective communication between clubs and the DUCAC executive. “If any clubs ever had any issue or anything that they wanted to develop within their club, or anything that they would like to see going forward that they could say it to me or any of the other student executives and we could bring that to the meetings and try and have it go forward for them”, she explains. Harbison’s experience of clubs big and small will undoubtedly play into her goal of being a “voice for students in DUCAC”.
As it often does when discussing DUCAC, the conversation inevitably turns to the organisation’s finances. Despite significant progress in tackling its financial problems, the club is still running a deficit. Harbison is quick to accept that the deficit is a problem, but one which is being turned around. “I can see it’s progress”, she begins. “Obviously having a deficit of money is not good, but they are doing the best they can with what they have and they have a solution so it’s not like the bad times are there forever”, she states firmly. She is also quick to emphasise the importance of the Pavilion Bar in restoring DUCAC’s reserves, echoing a sentiment expressed by Prof Cyril Smyth to The University Times earlier this year.
Going forward, Harbison identified the prospect of alumni donations, which some clubs have already heavily tapped into, as a key source of alternative funding for clubs. She cites Dublin University Football Club (DUFC) as a successful example. “A lot of people think that DUCAC focus solely on them and give them all their money”, she states, “but it’s their alumni giving back to them. So I think definitely developing alumni funding will be a big thing and because we have an interest from alumni in the old clubs. If you had even like a regular kind of income from alumni it would help an awful lot, especially because they are all probably professionals now so it’s no skin off their nose”, she laughs. How exactly DUCAC can help clubs push this is something Harbison and her colleagues are keen to develop at executive meetings.
Before tackling any financial problems, Harbison’s first task will be completing the ongoing work on Trinity Sport’s Code of Ethics. A painstaking process, first mooted by former DUCAC Vice-Chair Kacper Coulter three years ago, and continued by his successor Monty Badger, the project is finally nearing completion, much to the relief of everyone involved. “It’s come to the point where everyone is like, ‘let’s put this to bed’, and we had a meeting to finalise it last night”, Harbison explains.
There’s an infectious enthusiasm about Harbison’s love of sport that quickly becomes evident as we talk. She often stops herself mid-sentence, somewhat apologetically, to reconsider questions, having spiralled off topic in her efforts to cover every facet of Trinity’s sporting culture.
One problem that is present is that Trinity Sport needs more funding because now our clubs are starting to get more successful so they kind of need more money to help them progress
When I ask if she is mindful of Dublin University Boat Club’s (DUBC) perceived sway over the executive committee, holding two of the five seats on the executive council, Harbison is quick to swat the question away. “What club [you] come from doesn’t really play into it an awful lot when you’re there”, she responds. “You’re there as a committee to run sport as a whole and to help Trinity sport as a whole, you’re not there for the benefit of your own club.”
Overall, Harbison is excited by the development of sport in Trinity, noting the huge improvements made in recent years. “When I was first coming to Trinity, it wasn’t viewed as a sporting university. I never thought of it as a sporting university at all. Even looking at it I was like, ‘it’s a small stone university in the middle of the city, there’s no sports facilities there at all’.” She identifies the enviable but problematic position that Trinity now finds itself in as a sporting institution. “One problem that is present is that Trinity Sport needs more funding because now our clubs are starting to get more successful so they kind of need more money to help them progress, and it’s something that definitely needs to be worked on in the future.” She muses that maybe this is a problem that she can help tackle.
Looking towards the year ahead, Harbison isn’t totally sure what’s around the corner. Experience dictates that working with DUCAC, you can never be sure what issues will rear their heads. Nevertheless, Harbison is the perfect balance of experience and enthusiasm to meet those challenges head on. Harbison’s final comments to me as we conclude the interview sum up her relentlessly enthusiastic personality. “I’m excited for things to come”, she smiles.
