Time to move Congress from April?

With the current controversy over the modifications of the handpass rule, is it time to look at moving Congress back to around December/January time?
It's utter madness that rule changes are brought in 3/4 months after the season begins, and players are expected to automatically adjust to them.
Much of the current furore would have been avoided if the change had been announced in January, and players given a chance to adapt to the change in early season training, and in warm-up competitions.
In the heat of the moment, players will usually do what comes naturally, what they are used to doing. Most players are used to passing the ball a certain way, and if this is no longer allowed it's going to take them some time to adjust.
Making rule changes in Nov/Dec would give players time to adjust through training and warm-up competitions, and should eliminate much of the controversy that we are now seeing.

rule changes can only come in every 5 years or in CLG case a year ending with a 5 or a 0 (that is true not making it up)
Agree congress during these years should be done during the off season but alas there is a snag when do most counties hold there conventions-----during the month of December.
So you may get new incumbents in (or like Wexford you play musical chairs till all the ex chairmen have got a gig and dish out what is left to others) they may need some time to get up to speed with the goings on.
Then you have all the motions from said conventions and they all have to be complied and listed to see what is in order and what isn't.
Then we have the classic GAA time frame in getting the info back to the counties so that they can distribute all the motions to the clubs, who can/should hold a meeting to decide what way there county rep should vote.
rather than the secretary ringing the chairperson to ring the county rep and tell him/her what to do (a GAA politically correct statement, just for moss)
you then have a county board meeting in which it is decided what motion the county will support.
Then you have congress.
Then it is late April early May
Have no problem with the timing but a by law should be brought in that any rule changes should not be implemented until the following year

JimWexford wrote:rule changes can only come in every 5 years or in CLG case a year ending with a 5 or a 0 (that is true not making it up)
Agree congress during these years should be done during the off season but alas there is a snag when do most counties hold there conventions-----during the month of December.
So you may get new incumbents in (or like Wexford you play musical chairs till all the ex chairmen have got a gig and dish out what is left to others) they may need some time to get up to speed with the goings on.
Then you have all the motions from said conventions and they all have to be complied and listed to see what is in order and what isn't.
Then we have the classic GAA time frame in getting the info back to the counties so that they can distribute all the motions to the clubs, who can/should hold a meeting to decide what way there county rep should vote.
rather than the secretary ringing the chairperson to ring the county rep and tell him/her what to do (a GAA politically correct statement, just for moss)
you then have a county board meeting in which it is decided what motion the county will support.
Then you have congress.
Then it is late April early May
Have no problem with the timing but a by law should be brought in that any rule changes should not be implemented until the following year

That'd work just fine either Jim. Just think that something needs to be done to avoid a situation where the rules are changed mid-season. It's extracting the urine a bit!

I remember hearing about the 5-year restriction on changes to playing rules, but I also remember hearing that the wording around this is quite loose, and can be manipulated quite easily if the powers that be so desire

No its fairly tight.
They can experiment with the national leagues and have done continuously for the last number of years (mark this year, pick up off the ground abolished another year etc) but those experimental changes do not come into force for any championship. playing rules changes as we have had this year can only be done every 5 years.