Gaisce Awards Night

Athboy Community School held its Gaisce Awards ceremony in the General Purpose Area in the school on the evening of Thursday September 23rd in front of a large audience of teachers, students, parents and guardians and invited guests. 

The ceremony opened with some lovely music performed by Kevin Fox after which the host, Miss Emma Mooney, The Gaisce Awards Co-ordinating teacher, addressed those gathered. Miss Mooney explained that the school had 51 students receiving awards of which 38 Bronze Awards and 6 Silver awards were to be presented on the night. 

To start the evening off, Mary Yore, the Regional Officer for Gaisce addressed the gathering. She outlined how there are over 1,200 PAL’s ((President Award Leaders) around the country to assist students doing their Gaisce and how the movement has grown down through the 28 years she has been involved. 139 countries around the worlds are now involved in the President’s Award movement, not always under the same name – for example Gaisce in Irish means ‘Great Achievement.’   

Ms Yorepaid tribute to the PAL’s in Athboy Community School; Miss Mooney, Miss Dowling, Miss Vaughan, Mr. Mahon and Miss Mahony. She encouraged those who had completed their Bronze Award to now go forward and do the Silver and in turn she asked those who had won Silver Awards to keep going and do the Gold Award. She impressed upon all participants the importance of making sure their Gaisce Award is now front and centre on their C.V’s! She also thanked the parents of the students involved for all the support they gave to the Gaisce Award winners. 

Just to give a small flavour of the types of endeavours involved, two award winners Lucy Heaney and Charlotte Colgan spoke about whatthe Gaisce Award entailed for them and how valuable an experience it was.  

Lucy spoke about how she started banjo lessons as her Personal Skill and enjoyed the challenge of learning to play an instrument she had always wanted to master. For her Community Engagement Task, she did jobs for elderly people in her locality and for the Physical/Recreational task she played football for her local team. Lucy also spoke about how much the Gaisce group had enjoyed a bonding trip to Birr where they did hikes, canoed for 12km, did a 10km bog-walk and enjoyed singsongs aroundthe campfire at night. 

Charlotte then spoke about how she walked to school for the 13 weeks of her Physical Task, learned the recorder for her PersonalSkill and volunteered in a local Nursing Home for her Community Involvement Task. 

The final speaker on the night was Athboy Community Person of the Year, Assumpta Kelly, who spoke about her work as a community activist and volunteer, particularly with Special Hands and the Athboy Development Forum and Community Centre. She spoke about the great spirit of volunteerism in Athboy and the true merits of the Gaisce Programme as completed by the students gathered on the night. 

After the speeches, Miss Mooney and Miss Dowling presented the Bronze and SilverAward winners with their medals and framed certificates.  

The school community would like to sincerely thank Miss Mooney and all the PAL’s for their steadfast dedication and support of the students and to warmly congratulate all Gaisce Award winners.