The Presidents Award 

The Presidents Awards are the most prestigious awards in Ireland at the moment. It challenges participants in four main areas: 

Ø      Learning a Personal Skill 

Ø      Community Activity 

Ø      Physical Activity 

Ø      And an Adventure 

The programs of the scheme are designed to encourage initiative, self-discipline, leadership and caring skills in young people.

The students were successful in completing the challenge and apart from the immense satisfaction of setting their own high standards and standing by it, they received a medal, a label pin and a certificate signed by the President.  

2009/2010

This school year, we have the largest number of 4th year students involved in the presidents awards

The fourth year students recently visited Lough Allen Adventure Centre as part of their Bronze Medal. This is one of the activities for this medal. The group left on Friday 19th March and returned on Sunday evening. They stayed over in the centre and participated in a range of outdoor pursuits.

2007/2008

This  year 19 students from 4^th year took part in the President’s awards.  As part of the adventure task they travelled to Lough Allen Adventure Centre, where they stayed from the 7^th to the 9^th of March.

The 18 students taking part in the president’s awards left St. Felim’s at 9:30am and set out for Lough Allen Adventure Centre.  We met our leaders Josh, Tojo, Kayle and Cara.  Then we got changed into our wetsuits and got a bus to the Marina in Drumshanbo.  There we got into our canoes and set off on our long (2km) journey to O’Connor’s Island.  After and hour and half of rowing we arrived on the island.  We thought we were going to have a rest but we had to unload the barrels and set up our tents.  We eventually got the fire lit and put on the kettle.  We heard the story of “stumpy” the island ghost.  We went to bed and after a good few hours we drifted off to sleep.

The people who got up first had to light the fire.  We could not get the fire lit but after some quick thinking from Eamon and a can of Niamh’s deodorant later we had a blazing fire.  Once the leaders saw our magnificent fire they decided that they couldn’t be bothered lighting their own so they brought all their food over to ours and decided to cook their breakfast (well it was more of a feast).  Then when they had finished their breakfast/feast they left us to wash all the pots in the lake.  We played the trust game and crab wrestling – stumpy’s ho’s VS. stumpy’s children.  Stumpy’s ho’s being the winners.  Eamon risked his life to get a rope(worth €200 apparently).  Then we played a game called barrel rolling – where a (brave) person got into a barrel and another person kicked it down the hill.  Later on in the day ‘The  Aoifsters’ took on Lauren’s team in a football match in the mud.  After a few funny tackles(Aoife falling into the bushes and Nianh slipping in the mud). ‘The Aoifster’s’ ploughed (literally) to victory.  After running out of clean water Niamh, Tara, Amy, Josh and Tojo made a brave trip to Drumshanbo in the dark and the hailstones to get more water.  After a quick stop in the shop to stock up on sweets we made a slow journey back in the pitch dark.  When we arrived back and after quite a while of singsonging around the campfire a few of us decided to venture off on a midnight walk.  Even though we were warned that it was going to be muddy – nothing could have prepared us. When we eventually arrived back some of us decided to go to bed but some others decided to keep us awake by singing.

We were awoken by Tojo who informed us that we had to be off the island before 11O’clock if we wanted to get towed halfway by a speedboat.  We got up and everyone was trying to use up the last of their food so there was about 50 sausages being cooked.  We set off on our 8km journey but luckily we were towed halfway by a speedboat.  After a wet, windy and hailstoney journey we arrived back at the centre.  We said our goodbyes and we were all sad to be leaving.  It was an amazing experience and enjoyed fully by all participants.

2006/2007

This school year 2006/2007, we have the largest number of 4th year students involved in the presidents awards

2005/2006 students involved are:

Pictured below are the students following their presentation:

Lough Allen Adventure:

Here Laura Creamer gives her account of the weekend :

Friday morning, the 10^th of March 2006 and thirteen fourth year girls taking part in the President’s Awards were sitting on a Martin’s Coaches bus with it’s boot so full that sleeping bags and other various bags were filling the back of the bus. We were on our way to the Lough Allen Adventure Centre.  Every single person on that bus was dreading the weekend ahead – staying in tents, on an island where there won’t even be a toilet, and to cap our misery, NO MOBILE PHONES for a whole weekend!! (Don’t worry Catherine, it didn’t kill ya).  It was a tense journey and James (the bus driver) didn’t exactly help matters by telling us we’d probably all be dead when he came back for us on Sunday.

               The tension didn’t last long as when we pulled up (after missing the place completely and driving by it) and three lads walked out of the modest building, we could all hear Sarah O’Gara saying, “This might not be so bad”.  And wasn’t she right.

 We were all expecting the whole can’t do this, that and the other, rules and regulations speech but it wasn’t like that.  We were there to have fun and that’s what we did. 

It was a learning curve for some of us as we learned to cook with a trangia, pitch a tent and light a campfire and navigate a map (and that was within a hour of our arrival).  All the instructors were really good characters, good fun and boy, had they some funny names.  There was Boots, Lil’Joey (even though he was quite tall), Shatem (pronounced Hattim), aka Bin Laden, Hal (who didn’t talk) aka Halliman, Blithe (the only girl, God love her) and Eamon, aka Nemo, aka Brillo. 

                  The first day we canoed to a near by pontoon, which we all jumped off but we couldn’t canoe back because the lake got stormy, so we got towed back by the speedboat.  We spent the rest of the day sitting around the centre talking and having the craic. Boots took a liking to annoying people, by towel whipping and play fighting and Sarah and Catherine were victims more than once, in fact Catherine got a few good soakings.

                   We camped that night behind the centre and let me tell you it was bitterly cold, freezing in fact as there was frost on our tents come morning.  It was quite an early start for everyone as the rooster in the garden was in full voice but not before Amy Hanly found her voice.  She had been singing Barry White until about half 11 the night before. 

                     There was lots of work to be done before we could head for the island, as we had to take the tents and pack everything into storage barrels.  Then when we were kitted out in wet suits and life jackets we were loaded into Range Rovers and cars and brought through Drumshanbo to a small tourist area nearby from where the boats were launched.  It wasn’t very straightforward as we came to a Lock, that wouldn’t open so instead of going through it we had to move around it which entailed them pulling everyone out of the boats, taking all the barrels (about 15 in total) out of the boats and then lifting out the actual boats. We then had to carry everything to the other end of the Lough and re-load the boats.  We had a break there but it was still eventful as Boots dropped Laura Creamer flat on her Face!!  Ouch!!  Laura must have had a concussion from the fall as before we got to the island she had fallen again, this time in the water.

                     It was wet and raining when we got to the Island and we had to carry barrels up a hill, set up tents and light a campfire (that part didn’t go very well).  Boots, Joey and Eamon stayed out in the pouring rain to make us a proper fire and a shelter, so we could cook and dry off, which led to them being very wet and Boots not feeling well the next morning.  Aww, poor Boots!

                     So to cheer him up (yeah that was it) we had a massive mud fight. We were covered in mud from head to toe and some poor unfortunates actually got knocked to the ground and rolled around to make sure they were completely covered.  Thanks Lads!!!  Since there were no showers on the Island, we had to stay caked in dirt as we rolled back towards the Lake and were once again brought by Land Rover and Car back to the centre. 

                        Everyone had a brilliant weekend, the time of our lives and it was definitely a worthwhile weekend.  It was definitely something to be remembered!!

2004/2005 students involved are:

Lough Allen adventure

As Part of receiving the Gaisce President’s Award we had to go on an adventure, so we choose Lough Allen Adventure Park. We went on March 18^th for three days and two nights. It was a very enjoyable weekend. We learned navigation skills, setting up tents and how to start a campfire. On the second night we canoed out to an island on Lough Allen with five camp leaders. It was a long and tiresome three-hour canoe out but with the encouragement of the camp leaders they turned it into three hours of fun. We cooked all our meals over the campfire, which we made ourselves, and lay in tents we put up ourselves. The three days weren’t all fun and games; there was some tough times getting everything sorted. But because of this trip many of the participants in the Gaisce Awards have decided to further their bronze medal to a sliver.

 Presentation of Gaisce Awards

We were presented with our bronze Awards in Sligo Park hotel on Tuesday 17^th May by Mary Davis, Director of the Special Olympics Ireland. It was a very eventful evening with 129 young people from around Sligo and Leitrim area received their bronze medal and 1 person received her sliver medal. 13 of which was from our school of Ballinamore Post Primary School. We each received a bronze medal, a pin and a certificate signed by the president of Ireland Mary McAleese as part of our achievement in the Gaisce Awards.