BRONZE AWARD
I started my bronze award in September 2022. Gaisce Bronze consists of meeting a commitment of three different activites, each for an hour a week, for 13 weeks. At the end of the 13 weeks, participants choose one activity to extend and do for another 13 weeks.
BRONZE COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
For my community involvement activity, I started the initiative of Friday Football at school. Friday Football was a regular football session on Friday Mornings, that was open to everyone to come and join, and have a game of football. The idea was that I would be there every Friday, no matter the weather, so that younger students always had a safe and reliable place to come and play football at least once a week. Friday Football proved immensely popular, and after only 4-8 weeks there was a regular group of 10-16 players that always came to play.
I like to believe that Friday Football helped some students to start playing football. I noticed that young students who came to the sessions having never played before, soon began playing every week and competing with their peers who had already been playing before I started the sessions. At the outset of Friday Football, I said that the goal was to create a larger football culture at school, and now, whether by coincidence or not, football is among the most popular ball games, if not the most popular game, played on the astroturf.
BRONZE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY:
For my physical recreational activity, I took up Martial Arts lessons with one of the staff at school. I already knew this staff member from years before, as I had taken Kung Fu lessons with him when I was younger. I used Gaisce as a reason to start practicing Choy Li Fut again. I enjoyed returning to practicing this martial art, and am grateful that Gaisce opened that door and possibility for me.
BRONZE PERSONAL SKILL:
For my personal skill, I started playing trumpet in the Sligo Academy of Music Sinfonietta (a standard orchestra). I was told by musicians I knew that playing in sinfonietta wasn't always so fun, but it was very beneficial in developing sight reading skills. I used this, and Gaisce, as motivation to join Sinfonietta, and am very happy that I did. I learned more about different styles of music, and was given new performance opportunities, such as playing in the National Concert Hall. Not to mention the most obvious benefit I gained from joining sinfonietta, my massive improvement in sight reading.
BRONZE ADVENTURE JOURNEY:
For our Bronze Adventure Journey, we went to Nephin National Park in Mayo, and completed a 10km Hike over hills and through fields. We eventually set up a campsite, and camped out overnight. We hiked the full 10km back in the morning. The journey was difficult and stressful at times, but was fun and a great bonding experience for the group that went.
SILVER AWARD
After completing the Bronze Award, I went on to begin my Silver in September 2023. I chose some similar activities, and some different ones.
SILVER COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
For my community involvement, I carried on doing Friday Football. The sessions were so popular, that I was going to carry on doing them anyway, so I decided to do the same as the previous year and put it on my Gaisce. As soon as we started in September it was clear that the popularity was rising. Very soon I had to split the sessions into two groups, separated by skill level. This ensured that players got to play against players that were of similar skill level, making Friday Football more accessible to more people. Only a few months later however, I had to split the groups again, and we are currently running 3 groups, with Friday Football running from 10:45-12:30 most weeks. This year has also seen, for the first time, a consistent group of girls joining the sessions. I always encouraged female students to join the sessions, however I understand that it wasn't so easy for a lot of them to join, since football and sports in general can still be seen as "male dominated" or simply "male". I am very happy however that this obstacle has been overcome, and there are now a group of girls that come to play every week, competing with and at the same level as most of the boys in their groups.
The Popularity of these sessions is clear, and I am very proud of the safe and more popular football culture that I feel I have contributed towards. Football is a huge passion for me, and I feel very lucky and happy that I have been able to share my passion with younger students.
SILVER PHYSICAL ACTIVITY:
I found this aspect of my Silver Gaisce slightly more difficult this year. I started out with the plan to play tennis once a week with my parents, but after Christmas this didn't really work out. I then kind of neglected my physical activity for a month, and then started to play football once a week with a group of players from school. This is what I am doing now for my physical activity. The Wednesday morning sessions came out of Friday Football, and in a way are a sort of "group 4".
SILVER PERSONAL SKILL:
For my personal skill this year, I have been recording my commitment to studying "Thinking Skills" at A level. This is a very important life skill beyond the acadmeic goal of the A level. Thus far I have learned about argument elements, evidence analysis, analysing data and statistics, and solving problems.
SILVER ADVENTURE JOURNEY:
Although at the time of writing this we have not gone on our adventure journey, the plan is as follows:
We plan on going to Bristol for a weekend, spending one of the days walking around the city exploring Banksy's murals, and spending the other full day we have walking to Bath to see the ancient Roman baths.
Overall, Gaisce has opened multiple doors for me over the last 18 months, and has given me excuses to try new things and expand my interests. I am very glad that I have participated in Gaisce, and am thankful to Sudbury for being able to provide it as an opportunity.