Gaisce , The Presidents Award
Gaisce – The President's Award is an award in Ireland, earned by young people between the ages of 15 and 25 for participating in several activities for a certain period. There are three awards: bronze, silver and gold. This year , in TY we will be participating in the bronze award and doing a personal skill, physical recreation and community service for 13 weeks and one for 26 weeks, For Gaisce , I will be taking part in a Barista Course, Horse Riding and RDA.
Barista Course
This year we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to take part in a Barista course. It took place over a 7 week period and was on every Saturday for one hour.
The course took place in 9th degree on Westmorland Street so it was nice to spend time in town before and after the class. All the girls in my form took part in this course and I think it brought us all a little bit closer together. During the classe,we were taught by Lena, Luca and James who helped us to learn how a coffee machine works, how to make a expresso shot and how to perfectly froth the milk. In the end of most classes we also learned latte art which was a lot of fun. It was a great experience and I hope it will be useful to me in the future
The course took place in 9th degree on Westmorland Street so it was nice to spend time in town before and after the class. All the girls in my form took part in this course and I think it brought us all a little bit closer together. During the classe,we were taught by Lena, Luca and James who helped us to learn how a coffee machine works, how to make a expresso shot and how to perfectly froth the milk. In the end of most classes we also learned latte art which was a lot of fun. It was a great experience and I hope it will be useful to me in the future
Horse Riding
. For my Physical Recreation for Gaisce , I decided to do 26 weeks of horse-riding . Claire fisher, owns her own horse and stables and arena and lives within walking distance of me, so I thought this would make it suitable for me to do horse riding for my gaisce. Once a week, I went over to Claire's house and helped her to tack up her horse. Then claire gave me horse riding lessons. I found this so much fun to do and enjoyed taking up a new activity.
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RDA
For my community service for Gaisce, I decided to pick RDA. I first heard of this through people in my year and was interested. It takes place every Tuesday from 11-12:30. Every week we get collected from the school and we go and collect two of the horse that are used for RDA. When we arrive there, we get the horse ready and wait till the child appointed to the horse is ready to mount. The kids in RDA range with a variety of disabilities and many of them are non-verbal but you can always tell that they are really enjoying it. There are two classes, one is an hour and the second is a 1/2 hour. During a ride, there is always one person leading the horse and two helpers at either side, making sure the child is okay at all times. We generally do laps around the arena. We also plays games and sing songs especially during Christmas. I have met some really lovely kids and can truly tell how much they love it , some won't even leave the horse !