REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE PESENTATION OF GAISCE GOLD AWARDS JANUARY 21ST 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE PESENTATION OF GAISCE GOLD AWARDS JANUARY 21ST 1999
One of my privileges as President is that I am often asked to present awards to extraordinary people. Indeed if you attended enough of these ceremonies, I think you would wonder if you were the only one who didn’t manage to change the world before breakfast.
I can honestly say, however, that this award is special to me. It is of course known as the President’s award. But I look on it as my own, also because it is targeted at people between the ages of 15 and 25. It allows me an opportunity to pay tribute to young people like yourselves, who have shown extraordinary perseverance, dedication and personal achievement. It is sometimes said that “you are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely”. All of you here today are living proof that maturity – and the qualities of leadership, self-discipline and care for others that are associated with it – are most definitely not the preserve of the older members of society.
Since its inception back in 1985, this award has gone from strength to strength. I understand there are now over 8,000 participants. Of these, all of whom are high achievers in their own right, 47 of you have scaled even dizzier heights, by qualifying for the Gold Award.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet all of you – with your families and friends here today. I know it has been a long road, because to qualify for this award, you had to agree a challenge with your leader and carry it out over a minimum period of 18 months. These challenges ranged across community activities, personal skills development, physical achievements and venture activities.
What unites all of these diverse activities, is a commitment to the personal development of the individual – a commitment to setting objectives and to achieving them with excellence. We all need challenges in our lives if we are to stretch ourselves to our emotional, intellectual or physical limits. The real benefit of GAISCE is not just achieving the goal, but the lessons we learn on the journey – a journey of self-discovery about ourselves and others.
On this journey you will have surprised yourself – you will have found ways to build new skills, you will have made new friends, extended and deepened your understanding of the world. You will have surprised your friends, your families because the person who stopped the journey is not the same person who began it. Today’s award winner enjoys a new found respect, hard earned and a new found self-respect. These are the gifts of the many lessons learnt on the road to gold.
These lessons are ones which will serve you well in later life. They give you a sense of what can be achieved if you have enough commitment and, more particularly, self-belief in your own gifts. They demonstrate the importance of leadership, but also of teamwork; the value of giving to others and receiving back so much more by seeing the difference your contribution has made. At a time when community bonds and care for others are perceived to be at risk from the growing prosperity of our country, these lessons are important ones. It is to you, and to other young people, that we now look to ensure that the generosity of spirit that served this society so well in the past, will continue to thrive.
Looking around me here today, I have great hope for the future.
I would also like to say a special word of thanks to the Gaisce leaders who have demonstrated these values so well, by giving of their time voluntarily and with such generosity. It is thanks to your guidance and leadership that these extraordinary young people have been able to realise their full potential. We all need words of praise and encouragement from time to time, not least when the going gets tough and the objective seems very far away. I have no doubt that GAISCE could not be the success it is, without your enthusiasm and commitment.
At a time when we are learning, tentatively, on this island to welcome and embrace those of different backgrounds and to recognise the similarities we share within our diversity, it gives me great pleasure to welcome to our ceremony, Mr Eric Rainey and Mr Ron Matthews from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in Northern Ireland. It is an important year for the awards, North and South, as we jointly host Millennium Gold Encounter next September, a three week World Conference for Gold Award Winners from all parts of the globe. I have no doubt that the participants from both parts of this island, will have an enormous amount to contribute to this Conference. It will be a wonderful opportunity to showcase the hospitality for which this island is so famous and we look forward to the many new friends and the new networks which we will establish from it.
The President’s Award, GAISCE, is very much a team effort, but particular thanks are due to John Murphy, the Executive Director of the Awards, who I know has put a huge amount of effort into making GAISCE – The President’s Award - the success it is today.
A special welcome to the President’s Awards new Chair, Mary White, whose dynamism is already helping shape a dynamic future for these Awards. To Mary and her new Board I wish every success and thank them for their commitment to our young people
To you, and to all of the Gold Award Winners, it only remains for me to say – comhghairdeachas ó chroí libh go léir.