Every year, the Michael Sweetman Educational Trust, with the generous assistance of each Vocational Education Committee (VEC), and the support of the European Parliament and the Irish Vocational Educational Association (IVEA) awards trips to Strasbourg in France to Leaving Certificate Applied students. While in Strasbourg the winning students visit the European Parliament. There they have the opportunity to meet, work with and socialise with students from other European States.

The competition is based on the LCA contemporary social issue task chosen by the student. The competition required students to make an oral presentation to the Sweetman Assessor(s) on the students’ chosen task.

This year (2007-2008) two of our students- Christine Murphy & Amanda Keane were successful in the competition. It is a great achievement for them. Christine’s research topic was on the voting system in Ireland & Amanda’s topic was on epilepsy. They both impressed the assessor with their knowledge and their interest in their selected tasks. 

Indoor Soccer Tournament 2005 by Luke Brennan  

In September 2005, I had the opportunity to be a member of the winning Youthreach soccer team.  The team were involved in a closely fought contest involving teams from Limerick, Dundalk, Dublin, Ballinasloe and Galway. The tournament consisted of two group stages with the top two teams in each group proceeding to the semi-final and final.  We were skilled (and lucky) enough to be successful in the early rounds of the tournament and reached the semi-final.

We secured three wins in as many matches to top the group.  We went on to play the runners up from the other group in the semi-final.  The semi-final match against Ballyfermott, who were previous winners of the competition, was a fiercely fought game.  It was won in the dying moments when Tommy O’Donnell scored a goal.  The final was also a close affair against Limerick.  There were a few chances and Chris Casey did a wonderful job in keeping Ballaghaderreen’s hopes alive.  We also had chances but the vital goal did not arrive until John Connelly came from defence to unleash an unstoppable shot past the opposition's goalkeeper. The team all worked very hard and it paid off in the end.

The team was made up of five players John Connelly Aaron Calpin Tommy O’Donnell Chris Casey and myself Luke Brennan, substitutes Bruce Holton and Charlie Maughan.  We were very proud to be presented with the winners plaque after the match by Mr Paul Large of the Ballina Youthreach Centre.  

The Presidents Award by Kevin Flynn and Kieran Regan  

In November 2005 we began our participation in the President’s Award.  This Award works on the basis of personal challenge, meaning that we do not have to compete with other participants, as each challenge is completely individual.  We decided to challenge ourselves to become involved in the bronze category of this award.  We are participating in the four challenge areas of the award, namely:

Skill—where we are involved in fishing

Physical—where our focus is on swimming

Community—where we are involved in an environmental project in the centre

Adventure—which involves a three day camping trip where we will be canoeing and hiking

The idea is that we set goals for ourselves and then try to achieve those goals.  Our Outdoor Pursuits teacher Colm is helping us with our challenges.  We completed our Award by May and received our Awards presented by Mr Hugh McConville, in September.

POWER BOATING by John Bruen

As part of our course in Youthreach, our Outdoor Pursuits teacher Colm decided to do a Level II Powerboat Course.  The four students that took part in the course were myself, Kevin Flynn, Kieran Regan and Tom Ward.  When we first started our course we went to Petersburg Outdoor Education Centre in County Galway and we had an introduction to the world of powerboating.  We had a group talk with John one of the instructors and he told us what we were going to do.  Afterwards, we were brought out on to the water and John taught us the basics of powerboat handling. 

Over the course of our time at Petersburg we were taught how to do many different things both on and off the water.  We learned how to save a man over board, how to anchor a boat correctly, how to do high and low speed turns in a confined space, we learned about all the different pre-start checks (they are different depending on the type of the boat), we also learned about all the different types of boats from ribs to lake boats, we learned about the different types of hulls which are used for different types of waters, and we were also taught which boat has the right of way on the water, that is, the boat that is showing the port (left) side of the boat has the right of way.

On our final visit to Petersburg Outdoor Education Centre we stayed the night. It was great fun as we used the boats during the day and then in the evening we sat down with a nice cup of tea and we went through our paper work,  then we went to our rooms for the night.  The next morning we were out again on the powerboats for the final time and this was where we were being observed on what we were doing as we were getting marked on what we did throughout the day.  All four of us loved the course and would have loved to have more time to study Power boating further.