Sir, – Scouting Ireland’s Phoenix Challenge, held recently in Pallaskenry, Co Limerick, is a testament that community spirit is alive and well and that our country’s future is bright. Approximately 800 scouts had the experience of their lives, facilitated by 350 youth and adult volunteers.
Over four days the scouts set up and ran a camp cooking, cleaning entirely by themselves. They were also set various other challenges, from making a fulacht fia, a Bronze Age cooking pit, to setting traps. The scouts learned skills that will not only benefit themselves as individuals but the society they live in. They learned to be independent and interdependent. They learned to work in teams, to plan, to lead, to listen and to influence, to think and to solve problems. And they had great fun doing it.
Well done to all the scouts and to the volunteers who supported them. – Yours, etc,
GILLIAN BUCKLEY,
Galway.