More and more new opportunities are appearing for Grammar boys to get involved in the leadership of their own community. Leadership opportunities such as the year council, or indeed the social committee provide Grammar boys with the opportunity to make a positive contribution to their lives and the lives of the people in their immediate community.
Milo Writes About LAMDA
I am going to be talking to you about LAMDA, the drama program in clongowes . The LAMDA course focuses on acting and public speaking. We have three teachers Rachel,Rebecca and Niamh. The LAMDA program has been running for 6 years in Clongowes. LAMDA runs for 45 mins ,around thirty students attend LAMDA classes from Grammar.
Fairwell to our 2009 GAPS
At the start of December, the year council began to discuss the departure of our Grammar gap students (Paddy and Mark),and we decided with the help of Mr Grey that we would give them the new top of the range Irish rugby jersey. So we got to work straight away ,informing the boys of our wicked idea! They soon agreed after a little persuasion that the gap students definitely deserved a souvenir of their time with Grammar. After all they had put in a lot of work into the year group, for example they would wake up earlier than they needed to for morning prayer.Then they would start to work solidly at around twelve doing various jobs around the school such as: helping the kitchen staff/maintenance team, organizing trips, helping out with rugby after school etc. Later on during the evening they would look after our year during lights flicked and lights out.
On Sunday the 7th of Feb. 2010 a number of Grammar boys were lucky enough to enjoy a trip to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The gallery is located on Merrion Square in the center of Dublin, about a one hour drive from the Clongowes campus. The gallery houses the Irish national collection of Irish and European art and was founded in 1854.
Clongowes wood college is lucky enough to contain within it, at the moment, a Slovakian legend, a table tennis master so idolised in his own country – that he’s had to be hidden away in deepest Kildare, a man that sleeps with teddy in one arm and his table tennis bat in the other.
While visiting the National Gallery of Ireland, Grammar boys decided to visit the National Memorial to Deceased Members of the Defense forces - located close to the gallery. On 08 November 2008, President Mary McAleese unveiled the National Memorial to Deceased Members of the Defence Forces who died in service.
It was decided between the Third Line year council and Mr.Donaghy, Mr.Reidy and Mr.Gray that we deserved a day out. So we asked the year for their opinion and after a highly democratic vote we decided on “2012” in Vue cinema, Liffey Valley. It was a Thursday. A very wet Thursday. We were ready to go, supervised by the prefects and the Mark Watson and Paddy Fleming who really are the unsung heros of Clongowes and deserve a medal. We took four buses and soon arrived in Vue cinema.
Sadly the Third Line TV room is not Las Vegas, or even Bundoran. That said, on a rather wet and cold night it was transformed into the Clongowes Casino. Each of the boys was given $10.00 stake money, well fake dollars printed off in the computer room. Needless to say some of the boys did very well in taking their money and making even more money at the tables, but there were losers and many that needed to visit the casino bank for more money!
