Improving Society

17th Fermanagh Scouts, Kinawley: The first official meeting of Kinawley scouts took place in Knawley Hall on Monday 29th May 1995 and was an immediate success. The idea of scouting is to encourage the physical, intellectual character, emotional, social and spiritual development of young people so that they achieve their full potential and are responsible citizens to improve society.

 In order to achieve the above goals, all leaders have to undertake regular training programmes to ensure that all youth members get the best possible programme available. Weekly meetings are held in the local hall and various competitions between the various groups all over Ireland are held on a regular basis throughout Ireland. We in KInawley are proud to say that we have had our fair share of success in these competitions. Our scouts took part in a world scout jamboree in Sweden in 2010 and such was their knowledge that they were invited to take part in the ‘Tom Crean’ challenge in Ireland shortly afterwards. Our scouts successfully completed this challenge in severe weather conditions and brought a lot of pride to Kinawley scouts. All members from the younger beaver to the oldest scout take part in various outdoor activities throughout the year. These activities include camping, mountain climbing, hill walking, water activities, nature walks and the younger members have cinema days, overnight stop-over with other groups and lots of other activities with members of their own age. The leaders provide a programme but they have to make sure the children enjoy it and have fun. When the scouts started in Kinawley, they were known as CBSI (Catholic Boy scouts of Ireland). Down through the years changes have taken place. CBSI was changed to C.S.I. (Catholic Scouts of Ireland), thus enabling girls to join the association and then C.S.I. was changed to S.I. (Scouting Ireland) which means that any child regardless of religion, gender or nationality will now be made welcome. All leaders have taken programme training courses and all are registered under ‘the child protection’ legislation currently required for all adults working with children. Kinawley scouts will be celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2015 and it is hoped to hold an event for the whole parish to mark this achievement.