The Role Of A PAL

Gaisce PALs play a key role in supporting and assisting participants in achieving their Awards. Below we’ve detailed the main responsibilities that our PALs take on when volunteering with Gaisce.

The day to day work of a PAL is to support and mentor participants to help them in achieving their award.

Agreeing participants’ activities

The choice to participate in the Gaisce Award programme is entirely voluntary, and as such each participant chooses what activities they want to take part in for each section. This is done in conjunction with their PAL, who ensures that the activities are appropriate for the Award.

Help Participants to Register

PALs are often the first to introduce the Award to potential participants. They can also help if the participant runs into trouble when applying using Gaisce’s online registration system and downloading the record card. If participants are not paying Gaisce directly, the PAL is responsible for submitting payment on behalf of the Operating Body.

Guide and Continually Review Participants

Participants are required to record each session of their activity so that it can be reviewed by the PAL or Gaisce. This requires the participant to fill out the date, duration, and details of the activity, and to have it signed by the activity supervisor. PALs should arrange to meet their participants regularly to check their progress and find out about any difficulties they might be having in progressing with the Award programme.

Without the PAL’s continued support it could be easy for a participant to get discouraged and they might give up.

Review and Approve the Participant for their Award

Once all activities and the Adventure Journey have been completed, the PAL should verify that the participant has been showing regular commitment in their activities over at least the minimum time requirement, and to assess whether the goals that were initially set have been achieved.