Some former Redshirts at Briefing Day
One of the real strengths of the Lourdes Youth Service Group (the Redshirts) over the years, has been its ability to encourage and bring forward helpers for the main pilgrimage.
On Sunday, Ray and a few of this years Redshirts together with a few leaders, went to St. Wilfrid’s School in Crawley for Briefing Day, the traditional introduction and information-fest held on the Sunday before we leave for France. This is a main pilgrimage event and so Redshirts don’t normally turn up. A few turned up this year though to help out where we could.
What was interesting about the day though, wasn’t the presence of 2010 Redshirts, but rather the presence of so many past Redshirts.
In reality, we shouldn’t really refer to them as past Redshirts. Ray always says once a Redshirt, always a Redshirt, and it’s an important thing to remember. But having said that though, they can only actually travel to Lorudes as part of the Youth Service Group when they are in year 10 or year 11. After that, they have to branch out, and that’s where the main pilgrimage comes in.
Ever since the Redshirts began as a project, there has always been a high amount of participants going on to be adult helpers in the main pilgrimage. This has been really evident this year especially. Quite a few of them were at Briefing Day yesterday and even more of them are expected in the hotels, family group and in the Accueil in Lourdes.
..and a few more
