Laois scouts club selling raffle tickets for Las Vegas trip

A Laois scout group is selling tickets for a mega Twelve Days of Christmas draw with a trip to Las Vegas as its first prize.

Mountrath Scouts usually sells the annual tickets to the national draw outside local shops and to families of their members.

However for the year that's in it, they have gone online and are asking people to buy tickets.

Mark Robertson is a scout leader.

"We've been scouting in Mountrath for over 30 years and like everyone else we watched our plans for 2020 disappear. But we still need to pay our bills for rent and insurance, and we need to gear up to reopen soon. This would be our biggest fundraiser for the year and would bring in around €1,800. That would pay our rent and insurance for the year and whatever is left would be used for training our leaders or to subsidise trips and camps.

"Most years we send these raffle tickets home, and we sell them outside the shops in town. This year we're selling them online instead. The raffle is organised by our head-office and is across the whole of Ireland. But this year most groups are not selling their tickets at all.  So your chances of winning a prize are even better this year," he said.

All 12 prizes for this draw are pretty spectacular.

1st: A week in Las Vegas for two with €3000 spending money to the value of €6500 or €6500 cash.
2nd: A weekend break for two in Barcelona with spending money up to the value of €3000 or €3000 cash.
3rd: A Laptop of your choice to the value of €1250 or €1250 cash.
4th: A Smart TV to the value of €650.
5th: A weekend in a Health Spa of your choice.
6th: A one4all Gift Voucher to the value of €650.
7th: A weekend break for two in a hotel of your choice in Ireland.
8th: Mondello Supercar Experience.
9th: A €650 voucher for an Irish International Rugby Game and accommodation.
10th: Dublin Theatre weekend for two and accommodation.
11th: A collection of kitchen top appliances to the value of €650.
12th: Shannon Cruise weekend to the value of €650.

Tickets are €2 each, or €40 for a book of 21 tickets.  They will be sold until December 14 and the draw will take place on January 21.

Buy tickets here. 

Mark described the strange year it has been for their young members.

"We had gotten off to a great start to the year with funding to do some biodiversity work around the area and were running a separate anti-rascism project to help new migrants feel welcome. Our older Venture Scouts had booked their tickets to fly to Holland, they had made contact with a group of Dutch scouts and were planning their activities. 

"On Tuesday 10th March we had our 6-8 year old Beavers in for our usual scouting activities, we watched a video on handwashing and how not to spread the virus.  Like most others, we had no idea that we'd be closed down for the next several months," he said.

There were some limited activities.

"We did have some Zoom meetings with the older scouts, but it was too much like school. We did manage to meet up at Kinnitty mountain bike trail for bike-week in September, and with some help from Creative Ireland we are running some photography music and street art sessions for our over 12 year old members.

"We're looking at changing what we do and how we do it. Instead of camping together in tents, we can sleep separately - we met up with scouts from Dublin and Meath and slept in hammocks in the Slieve Blooms.

"And we've definitely moved away from all our indoor activities,. As our younger members return hopefully in the coming months we're looking forward and planning to spend much more time in the fresh air.

"So right now we haven't collected weekly subs from our members since March, missed our bucket collection in June, and still have rent and insurance to pay, and we need to train leaders for example we need covid-compliant first aid training. 
We're hoping that by going online we can get support from a wider audience, from any ex-scouts or people who care about our cause. Or people who want to win a holiday in Las Vegas for €2," the Mountrath leader said.

The Draw is administered by Scouting Ireland, to raise funds for local Scout Groups and Scouting Ireland.