Plenary, 17 Jun 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Official Report 402KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. We are very pleased to have with us, as our time for reflection leaders, Amy Stirling and Samuel MacKay, who are first-year pupils at Selkirk high school.

As part of our religious and moral education course, the first-year pupils at Selkirk high school looked at the life of Martin Luther King. He was a man with a dream—an inspiring dream that has in part come to pass.

We went on to look at the dreams of other people. Each of us chose someone who we thought had an inspiring dream—for example, Gandhi, William Wallace, Chris Hoy and Jamie Oliver—and we considered how worth while their dreams were. We then began to think about our own dreams and some of us gave "I have a dream" speeches at our school assemblies.

Finally, we began to think about our dreams for Scotland and the people of Scotland. Many different themes came up. For example, we would home the homeless; have less crime on our streets; appreciate and look after our countryside and wildlife; win the world cup, beating England in the final; be a nation known for its giving; produce good scientists who could change the Scottish weather; and be a healthier nation with lots of opportunities for sport.

Samuel will tell us what his dream is.

I have a dream for Scotland that has three parts to it instead of one, like most dreams that people have.

First, some animals in Scotland, such as wild cats, red squirrels and ospreys, are becoming rare to the point of extinction. There are also some types of animal that are already extinct in Scotland, such as wolves and beavers. So I would like to set up reserves that have animals' food and surroundings as close as possible to their natural habitat.

Secondly, some children do not get outdoors or out of the cities and cannot do the things that they would like to. By helping animals and making reserves, children can go to the reserves and have fun, and also learn how to look after animals.

Thirdly, people need to help stop crime in Scotland because crime is bad and there have been a lot of knife and theft crimes.

Having animal reserves and getting children to help out at the reserves will get them involved rather than getting bored and going out with knives and doing bad things. So my dream helps animals and children, and helps reduce the level of crime.