The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is a leadership development program run by Rotary worldwide. Locally our club raises the funds and provides the transport for two secondary school aged students to attend a four day course at Castleton in Derbyshire each year.
This year we sponsored Chloe Blakey and Eliot Trewick from Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Alford and, as is the tradition, they visited our club last night to tell us all about the experience.
Chloe and Eliot came well prepared working together to deliver a joint presentation with Power Point providing the illustrations. To conclude we watched a well structured video which combined the photos and video footage they had taken during the stay. Over and above the opportunities provided by RYLA itself it’s great to see Chloe and Eliot have also been given the opportunity to develop their team working, IT and presentational skills.
The course itself sounds very busy starting with games to break the ice before moving to the practical tasks and challenges that make up the core of the experience. Unfortunately for Chloe and Trewick this years unusually cold weather saw them climb Mam Tur (1,700ft) in a blizzard with sub zero temperatures. What people call a character building experience! They were glad to tour some caverns afterwards which were at a more comfortable 12 degrees.
Our club is dedicated to supporting the RYLA program and also to supporting the Rotary Owned Castleton facility, so it was great to hear such positive feedback from our latest attendees. A memorable conclusion from Eliot was that he couldn’t believe such strong friendships could be made in just 4 days.