Rotary District 7980 RYLA Training Weekend for May 2018

District 7980 RYLA is a three day event held at Camp Hazen in Chester Connecticut. The facilitators and Directors are all high school students. The RYLA chairs are Rotaractors. It works great because of the effort and in particular the training of the student facilitators.

Dave a Rotarian advisor with Kristen, right.
On the left is a Rotaractor who attended RYLA on Long Island a few years ago

During Training weekend the facilitators present as if they were at RYLA
so that the other facilitators can comment and help

Here's Kristen and Hailey the co-chairs talking with Justin a Rotarian advisor

Some of the activities are carried out by a single facilitator. Here
is a practice run.

One of the activities is Community Building and here's the facilitator chairs for that activity
enlisting the help of the other facilitators

Some of the activities require quite a bit of thought about how to do them properly
Training weekend is the culmination of about 6 months of preparation by the Chairs,
Directors and the facilitators

They are expecting about 80 participants so 16 facilitators, two student directors and two RYLA chairs are involved

Rotary Club of the Stoningtons, that's in Connecticut-April 13, 2018

The Rotary Club of the Stoningtons is a small club with a great fund raiser. They have a golf tournament on Fisher Island, that's an Island in Long Island Sound. They have lots of golfers and lots of sponsors. Just going to Fisher Island is a treat.

The club does a lot of service in town and around the world. They sponsor an active Interact Club at the High School.

In the center of the picture is Carol Umphlett who is President Elect

Here is the group planning their Fisher Island Golf Tournament

The 50th Anniversary of Rotaract celebrated by District 7980 on April 9, 2018

This year is the 50th anniversary of Rotaract and our 7 Rotaract clubs celebrated it in style.
Each club talked about their activities in the last year.

There are seven clubs:
Sacred Heart University Rotaract
Yale University Rotaract
Quinnipiac University Rotaract
University of New Haven Rotaract
UCONN Avery Point Rotaract
Stamford Community Rotaract
Fairfield University Rotaract

Kevin Guptill congratulating the Rotaractors. He is the Rotarian
Chair for our District

And Governor Trish congratulated the Rotaractors especially about the projects
they have been doing

The Assembled group celebrating the 50th Notice Kristen Foster in the middle,
she is the Rotaract District Representative

There were also some Interactors present who look forward to being Rotaractors in the not so distant future. 

District Training Assembly-April 7, 2018

The District Training Assembly is a chance for all Rotarians to get together and talk about best practices and how to have more fun. The Incoming Governor has a chance to help his incoming Presidents work with their teams to be ready for the upcoming Rotary Year. This Assembly was held at the Sheraton Four Points in Meriden, Connecticut. A very large crowd of Rotarians came and left feeling more knowledgeable about Rotary things.

At this Assembly there was a recognition of the District 7980 Interact Board and Interact and Rotary Clubs which raised about $10,000 for the Gift of Life. Three Interactors gave an oversized check to Lynda Hammond the District Chair for Gift of Life. PRIVP Abe Gordon(I know-Past Rotary International Vice President) and PDG Bob Voessler were also present representing the District effort for Gift of Life.

The three Interactors who helped the Gift of Life fund raising effort

 Also the finals of the Four Way Test Speech contest were held at the Assembly. Four wonderful high school speakers, all of whom were winners.

A participant in Four Way Test speech contest

Another  participant in Four Way Test speech contest