Rotary Youth Leadership Awards(District 7980) May 12-14 at Camp Hazen

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Is a conference for high school students. Our District holds two RYLAs per year at Camp Hazen. We had 83 students at our RYLA on May 12-14. The conference is student run by student directors and about 20 .trained student facilitators. The goal of the conference is to provide the attendees with leadership skills which will help them in their lives.

At the beginning the students prepare a banner and a cheer which is a way to get them to work together and learn a bit on how to lead in a group of strangers.



Here you can see the student directors at the front of the room teaching the attendees about leadership and what skills are needed to be a good leader.

Many of the activities give the attendees a chance to talk to a large group of other attendees. This gives them a chance to practice public speaking and to also share some of their own thoughts.




At this RYLA an award was given to an Interact club which has been running for 40 years. The
Joseph A Foran High School Interact Club in Milford, CT.

The students work in groups of 6-8 to prepare a proposal for a service project. Each group makes a short presentation and every attendee does a part of the presentation. A group of Rotarian judges then chooses one or more projects for funding. At this RYLA three projects were chosen for funding by four eminent Rotarians.

Committee Chairs and AG Meeting hosted by Governor Trish

On May 20 Governor Elect Trish Pearson had about 20 leaders on Laurel Island to

communicate with each other and share goals and plans. Here is Governor Elect Trish and her dog laying out the plan for the day.

One of the activities was a challenge for all in the room to work together to put together a bunch of pictures into a sequence. The 7980 leaders did pretty well but there was definitely room for improvement.

The highlight was "Speed Dating" where each Committee representative talked to a sequence of AGs about how they could work together. For Youth Services there was great interaction and an understanding of how Youth and AGs could work together. A presentation was made on RYLA by one of our RYLA alumni which was very well received.

Multi District Conference April 28-30,2017 Providence

Four Rotary Districts had their conferences together this Spring. Rotary International President John Germ was present and spoke Friday night.  After dinner there was a fire/water show, They light torches aong a canal and lots of people come out for the show and walking around and talking.

On Saturday there were both Interact and Rotaract conferences, which were well attended and provided lots of information for thought and action. Our District(7980) students provided leadership in both conferences. Sharon Johnson of Rotary District 7950 provided overall leadership for the Interact and Rotaract conferences.

 The Youth Exchange students from the Districts told a bit about themselves. They were well spoken,

Michael Angelo Caruso, a great public speaker, and a Rotary Governor informed the Interactors how to improve their speaking abilities.

Alan Hurst won the Distinguished Service Award the most prestigious Service Award in Rotary.

Planning for RYLA coming up on May 12 to 14

RYLA( Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) is a leadership program for students in high school. Students plan and execute the program. In preparation for the RYLA program at Camp Hazen on May 12 to 14 the facilitators, co-facilitators, leadership team(3 students) and Rotary advisors(Justin and Dave) gathered on Laurel Island for a day and a half of discussions and review of the plans. As always there was much work to be done. Each RYLA is special and the attendees invariably comment that it was life changing for them.

The Polio Story at this Time

The Polio story is that we're almost there but there's still a way to go.

Polio this week as of 12 April 2017 Headlines:  The Polio Research Committee (PRC) is meeting this week in Geneva, to continue to provide guidance to the eradication effort’s research agenda. Research underpins polio eradication, evaluating new strategies, products and solutions to long-standing operational, epidemiological and virological challenges. Afghanistan:  No new wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases were reported in the past week. The total number of cases for 2017 remains three, and for 2016 remains 13. The most recent case had onset of paralysis on 21 February, from Kunduz province.  Pakistan: No new wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases were reported in the past week. The total number of WPV1 cases for 2017 remains two, and for 2016 remains 20. The most recent case had onset of paralysis on 13 February, from Diamir district, Gilgit Baltistan. Nigeria: No new cases of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) were reported in the past week. The total number of WPV1 cases for 2016 remains four. The most recent case had onset of paralysis on 21 August in Monguno Local Government Area (LGA), Borno.

District Training Assembly

The District Training Assembly occurred on April 1(no fools) 2017. It was well attended and the feedback was very positive, people learned a lot and had a fun time. The Four Way Test Speech contest finals were held and were quite remarkable. Each presentation was unique and well done and the range ot topics was quite wide. From shouldn't our country be more welcoming to the clothes we should wear, all with good use of the Four Way Test.

Here is District Governor Elect Trish Pearson with District Governor Paul honoring the Four Way Test Speech contest entrants. The tall fellow was the winner.

Lynda Hammond gave a Paul Harris Fellow to Mike who is starting an Interact Club at his school and graduated from St. Martins and was an important part of that Middle School Interact Club. He is also one of the student directors at RYLA.

There were 170 or so Rotarians in attendance. 

What a nice article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2017/03/31/Rotary-International-evolution-Nonprofit-looks-to-E-clubs-to-recruit-millennials/stories/201703310099

Rotary evolution: Nonprofit looks to E-clubs to recruit millennials

The international service organization hanges with the times but keeps focus on 'Service Above Self'