In August we welcomed Alan Mckie to our club meeting, where he spoke of his experienced at RYLA. Tonight we were delighted to welcome Rebecca Honeyman, past pupil of Waid Academy and our second sponsored student of 2016 to the RYLA course. 

The Rotary Youth Leadership Award is a week-long Rotary International course that takes place at the Abernethy Trust Centre in Nethybridge, just a few miles from Aviemore. It offers young people an opportunity to participate in physical and intellectual activities, aimed at developing skills in team working, leadership, communication, problem solving and decision-making. These are seen as foundations for self-confidence and self-esteem - vital aspects of responsible and global citizenship. Around 75 girls were at the event with Rebecca.

Rebecca gave a humorous, confident and enthusiastic talk, illustrated with many excellent photographs showing the scope of the course – kayaking, gorge walking, rock climbing, abseiling, hill walking, mountain biking, and raft building. All this being done in teams of six with the challenges of team leadership shared. Raft building merited a special mention, as it seems the one produced by Rebecca’s team was, shall we say, less than perfect! All of this was linked to daily lectures on a number of topics.

Throughout her talk Rebecca made the point repeatedly of the benefit to her in terms of confidence gained, communication skills developed, teamwork and problem solving. And with many great memories and friends made too. She told us that, as she starts her college course, she has already met others who attended this same course - and found a great sense of kinship and shared experience. We also saw the very professional-looking design for a ‘RYLA Hoodie’ they have produced. 

Rebecca concluded by showing an excellent DVD from the course, by thanking Rotary for making such an experience possible and by answering many questions.