One of the programs that I am involved with rotary is called RYLA and it stands for rotary youth leadership awards. And, it's a program that started in Australia in about 1972 and it's, uh, grown around the world to be one of the recognized international programs rotary does. And, every area does it differently, so I'll just describe what we do in our area. And, in, uh the area that we have we have 54 clubs now in our district and the rotary is organized at the club level into districts that contain a number and from the districts to the larger zones and then international. So in our district we have, uh, 54 clubs and we have a program that we run once a year. It's a 4 day program to, uh, take young people and teach them leadership skills and we have professional speakers who come and volunteer their time. We also have hands-on projects. One is usually an outdoor project cause there's lots of energy and enthusiasm so we've done things like building trails and, and uh, you know bridges along trails and camp fire grounds and things like that. And one is an indoor project which is a way to get an activity going which might be presenting a, uh, a skit or play. Last year we had a number that put on, um advertisements for countries. They would invent a country and they would invent the language, the culture, and all of that for the country and they would present the countries to the other, um, as if we, the Rotarians, were the United Nations and they were appealing to us for some funding as well as telling us what's good about their countries, so that was just a blast. And what we do is we, we ask for young people who are either leaders or have leadership potential, and as far as we're concerned that's, that's every young person. And I love the age range of the 18-25 year olds because it's such an enormous change that takes place during that period of time. From 18 year olds who are just finishing school, who are starting out in life to, uh, the ones at the older end of the range who may be married, may have children, may have, may have been in school or in the workforce, and it's when a lot of their life decisions are made. So, by getting them together in this program, we not only, uh, as, uh, adults bring skills to them, but we also let them learn from each other. And we, uh, both, uh typically what we'll do as Rotarians is we'll set the program up, but we let the youth run it, and uh, again teach them how to do skills and they come back, a number of them, as youth leaders. One of the others that's in the program with me is Frank. And as soon as Frank finishes pouring wine, maybe he'd like to say a few words about it. Let me ask a question here. Again, I always like to kind of probe a little bit. We talk about leadership skills and then we're saying that everyone is potentially a leader. Well everyone can't be a leader, then there's no one following you. What exactly is a leadership skill? I mean a person could be a very good person, contribute to the community, be nice to his family, friends and neighbors and not be leading anything. So, so what exactly does the term mean?
I think you're wrong there. I think leadership comes in many styles and aspects. Um, leadership can be being part of a group. Um, following someone that's designated as leader. Being the second in command, being the support for the person, that's all pulling together. It's working as a team. That's really what leadership is about. And one of the exciting things about the program we have is we invite the clubs to sponsor people who come from all sorts of different walks. So it's not just, um the children of Rotarians. So one of the interesting things about rotary is that many of our programs, our families are not eligible. We specifically exclude it so we don't get too incenstuous that we're only promoting our own. Fortunately rother is one of the programs where we can have our own children participate, but as well we get, uh people coming from school, people that we, uh have employed in our businesses or people that we know in the community. So we get a number of different leaders. We get the, the loud, verbal leaders. We get the, uh, quiet leaders who, uh, don't, you know put themselves forward as much but have a lot of skills when you get them to do that. We have the people who are into athletics. We have the people who are, um, leading from, some of them have very strong religious backgrounds and they look at leadership through that. By getting these people together and talking about the different styles and types of leadership, it brings out a lot more than we started with.
Let me ask Neil here, uh, what has, what, in the schools, you know, sum up, because, again, especially high school kids, you know, they're uh, it's ok, I'll just let you chew on what you got there. Uh, but uh, no you've got your high schools and there's of course a lot of distractions for high school kids, and some of them can even get themselves into a little trouble here and there. And, and they don't necessary all have a tremendous amount of respect for, uh, sort of uh, the, the older generation. So when you, you said you came back from your rotary meetings and explained, uh, what went on there to the school on some level whether it was to the teachers or to the students. Was there any interaction with, with high school kids and what sort of, how did they view the activities of rotary?
I probably didn't do as much going back to them and telling them about rotary as, as I could have. I think more of the interaction was when we would try to find some way as a rotary club to support some of the activities within the school system and, uh, I guess our primary way of doing that, as I mentioned earlier, is through providing scholarships. Although, we have some exchange programs and as example, we would, uh, we've had students from our area who were sent to another country and would spend a year with a rotary club off in Australia, for example, and we would have an Australian youth come and stay, uh, with members of our club and attend the schools here. We haven't had a lot of that, but we have had representation from Mexico and from, uh, Denmark, I think, Denmark, or Fin- Finland, perhaps it was. And, uh, so we have that those kind of exchanges, and uh, group study exchange is another program, but that's for those who are a little bit older, but that's where a group of, of about 4 or 5, uh, young, uh, professional people within our community, those plus a leader would go to another country and a similar group would, would return here and spend about a month, uh, with us. Uh, some time with our club, some time, about a week with our club, a week with, with other clubs, and uh, we would try to learn a little bit more about their homeland and their occupations and see how they're similar to ours. Now, like in any human endeavor, there's always, you know anything that can go wrong does go wrong - Murphy's Law. What have been some of the uh, because everything we've heard so far is about all the good things that people are doing and that have, in fact, your efforts, uh, you know, are bearing fruit, whether it be in Kenya or whether it be with the youth or, or the wheelchair program, but have there been major, you know, uh, screw-ups, to use the first word that comes to mind? That might be kind of an interesting thing for people to listen to. Can anyone think of an embarrassing moment or, uh, uh, uh, something that, you know a snafu of some kind that uh, something that was supposed to happen didn't happen or, or that just doesn't happen around the Surrey, North Delta Rotary Club?
