Runa Jarjour RYLA Feedback & Business Meeting - Westlands Hotel 18.30 Thursday 15 August 2019

Runa Jarjour RYLA Feedback & Business Meeting - Westlands Hotel 18.30 Thursday 15 August 2019

President elect David Chisholm chaired last week’s Business Meeting where, in addition to the usual review of the Club’s activities, we were delighted to welcome one of our RYLA candidates, Runa Jarjour, recently returned from her week at Nethybridge. Accompanied by her parents, Runa gave a very comprehensive account of the week spent in the company of some 64 other girls at the Abernethy Outdoor Centre near Aviemore.

In addition to the outdoor activities, including rock climbing, hill walking, gorge walking and kayaking with raft building, Runa took part in team task exercises, discussions on team building and listened to talks from inspirational speakers. Her most memorable experience was during the Gorge Walk when the team came across a dead mole in the water at a narrow stretch of the river. One brave girl lifted the mole and threw it up the bank, only to have it fall back down in among the team – they exited that section in double quick time having learned a valuable lesson on planning!

Responding to a question on what the week had meant to her, Runa said that prior to going, she was uncertain about whether she should go to University following completion of her secondary education, but the RYLA camp had given her the confidence she needed to make that decision and she would be going to Oxford later in the year to start her degree course reading Arabic and Oriental Studies.

Colin Strachan, chair of the Club’s Vocational Committee, thanked Runa for her excellent talk and presented her with her Rotary Youth Leadership Award certificate.

And just to round off the evening, our Health and Safety Officer, Hugh Macrea, gave a short presentation on the importance of carrying out risk assessments for all the activities we do over the year and making sure they were carried out safely.