Rotary Program, May 9, 2014 RYLA

Mike Real and “Andy” Bundesmann were our club Rotarians that headed up this year’s RYLA’s program.

In our program today regarding RYLA we had ten students from Arcadia that attended this excellent week-end conference on leadership. The ten from Arcadia were Jonathon Real, who attends Loyola, and the next nine, attend Arcadia High School. Sam Iovine, Matthew Yung, Stephen Delatorre, Emma Lihani, Julia Heer, Audrey Sun, Demara Saggio, Nikhel Vermiel, Audrey . They all took part in the following report and did an excellent job in detailing the week-end RYLA conference.

The Ryla students led our meeting and also told about how much this whole week-end meant to them.

Activities:
The activities performed at the beginning of the week-end was an ice-breaker to meet everyone at the conference. These various activities also gave way to how to solve problems in everyday life.

There were teams of 5 to 8 students that were pitted against each other in solving various problems and to work together as a team to complete each project.

Problem Solving #1 The Egg Drop: To make a vessel for an egg. The vessel was to be hung 15 feet high and each team was to solve the problem of the egg not breaking. The young man that was explaining this project said that his team spent more time debating how to construct this vessel than how to complete the project.

Problem Solving #2 Communication: Each person in this team was to wrap a package and placed it with another person. The participate explaining this to our club commented that there were many personalities within their team. Question: What do you look for in a group?

Problem Solving #3 A skit dealing with various personalities. The skit, the student explained, was about a room with three people; a good angel, a bad angel, and the third person was to decide what side to take in a given situation. They then performed a skit, dealing with different personalities. A lesson taught how to work with others. The young lady relating this was comparing the situation with the Rotary Four Way Test. She commented that these were real life situations. “This was awesome” she said, “and a great experience”.

Next Skit: Cultural Walk. You know that a certain person is known as a “nerd.” What do you do? How do you handle emotionally upset people crying. How do you react to what others think about emotionally disturbed perople? How do you treat everyone, regardless of a trait or a personality quirk? Are you fair?

Lego Wrap: This situation was for eight students. One person on this team was assigned the job as manager. He then assigns the others in different small positions. Build a model to follow. How does one struggle with the inefficiencies of a bureaucracy? The winning outcome would be to communicate effectively and to built good relationships.

Line up by birth date: One half of tbe team is blindfolded, the other half are not. Hardest part of this experiment was TRUST. Trust those around me and to guide me correctly.

What was the highlight of these sessions?

In three short days, the students shared that they had learned the insites of the Four Way Test. They also felt that they had learned skills to make projects and problems work. Also to professionally sort out what was the best action to take. Lastly, were the actions taken, justified or not?

The RYLA conference provided excellent leadership speakers. The following is the essence of each speaker:

Kathy Buckley a Deaf Comedian. She talked about how hard her life was and her life story was filled with some torment as she was bullied in school as she could not talk like the other kids. “Live the best of your life” she remarked, “and live the best for today.” Don’t stress over the little things. She was really funny, the commentator said. When she was a little child, and to hear her speak, everyone thought for sure she was retarded. She was bullied in school because of her speech. One day, she was at the beach and she could not hear and a jeep ran over her and she saw Heaven. She got over this accident only to learn that she had cancer. Lesson was, to keep on, keeping on. This student that reported to the club concluded, “she was an incredible speaker.”

Simon Keith from Canada. He was raised in an athletic family. He moved to Europe to train for the World Cup. He moved back to Canada to be a part of the Canadian Soccer Olympic team. He felt that something was wrong, health wise, and went to the doctor and learned that he had a couple of months to live. He then had a heart transplant. Simon returned to England and found he could not even run 100 yards. He had to start over and work to become a pro. Later, he was fortunate to meet the parents of the boy that had died and he was the one that had received their son’s heart. What an experience and the lesson from this speaker was to keep going and if necessary, start over again.

Kim Robie, Olympic Clay Pigeon Shooter. This is an expensive hobby and one that each trainee must work hard to perfect. One day, as she was going through the blogs, she saw what one person blogged about her. The blogger wrote “ I could have done what Kim Robie did, but I don’t have the money.” Kim, in her book, wrote: “When you decide on your future goal, you must dedicate yourself, totally. The cost: Total dedication. She has won five Olympic medals in her chosen athletic field .

Bruce Quinn, Las Vegas Rotarian. His back story is that his family were swamp people in Florida. His parents left him with his grandparents to raise and eventually he became a child of the foster care system. He would not let anything hold him back. He became successful and realized after his arrest at 3:00 AM that he must change what he was doing. He married and had a daughter. Their relationship was okay. One day, his daughter was eating Cheez-its and he asked her for some of the Cheez-its. She handed him the box and he found that there was just one Cheez-it in the box. She was on the couch laughing. One day, his daughter had to walk one mile to get home. It was a hot day at 102 degrees. She was looking forward to having some cold ice cream. She went to the freezer, got out the ice cream carton only to find that it was a large hunk of ice wrapped up like ice cream. As she grew up she became rebellious, and ran off to get married. The father had pulled himself up, and his daughter was going down hill. He wrote to her and said “I am here if you need me”. Later, he thought he saw her in a parking lot. After his shopping, he started to pull out of the parking lot and this lady pounded on the window. It was his daughter, and she said, “We need to talk.” He agreed. Two weeks later, she was hit by a car and was killed.

All of these life stories tell of horrible circumstances. Life can be full of tragedies. But each of the authors relate to their readers to keep moving forward and always try to be the best that you can be.

The RYLA program came to an end. They led our club in the Rotary Four Way Test:

Is it the truth?

Is it fair to all concerned?

Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

This was an excellent program and as we viewed and listened to these excellent students, we knew that they could be and should be the leaders of tomorrow.

(Phyllis Corliss)