Last Tuesday, six St. John’s Rotarians battled the Auckland morning rush hour traffic to get to Alexandra Park by 0830 to be briefed on volunteer duties for the Glendowie College Rotary Youth Driving Awareness, (RYDA), Seminar.While the Rotarians, Gary, Kevin, Robyn, Isabella, Murray and Peter W were being briefed on their duties, five buses carrying 240 Year 12 Students and 12 teachers were also battling Auckland traffic to get to the venue on time for a 9.30 am start.
On arrival, the students were split into 6 groups of 40 and they then spent the rest of the day moving from seminar to seminar. As the title of the seminar alludes to, they were informed on numerous aspects of improving their driving skills, learning about the dangers of getting behind the wheel at a vulnerable age, and learning how best to deal with the challenges that they will be faced with as a driver in the future.
St. John’s Rotary has been sponsoring Glendowie College to participate in this programme for many years, and for many of these years our Club Champion for RYDA was long time member Nigel Robinson, who sadly passed away in 2019. It was nice of Gary, in his closing remarks, to be able to acknowledge Nigel and the work he had put into this programme.