RYLA Online

For all RYLA information and registration forms go to https://rotary7040.com/page/ryla/

After careful consideration, we have decided to go forward with RYLA 2020! With so many Rotary events being postponed or cancelled, we wanted to be able to deliver some good news.

RYLA 2020 will happen from May 28 (Thursday) to May 31 (Sunday). Each day will be slightly shortened from those of past years but spread out and so the need to add a fourth day. Rest assured that no students will be travelling to Kingston – instead, we will be meeting online using Zoom, virtual icebreakers, Google Classroom and more. The RYLA team has been working diligently to adapt our programme to the new environment and we are confident that the student delegates will have fun, be engaged, learn lots about leadership and make new friends. Our goals for the experience remain the same.

We know that it will not be easy in these challenging times to recruit students, but we are confident that clubs and schools can find a way to make it work. There is no doubt that students will be looking for interesting things to do while they self isolate (keeping in mind that they still have schoolwork) and there is no doubt that parents will be excited for the opportunity. We also feel that that previous students can help us connect with prospects. Some of you have students that have already registered, and we thank you for that effort. Please reach out to those students to give them the good news! For those of you yet to find student delegates, please reach out to school contacts and other Rotarians for names of students in Grade 10, 11 or 12.

The other good news is that many of our costs disappear with this model, so we are lowering the fee to $100 per delegate. We are still planning to keep the maximum number of students per club at 3 in order that each club gets the opportunity to participate and so that our numbers do not get too big. You should know that, for this special year, we have reached out to District 7010, our neighbour to the west, to participate in our RYLA since theirs has been cancelled. They already participate in most of our Adventures and so contacts between the two Districts are well established.

This is a reminder that our website can be found at https://www.rotary7040.com/page/ryla Please confirm numbers by completing the Club registration page there. We have extended the Club Registration deadline to Apr. 13 (Monday).

There will be more to come but we are excited to host RYLA 2020 and we look forward to your participation. If you have any questions, I can be reached at elsleypaul@gmail.com or 613-449-8854

Paul Elsley

RYLA Chair

District 7040