President Peter Hynes introduced Jake Van Eggelen who is one of his employees who went to the Leadership Camp and Kangaroobie which is near Princetown.
- Jake first and foremost wanted to thank Rotary and Tenon Joinery for what he considers one of his best experiences in life. He couldn’t speak more highly of it.
- It was a great setting for something so motivational.
- He thanks Claire (last years RYLA) for not telling him too much about the experience as he believes that approaching the “unknown” was valuable
- The days were all different presenting the unexpected which he considered valuable.
- There were games, motivational exercises Meditation and lots of self reflecting.
- One exercise which was a type of Iceberg taught him to be really less judgmental. He quoted the concept of not “judging a book by its cover”
- One particular person to whom he was chatting about his daily challenges informed him he has diaphragm cancer. He said that was a stunning to him by was immediately encouraged to think his life was important. His lesson here was that “Each persons life is important”.
- Another challenge was working in a team where one girl had claustrophobia and together they encouraged her to crawl through a tunnel.
- In all RYLA was about team working, Networks, developing, Self-esteem and resulting in leadership abilities.
Jake was asked at the finish what RYLA stands for? It is Rotary Youth Leadership Awards.