Moorabbin Students Spellbound By Worthy Cause

To many people spelling sends shivers up the spine but not to the Grade 6 students of Moorabbin Primary School. They were willing participants for the launch of the Operation Cleft Spellathon on Thursday 23 July.

With the assistance from Rotary Club of Moorleigh Moorabbin, the school took up the literacy challenge to conduct the Spellathon that would raise money for this worthy cause.
Depending on their grade level, students were given cards with words that they will learn how to spell over the coming two weeks. For every word they spell correctly, family and friends will donate money.

Operation Cleft is an international Rotary program focused on helping young people with cleft lips and palates in Bangladesh. Since its inception in 2005, it has funded over 4,000 cleft operations. The cleft palates are the two plates of the skull that form the roof of the mouth and in some cases these are not joined. The palate clefts can occur as complete or incomplete and result in a hole in the roof of the mouth that connects directly to the nasal cavity. This condition causes difficulty in speaking, eating and possible deafness.

In Australia, such a deformity would be repaired at or shortly after birth but in Bangladesh, the condition is not considered life threatening and is not covered under their public health system.
“This is an excellent opportunity for our whole school to get involved with a worthy cause. Through our community partnership with Rotary, our students will assist the Bangladesh children have a better chance of leading a happy, healthy and productive life,” said Mark Berry, School Principal.

The Rotary Club of Moorleigh Moorabbin conducts fundraising Spellathons for any primary school in the local area and is now looking for schools interested to participate.
For more information on Operation Cleft or how your school can participate in a Spellathon Program contact Yvonne Beadle at moorleighmoorabbin@yahoo.com.au or call 0419 322 084.

Draw a Child's Smile

In my year as DG, my wife Carol’s special project was ‘Draw A Child’s Smile’. She wanted to collect pencils, crayons and chalk for the school children of Zimbabwe. The response from Clubs was truly remarkable. We received items from clubs and schools in our District and, with Vic Super also coming on board, donations were received state wide.

A container with over 800 boxes was shipped to Johannesburg in December 2007, but the situation in Zimbabwe delayed the final transport to Bulawayo.

Great news - we have today received the following from PDG Charles Kandarira in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

“The consignment arrived yesterday at the end of the day and we have off loaded the truck and stored the goods in the store room at my work place. On behalf of the Rotary of Belmont we are so thankful for the work done to get this stuff here it has taken a long time but it is here now.

The club will be communicating the program put together for the distribution to deserving schools - I am sure there will be a lot of publicity.”

We are absolutely thrilled!

PDG Charles will now take over the project and ensure the pencils and crayons reach those most in need. Hopefully, it won’t be long until we receive feedback from Bulawayo, showing the Children’s smiling faces.

We always knew this was going to take a long time and patience was required, but we also knew that the need wouldn’t go away.

A huge thank you to everyone for making it possible.

With huge smiles on our faces!

Philip & Carol Hedley

Interview with RYLA applicant James F

Below is the interview that James F gave to the local Leader newspaper and this will be published in the near future.

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Tell me about RYLA

RYLA is an international award which began in Australia in 1959, RYLA Rotary Youth Leadership Award, 9810 District, is an annual week long camp which builds strong leaders and lifelong friends. The 6 day residential seminar is for 18-26 year olds who are active volunteers, have demonstrated or have potential leadership qualities.

Your role in the community?

Youth Services recommend me for RYLA after having successfully complete a term on the City of Glen Eira’ Youth Consultative Group YCG 08-09 where youth organize and run events for youth. We ran Glen Eira’s first Battle of the Bands which was a huge success and also an Art exposition during National Youth Week.

I am currently working towards a Duke Of Edinburgh Award as an independent participant which has challenged me to dedicate some time to community service like volunteer lifesaving, fundraising through Young set for the Royal Children’s Hospital, technical volunteering at the RAAF museum and I was a volunteer for this years international Airshow at Avalon.

What did you learn?

Topics presented included
relationships in business and leadership
Rules and Values
Planning for the biggest event of your life/ Goal setting
Decision making
Public speaking
Career planning
Servant leadership
Overcoming obstacles
Leadership/ management and systems engineering
Problem solving and conflict management
Rotary: covering their purpose and service to the community.
Psychology of Leadership

The emphasis was on learning by applying. This was achieved through moving presentations and activities, fun group challenge exercises and tool box meetings were we effectively discussed and applied the critical aspects of these topics.

What did you find the most challenging?

Apart form being away from family with a large group of strangers, the greatest challenge for me was meal times. I now miss this part of RYLA the most and not just because of the plentiful food. We were encouraged to gain confidence in public speaking by presenting a 60 second passion speech or an impromptu talk linking in random topics out of the ‘grab box’. For example talk for no more than 60 seconds about the Queen, Africa and strawberries.

I stepped up to present a passion talk about something important to me; the “power of goal setting”, how one needs to search their heart for the answers and turn dreams into achievable goals, something I learnt when I took up the Kokoda trail Youth Challenge in 2007 through Bentleigh RSL sponsorship. I admit it is not easy, you are standing there in front of every one and it doesn’t feel right. This feeling was something we learnt called nervous energy in the Public Speaking presentation given by David Forster, the Rotary District 9810 Governor. Nervous energy actually turns out to be good for you but needs to be harnessed for best results. Among other things he discussed with us about public speaking included delivery, body language and speaking aids.

How will RYLA help you in the future?

We have established an ongoing support network and great friendships. We have the opportunity to come back as a RYLA leader.

I have greater awareness and understand of how I and others approach leadership, which areas I need to improve and how to improve them. What tools I need to further refine these skills backed by my RYLA experience.

Continue to apply and develop these new skills by joining a Rotarct Club open to 18-30 year olds. Rotaract focus on developing networks, friendships, volunteering, changing lives and new skills.

Overall thoughts?

I struck gold. It was the perfect free weekend away, rolling hills like in the movie ‘The Sound of Music’. The venue Lake Dewar in Myrniong Victoria is spectacular. I meet some great people; have made some excellent friends who will continue to support each other and have gained valuable life and leadership tools to guarantee success in the future. I had so much fun that I wanted to stay at the end.

On behalf of all the 2009 RYLA participants, we are very much appreciative of all that the leaders, coordinators, guest speakers and sponsoring Rotary clubs have done for us. We are especially thankful for the RYLA young leaders who sacrificed and endured so much for us and for the courage and mateship they have shown to us. Thank you all so very much we are truly grateful.

Advice to others who want to become leaders in their community

Take up every challenge with both hands open. It is important to not waste time believing you can’t. Believe in yourself. Find someone who will support and encourage you like a mentor; someone experienced in your area of interest, someone you trust. Follow your dreams by goal setting. Leave no great opportunity unturned that presents itself. Talk to as many people as possible about your interests to build networks and relationships.

You need a positive attitude which is set by behaviors, thoughts and feelings. You can change your attitude by changing one of the three but behavior and thoughts are easier to change than feelings.

My favorite quote from the seminar is from the presentation on Attitude presented by a past RYLA participant now a young RYLA leader:

“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been trusted to take the game winning shot…and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life and that’s precisely why I succeed”
Michael Jordan, one of NBA’s greatest

How can I to get involved:
I encourage anyone 18 to 26 years old interested in the 2010 RYLA Rotary Youth Leadership Award in July at Lake Dewar to contact Rotary.

Applications (by June 2010)
http://www.rotary9810.org/content/90/RYLA.html
Don Kerley District Chair
Email: dkerley@bigpond.net.au
Contact 1300 4ROTARY

RYLA

RYLA is Rotary's Youth Leadership camp for 18-24 year olds and is conducted globally.

Applicants are selected through demonstration of their community service, leadership and communication skills and they go through an intensive 6 day course where they are put through experiential learning and practice of communication, leadership, ethics and values and teamwork.

This year, Helen is the Vocational Services Director of our Club so finding RYLA applicants was one of her roles. She really struggled to find applicants which is crazy as the course is over $500 but the sponsoring Rotary club pays all the fees so what the applicant gets is a course really worth $5000, an all expenses paid trip where they learn about themselves, how to work with others and go away after one week with a whole network of new friends.

The camp this year was at Lake Dewar Lodge at Myrniong so she drove out there to see the set up and it was actually quite good and she was impressed! The staff out there were professional and dedicated to teaching the youth of today.

RYLA was also taught by a select group of team leaders who were all ex-RYLArians themselves so there was the youth teaching the youth and the level of their presentation and leadership skills were exceptional.

These were the leaders of tomorrow who had enthusiasm, passion and motivation to be part of a better world.

It took her a while to find a suitable candidate. After emailing family and friends and Rotarians to see if there was anyone they knew of this age group, she came up with nothing. She didn't understand why anyone would NOT want to be part of this excellent personal development course. So one day, through a lead from fellow Club Member Graeme, she contacted the local council which had a Youth Services section as she thought they may have a whole network of youth in our area to advertise and promote it to. And sure enough, they were happy and delighted that she had contacted them and now want her to let them know of other Rotary leadership programs.

They found for us an applicant, James and she quickly organised the Rotary Club to give him the cheque and did up his application forms and he was in.

He is a second year aerospace engineering student at Monash University and is an extremely busy young man. When he's not studying, he's put himself through an extra TAFE courses in welding and CAD design so he can learn the practicalities. He has done a few lessons for a pilot's course and hopes to have a career in aviation somehow. He's fascinated by planes and all things aeronautical and vying for a scholarship through the Royal Aeronautical Club to learn how to fly. And also he wants to join the Reserves or the full-time Defence Force.

Overall, he has ambition and the world is his oyster. Indeed all the youth at RYLA had the same ideals and they were motivated and enthusiastic about the program that they've been through and want to promote it to others.

One of the girls there, presented that they would like to continue the impetus and create a Rotaract Club of Monash Clayton from those people there. So it looks like we will now have a Rotaract Club (Rotary Club for 18 to 30 year olds) that will be started up from this group (and I'm sure others) will want to join.

So now, for next year's RYLA, our club has some ideas of how to get some more applicants and that's to use the RYLArians to promote it and also go to Monash University and promote it there to the students.

We should all encourage anyone who has kids or teens or knows young adults to get involved in the community leadership programs like Rotary.