Over the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, the 22nd and 23rd August, two students from Kirkcudbright Academy took part in an entirely new event, a ‘Remote RYLA’ course.
The students, Lucy and Matthew, had both been selected by Kirkcudbright Rotary Club and given places on the traditional Rotary Young Leaders Award. The RYLA course is designed to encourage the development of teamwork and leadership skills in young people who have the potential to be future community professionals and business leaders. The course is held every July at the Abernethy Trust’s Outdoor and Adventure centre at Ardeonaig, which is situated midway between Killin and Kenmor, overlooking Loch Tay and the surrounding hills.
This course should have gone ahead in July. Unfortunately, this week long opportunity had to be cancelled due to the impact of Covid-19.
Ever resourceful, Rotary set up a virtual course, ‘Remote RYLA’, designed to deliver some of the skills that the students would have learnt had the traditional RYLA course gone ahead in July as planned. Using Zoom and working from home the students experienced sessions on collaborative working, leadership skills and conflict resolution. Hand outs used were made available to the students to download and keep for future reference.
The cost to the students attending this course was met by Kirkcudbright Rotary Club.
At the end of this new course both Matthew and Lucy completed feedback forms. These revealed that both students felt the course was very worthwhile as it improved their understanding of the qualities needed to be effective leaders and gave them knowledge of how they might achieve this. Above all else, they felt it improved their own self-confidence.
