Caitlin Etheridge and Alice Forde, who were both Year 11 students at de Stafford School Caterham until recently, were sponsored a few months ago by Caterham Rotary for The Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) as part of the Club’s investment in the future of young people.  Earlier in September, accompanied with their mothers, they made a joint presentation to the members of Caterham Rotary at one of their lunchtime meetings.

They described how they attended Rotary’s residential seminar run by professional activity instructors in a specialised environment. The programme included physical and sporting activities as well as enabling young people to debate issues of professional responsibility and human relations, improving leadership and communication skills and to learn about businesses and institutions, while having a great deal of fun and making friends for life.

Alice said after the meeting: “"I really enjoyed my week being able to experience different activities and meeting new people. It took me out of my comfort zone and it felt good to achieve new things."

Steve Woplin Caterham Rotary’s Youth Services Chairman commented: “We continue to be impressed with the developmental aspects of the RYLA and we will soon be contacting the four local senior schools to seek candidates for the two places that we will be awarding for the 2019 event.”