NYSF 2019 Report by Allan McLean
The NYSF program in 2018 for January 2019 has been very challenging this year.
In an effort to upgrade their processes, the NYSF Canberra Office decided to upgrade their website and online proceedings.
Unfortunately, it appears their IT Contractor did not share their enthusiasm and decided to do nothing, having withdrawn the previous online facilities.
Luckily, some of the student application facility had been undertaken so students were able to complete online applications, although with some difficulty.
Unfortunately, District coordinators did not have access to application data until very late in the process which obviously created a number of problems.
To compound those issues, our normal venue was not available due to a change in “management practices.” Thanks to Robyn Cleaver , (member of Karrinyup Rotary and Deputy Principle of Warwick SHS) the school’s premises were made available.
Last Saturday morning saw Stage 1 of the selection process with 25 students attending. (A further 5 will need to be put through their paces separately, 1 by SKYPE to Broome, and a further 4 on their return from travel to China, the USA and various other ports.) Stage 2 will l likely take place on the evening of August 8th at Greg Hunter’s office. Volunteers, ideally those from the existing group of volunteers, are sough to assist.
Allan McLean coordinated activities for Saturday morning at Warwick Senior High School, heading up a team of 25 volunteers, (made up of club members, members of other clubs, and NYSF alumni, thanks to Claudia who coordinated this aspect,) to interview and process 25 incredible year 11 students who had made their application to be a part of 2019 NYSF program. Competition is tight with our district allocated 22 places of the 600 who will attend in 2019.
Heirisson Club was heavily involved with members: Ken Mullin, Don Burnside, Warwick Smith, Ross Jones, Greg Hunter, Bronwyn Denman, Richard Nolan bring present. Former member Greg Thurston was present making sure that Ros had made sufficient morning tea scones.
The quality of candidates made it a wonderful experience to meet and to engage with them.
Two new group activity exercises were introduced, as we’re sure all students were expecting to build a tower with either spaghetti or drinking straws.
So this year students were presented with 15 paper cups on a sheet of cardboards 25 x 20 inches, one elastic band and 5 x 24 inch pieces of string. Students were challenges to build a construction, as high as possible, and sturdy enough to hold an object on top. They were not allowed to touch the paper cups, their hands could not encroach over the cardboard sheet, and they had to use the elastic bank and string to build their construction.
In the second Exercise, the groups were challenged to reach agreement on an Elevator Statement answering the question,” What is Rotary.” The idea of this exercise was to try to get a feel for how these students saw Rotary.
A very satisfying and enjoyable conclusion to a challenging year.