Clubs give active support to pupils

Across the world, Rotarians work tirelessly to create opportunities for young people. None more so than our local clubs. Members of St Ives Rotary Club were thrilled to be able to help fund the Trim Trail at Thorndown Primary School, a project jointly funded by the Friends of Thorndown.

Trim Trails aim to promote self-esteem, an active lifestyle, physical challenges, balance and co-ordination amongst children in primary schools.

The sun was shining when a couple of St Ives Rotarians, Philip Sadler and Jon Swain, went along to see the Trim Trail with some of the pupils showing which part was their favourite.

Jenny Witts, chair of Friends of Thorndown School, and headteacher Vicci Godbold were part of the fun on the day.

Members of St Ives Rotary Club are always happy to support their local schools with projects such as these.

They spend a lot of time getting involved with youth projects in the area.

Their youth committee is one of their busiest committees

in the club always organising competitions and events with young people in the community.

They organise a range of competitions where the winners go through to district competitions.

At the end of last year their winner of the Young Chef competition went through to the district final, winning “Overall Best Dish of the Day”.

In February, they organise a well-supported primary schools quiz in which local schools compete against each other with general knowledge questions.

Later in the year they have a very popular art exhibition and there is much more. For more information, follow their Facebook page.

Peterborough Ortons Rotary Club is financing two candidates, Emma Calver and Wiktoria Szubzda, to attend the Young Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Course (Young RYLA).

This is a two-and-a-half day residential course for young people aged between 13-16 years.

The aim of the course is to help young people develop their life skills in a supervised and safe environment.

They learn first-hand how to deal with new tasks, sometimes outside their comfort zone, helping their personal development, self-reliance, leadership skills and teaching them how to solve problems by working together.

These aims are achieved through participation in daily team briefings plus activities such as canoeing, abseiling, caving and wall climbing and, of course, enjoying themselves. By the time you read this, they will be home from taking part in this experience (Feb 18–20) in Buxton, Derbyshire.

We look forward to hearing their story during school holidays when they can visit our club for lunch.

Naturally, I will share this with you in due course.

Youngsters take part in Trim Trail