October 10th, 2022

The 3rd Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) Oceania Leaders Forum took place in Sydney on the 27th and 28th August. RYLA District 9800 was represented by the district chairperson Jessica Wheeler-Thomas, program co-director Molly O'Donohue and incoming co-director Jaiden Brandy. In total there were 30 representatives from 13 Districts across Australia and New Zealand.

The forum started in 2018 as a way for RYLA program leaders to connect and share experiences and resources and has proved to be an invaluable network for the RYLA district 9800 team. Previous forums have led to the establishment of the Rotary Oceania RYLA alumni association, which is open to all RYLA alumni from across the region; the creation of an extension RYLA program for graduates of District RYLA programs (RYLA Oceania Elevate), which ran in January 2020 and will return in 2023, as well as infrastructure to share knowledge and resources across RYLA districts.

Topics covered at the 2022 forum included: 'What does RYLA look like in today's world?'; 'What does Rotary look like in today's world?'; marketing, communication and recruitment; alumni engagement and participation in events such as the Rotary International conference in Melbourne. The district 9800 team came away energised for our upcoming program and inspired to develop our program further.

Opportunities for alumni

Upcoming events for RYLA alumni include RYLA O-Day on the 15th of October in Bendigo (tickets here https://rylaoceania.org/ryla-o-day/) and the RYLA elevate program in 2023 (see https://rylaoceania.org/elevate/).