Club Meeting with Speakers - Guests Welcome - Stokesley Sports Club

Wild Experience for Young Leaders of the Future

36 young people from across the North East took part in the RYLA 2025 leadership challenge with activities including archery, abseiling, wild swimming and gorge walking.  Two of the youngsters, Tilly and Elise (OUR SPEAKERS ON 14th OCTOBER) came from Stokesley . They were all taking part in the Rotary Youth Leadership Award scheme, RYLA, which this year took place next to Hannah’s Meadow in Teesdale alongside the Hury reservoir and the Pennine Way.

The RYLA challenge is an annual event where young people nominated by Rotary clubs across the region camp out and learn about teamwork, leadership and self-motivation.

The event is run over two weeks with up to 20 candidates on each week. They had the opportunity to do stand-up paddle boarding, orienteering and abseiling, as well as some Rotary inspired challenges, including building a raft to transport polio vaccines across a reservoir, making water purifiers and carrying a Shelterbox – an emergency box of post-disaster equipment – up a nearby cliff.

On 5th October two teams of RYLA graduates raced the length of Ullswater on stand-up paddleboards, each carrying a loaded Shelterbox, in order to raise funds for the ShelterBox charity. With GiftAid included, they raised over £2000 - well above their target of £1500 – See https://www.justgiving.com/page/shelter-box-challenge for more detail.