Speaker Our RYLA Candidate Rachael Chadwick

Rachael, along with her mum Zeilah, dad David and mentor on the RYLA course Grace Clark, joined us for dinner and gave a presentation of her week at Hebden Hey. She started by saying that at the beginning she was apprehensive, a bit excited and slightly overwhelmed.

She then took us through her week using mainly photographs of her time there: -

Day 1 was "Ice Breakers" where the participants had to get to know one another by walking on a rope held in a circle by all the others, rolling over everybody else and then everybody sitting on one another's lap. This was followed by all 40 course members having to undertake a task called "Double Jeopardy". This involved them having to build a bridge over an imaginary river - as they had not yet got the concept of leadership and team work they failed miserably on the task.

From Day 2 onward they were split into 5 teams of 8 course members. This day involved building a coracle out of timber and a tarpaulin. Then they had to build a bivouac out of just to sheets of tarpaulin which that night they had to sleep in. Luckily there was only a little bit of drizzle so it wasn't too bad.

Day 3 saw them having to rescue a pretend injured party off a mountain. In the evening they had to decorate some plaster cast masks that they had made on Day 1.

Day 4 was a murder hunt. In order to solve the puzzle the teams had to complete various tasks in order to win clues. These involved things like getting people through a 'spiders web' without touching it. Rachael's team did eventually figure out who the murderer was with 10 minutes to spare. That evening there was an auction which again involved various tasks in order to win the auction. Rachael was team leader but did not read all the instructions at the beginning, so the team nearly failed. However, she did read them later and managed to rectify her error and win the auction.

Day 5 - The day involved started off with the building of a zip line across a gorge . Rachael wasn't feeling well so didn't take any pictures and then missed the next two tasks which were to carry a barrel of water around an obstacle course losing as little water as possible and also building a raft to race on the river.

Day 6 started at 4:30am when the whole group had to re-visit Double Jeopardy. Having now learnt a lot more about leadership they successfully completed the task and got all the course members across the bridge as well as the course leader. After this Rachael had to attend a funeral so missed the rest of the day time activities. In the evening there was a show where everybody had to perform. Rachael was part of a group that did a sketch.

At the end Rachael said she was very tired, grateful for the opportunity to participate and feeling accomplished.