ROTARY AND THE YOUTH

Wow, today was a tiring but overwhelming day. We did it.

The 1st ever Youth Leadership Forum today thru the New Generation Month Celebration was a TOTAL SUCCESS.

When the Chairperson - PP Megs Lunn started the first topic on the LAWS OF TEAMWORK - all the 30 quality delegates were glued to the different self-initiative laws that were practical and proven to be effective in an organization. Though the delegates are youth leaders from three different colleges in Roxas, surprisingly, they were never familiar of the different practical laws presented so it was fun for each one, it was a new learning opportunity that gave the speaker an edge to give her best in order to get the message accross.

P. Pip was the second speaker on ROTARY AND THE YOUTH. He passionately shared THE 4 WAY TEST OF ROTARY. No better speaker can actually present it the way P. Pip presented the whole thing to the young leaders. As a whole, it was a fun interactive discussion about THE TRUTH and how to become a TRUE SERVANT LEADER that is to be emulated by the youth. It was fun when Carl, one of the delegate won a game reciting the full 4-Way Test of Rotary and he got a brand new USB gadgets from P. Pip itself.

"A leader is a Doer."

In between the two topics, interactive discussion were welcomed and moderated by the host of the day. Freebies were given and all the delegates were very attentive, so therefore, they deserved all the prizes....

Then came the LIFE OF LEADERSHIP with Rtn. Pancho. He shared with transparency how the life of leadership boils down to PEACE WITHIN. The delegates still at a perk-up-mood continued the interaction and participation about the kind of leader we wanted them to be thru this topic.

On the first morning session, there were a balanced of interaction in between plus the open forum. The delegates asked intelligent questions about the first part of the program topics and so the three speakers has to be on their post to answer them. It was so much fun with freebies and personal sharing of ideas and ideals.

After lunch, PP Mel Deslate broke the ice. Of course, even before he came in, the ice has been broken already thru some tickle-minded entrance workshop for the delegates to answer the following: I AM HAPPY THAT..., I AM SAD THAT...., I REALIZED THAT...., BEGINNING TODAY, I WILL.....In addition to these, the whole first part of the morning session were up-beat and no need for any icebreaker. However, PP Mel still has to let the delegates stand up for some exercises...strecthed, streched, massage, massage, stretched.....hehehe

Rtn. Rexam of Budyong Kapehan cable talked about MEDIA AND THE YOUTH. It was the hard truth on how the media remains to be the biggest influence to our young kid's mind by just being glued to the television or negative advertisements that need parental guidance at the same time. The Tri-Media is a big factor to influence people, no matter if its good or bad, it remains to be influential in many ways.

PE Jerry Lames, as usual served as our ever dynamic photographer to get some pictures and photo sessions right after the forum. His love for photography made it all fun for him even if we boss him around hehehe

At this junction, the City Administrator Mr. Rey Cordencillo, delivered a very inspiring message on behalf of our invited special guest and benefactor - Mayor Vic Bermejo. Proudly, he shared the famous slogan of the city of which we the members of Rotary were very honored to be the recipient of the good Mayor's kindness and generosity.

"SULONG" Roxas Development Framework is a paradigm that we will pleasurely share with you here:

S - SERVICE ENHANCEMENT

U - URBAN MANAGEMENT

L - LIVELIHOOD GENERATION

O - ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT of which we admired the vision of remodeling the city hall's basic customer service skills and redifining public employee's service to people.

N - NEW

G- GOVERNANCE - of which another admirable motivation in giving the community the chance to participate as a community or they called it "people's engagement" to push the people to reach their full potential and finally to achieve their goals.

Mr. Cordencillo inspired the delegates with that sharing that the city government of Roxas is creating opportunities for our young leaders who in turn, should take advantage in order to be the solution to the problem and not to become the burden of the society. That people should do their share to become the solution itself.

Thank you Mayor Vic for the decent food and the venue, too. We always look forward to be partners in investing in our youth as they are our future.

Generally, upon checking the evaluation form/feedback from the delegates, the forum gained positive feedback as to how they learned so much from the topics given. That they {delegates}will - in the future will be looking forward to be one of us - the ROTARIANS IN SERVICE.

WALA NA SANG IBAN....IKAW NA is just timely as the youth will soon exercise their right to suffrage this coming election 2010.

We wish them well all the time and wisdom to know the difference.

Thank you to Philamer College, La Purisima College and Capiz State University young college leaders. Your presence made a difference to us, much more your active participation during the event.

Thank you the all the members of the committee who devoted the whole day with us to carry out the event. It was a collective effort of the club members. Indeed, THE FUTURE OF ROTARY IS IN OUR HANDS.

Note: More better pictures to follow soon from PE Jerry..

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.

I awoke and saw that life was service.

I acted and behold, service was joy."

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)