On Monday, December 16th, Sussex Rotary was joined by Marcel Gervais, a member of the Rotary Club of Moncton for almost 14 years.
Marcel is currently the Club Treasurer, was president of the Club and recipient of the D7810 PDG McNeill Award as President of the Year for 2016-17.
Shelley Vail, our Sargeant-at-Arms, introduced Marcel as he commenced to share an update on the Rotary Youth Leadership Award Program...
Marcel has been very involved with the Rotary Youth Leadership Award Program (RYLA) Program since his son was an exchange student to France in 2006-07. He has been a counsellor to several inbound students, and he and his wife Vera have hosted a dozen students over the years. He has been on the district Youth Exchange committee since 2011, serving as Treasurer, Long Term Outbound Coordinator and currently is the chair of the committee.
Marcel commenced by thanking the Rotary Club of Sussex for hosting the RYLA event last year. Attendance was positive, and the attendees exceedingly well received the event. The event spanned Friday night through Saturday, and the curriculum included John Maxwell Leadership Training course iChoose. iChoose comprises of 16 lessons spread out over four units to help teenagers learn leadership values and how to apply them to their own lives.
Based on feedback collected, the attendees rate the event very highly, and one of the recurring comments was the desire for more time for the curriculum modules. Additional feedback was the desire to return in 2020. The afternoon activity included community service (cleanup).
RYLA chose a student who best exemplified youth leadership, Hanna Ehler, a member of Rotaract of Mount Allison to go to Washing for the RYLA North America, the top Leadership Education and Development Conference for Rotary Youth Program. She is now getting involved internationally and presently in Strasbourg, France as a Mount Allison International student.
Regarding RYLA 2020, Marcel announced the intention of District 7820 to combine efforts with our District in the RYLA program. RYLA wants to increasingly support the 13 Rotaracts in the District and as capacity increases, Marcel shares the future growth in the need for Rotary volunteers to help as facilitators at Rotaract events.
In his spare time, Marcel is President and CEO of HealthConnect, a company he and Vera started in 1991 in Toronto and moved to Moncton in 1995.
Marcel was thanked by Shelly and the Club for his visit!