Chas Cairns, the District 1090 Youth Services Leader, spoke to the Friday Club Zoom meeting on 21 Aug 2020. He outlined various Rotary Youth competitions that continued despite current COVID restrictions. He listed the range of competitions and offered email links to the district level organisers which you can look up in the members section or the district website. He reminded organisers that Club winners of these competitions needed to be identified to District before 28 Feb 2021 for their progress to national heats.
Nominations could be entered for national Rotary Young Citizen and Sporting Hero Awards for under 25-year olds, and a STEM oriented Technology Tournament was available for local school groups (although there was no District representative for this yet). He also confirmed that there would be no face-to-face Rotary Youth competitions held nationally this year, but Young Chef, Young Musician and Youth Speaks competitions would continue at Club and District level.
Non-Face 2 Face Competitions
- Rotary Young Environmentalist – Theme: Climate change
- Rotary Young Artist – Theme: Wild Nature
- Rotary Young Writer – Theme: My Happiest Day
- Rotary Young Photographer – Wild nature
- Rotary Young Film Maker – Theme: Challenge
Face 2 Face Competitions
He also set out how many of the competitions would only operate at local and district level during the pandemic.
- Young Musician – cancelled for 2020/1
- Young Chef – to district level only
- Youth Speaks – to district level only
- Technology Tournament – yet to be finalised.
Young Citizen Awards
This is aimed at groups or individuals who must be under 25.
- Young Citizen Sporting Hero Award
- Young Citizen Peacemaker Award
Rotary for Young People
Chas then went on to outline various ways in which Clubs could attract and interest young people in a long-term commitment to Rotary and our ideals through organising local Rotakids, Interact and Rotaract groups. Explanatory booklets on how these challenges could be achieved was available through him, although there was a postage charge.
Full details and contact information for all of the topics Chas covered can be found on District 1090 webpages.