"Fah" Nichapat Tintukasiri
Fah, our current inbound student from Thailand, presented a PowerPoint slide show highlighting her family, the interests she enjoyed at home, interesting facts about the language and culture in Thailand, and the highlights of the community and province of her home town.

Emily Cadman
Calgary West's recent outbound exchange student, Emily Cadman, then presented a PowerPoint slide show of her year in France illustrating her activities, visits, the three host families and the Rotary student exchange get-togethers in France. It was obviously a highly cherished and appreciated experience.

Bernie Ward thanked the speakers for sharing their experiences with us.

Our RYPEN recruiting ads run something like this:

Are you 13-18? Would you like to meet new friends? Are you looking for ways to build self-confidence, self-esteem, and develop a variety of personal skills? If the answer to these questions is YES, RYPEN may be for you.

RYPEN is a four-day Rotary camp created for young people who want to grow but have limited opportunities to attend other development programs. You will learn new things about yourself and the world around you. RYPEN (Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment) is sponsored by Rotary International District 5360.

RYPEN is a leadership training program which aims to provide youth aged 13-18 years old with the opportunity to develop their leadership potential. This weekend provides youth with the opportunity to build confidence, develop life skills and learn to work together to solve problems. This provides a unique opportunity to interact with other people their own age and to actively learn in a supportive environment.

In sourcing appropriate candidates, they should have leadership potential, have demonstrated qualities of sincerity, courage, persistence, application and dependability. Prospective applicants should be committed to developing their leadership qualities.

September 16-19, 2010, Calgary sent 21 campers to Eagle's Nest Ranch. Calgary West sent 2 campers, Ngoc Bui and Tabbitha Guthrie, both girls were identified and referred to our club as candidates with all the characteristics as outlined.

Tabbitha Guthrie
Tabbitha is a member since age 12 and a volunteer with the Calgary Boys and Girls Club; she has been a returning camp counselor for the Boys and Girls Club and is very active in helping at her club in Pineridge while working to graduate in January from Bishop McNally. Her plans are to work and to then attend culinary arts school in Vancouver.

Ngoc Bui
Ngoc is currently on the Leadership Team at Forest Lawn High School working hard at her Grade 12 studies while away from her family that lives in Nha Trang, Vietnam. She has been in Canada for 1 year, currently living on her own and wanting to attend Mount Royal College and University. Ngoc is hoping to work at a Business degree in marketing.

These girls are active in meeting their leadership potential and after the RYPEN weekend, the Rotary seed has been planted. At her request, Ngoc has been given information to research ROTARACT, the Calgary Metro Club.

We know the Rotary family will welcome these young women to our organization in the near and not too distant future. While InterAct and RotarAct represent a small percentage of today's Rotary community, they are 100% of the future.

reported by David Hamilton