The Annual Rotary Youth Leadership competition proved to be a popular and challenging one this year.
Bangor Academy & Sixth Form Centre, Bangor Grammar School and Glenlola Collegiate each put forward an impressive list of candidates all of whom could well have been chosen as our representative to go forward to the Zone and National finals.
The winner from each school was invited to join us for lunch on November 19 when a winner was announced.
The finalists were
- Kimberley Lai, Bangor Academy & Sixth Form Centre
- Luke McWatters, Bangor Grammar School
- Sophie Boyd, Glenlola Collegiate
…and the winner was Luke McWatters who qualified for the Zone final which will be hosted by the Rotary Club of Combe. All entrants are now much better prepared to go forward into the work situation having had the benefit of sitting through a fairly intense interview procedure.
Luke, along with five other Club final winners from local Rotary Clubs will face another interview panel from which three will be selected. These three along with more than 200 successful applicants selected by Rotary Clubs throughout Europe will spend some time in early 2015 as guests of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Here they will be given the opportunity to study the workings of the Parliament and to head up working groups debating various current parliamentary subjects.
There will be 24 successful applicants from the island of Ireland travelling to Strasbourg and the Irish leg of the competition is sponsored by the Irish District of Rotary International, Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI)
The Club thanks Jack Watson for undertaking the planning and smooth administration of the competition, and to the Rotarians who served on the Judging Panels at each of the schools.