RYLA DINNER 2022Friday 9th July 2022. More than 100 RYLA awardees and guests crowded into the recreation centre at Willow Park for their formal dinner – marking the beginning of the end of RYLA for 2022. Club member Peter Ross (nicknamed Paparazzi Pete by awardees) remarked “this was a RYLA course like no other” with COVID conspiring to test awardees and organisers alike. The dinner event precautions meant awardees and guests could not mingle, and were in fact coned apart.
Following the formal welcome (mihi whakatau) from Tama Potaki, CEO of local iwi (Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki), we heard several speeches of thanks and gratitude from organisers and awardees alike. When Lt Colonel Jon Atkinson announced the winners of the outdoor education portion of the program the stage was filled with smiling faces, youthful enthusiasm and .. blistered, limping RYLArians.
Special mention to Newmarket club stalwart Brian McMath, who on the night received a Paul Harris Fellow award from Peter Ross. This acknowledged Brian’s enormous contribution, over many years, to the speaker schedule and social enterprise programs. The dinner finished with the awardees performing a polished waiata. A little mingling was observed. (Menu: Glazed Ham, Chicken, Vegetarian Lasagne, Profiteroles for dessert.)
