District 6150 Hosts Interact Training

By Steve Maxwell, Co-Chair District 6150 Interact Committee

District 6150 hosted its first Fall Interact Training Seminar (FITS) for our high school aged Interact members on October 1, 2005 at Harding University in Searcy. We had about 10 schools represented of the 21 with Interact Clubs. Many more expressed the desire to come but found this time period to have numerous conflicts at the various schools so we were pleased to have about 65 in attendance including students, Sponsors & Rotarians.

We started off with an ice breaker session called the 2 Man Trust Fall and the pictures posted on the website prove that most enjoyed this session to loosen up and meet some new friends.

Later we engaged in good discussions about the different community service projects, fundraising ideas, and ideas to promote international service like the Wheelchair Foundation and our own Heifer Project in Arkansas. Of course Don Peters gave us an enlightened look at Youth Exchange and had four of the exchange students speak to the group about their experiences. Governor Marilyn Hummelstein also gave a short excerpt on RYLA Camp.

Time was devoted to each officer and director within Interact about their roles & responsibilities along with the duties of the School Sponsor and the Rotarian Advisor. We touched briefly on Robert’s Rules of Order and how to make a motion, discuss it and get it voted on. The Motion to “Break for Lunch” passed unanimously!

World Interact Week is coming up during the first week of November and we introduced one way to celebrate that event on Saturday, November 5th by partnering with Great Arkansas Cleanup ‘05 where Interact Clubs across the state could participate in cleaning up their own community. We finished up the day with the usual survey and most said they enjoyed the seminar and lunch, so I hope we can plan to make some adjustments and do it again next year.