Local Plean lad Liam Bennie from Bannockburn High School spent a week at a Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) camp in early July.

His place was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Carse of Stirling.

The RYLA camp had around 80 candidates all sponsored from Rotary Clubs.

Liam spent the week as part of a team of eight lads from all over the north of Scotland at the Abernethy Trust Centre in Nethybridge.

He competed in various tasks designed to improve team working, communication, problem solving and decision making skills ultimately to improving their self confidence and self esteem.

For each task undertaken a different leader from the team was picked so they were all involved. Tasks included hill walking, raft building, canoeing, gorge walking, mountain biking and climbing. They also had talks from various mentors on leadership skills.

Last Wednesday Liam talked to club about his experiences. Some tasks he found very challenging whilst others he really enjoyed.

The important point was that they all got along as a team, worked together and of course won.

He thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it “life changing”.

With the camp being in remote Inverness-shire, access to phones and the internet was extremely limited. Liam liked his modern technology, but said that he didn’t miss it during the week and has used it less since he returned.

He made new friends scattered throughout Scotland and thanked the club for the opportunity.

Following his talk president Douglas Mulholland presented Liam with his certificate.