By Carl Repsher
Special to the Salisbury Post

What’s it like to spend 15-hour days as a mentor with 70 teens over four days?
The Rotary Club of Salisbury is part of Rotary District 7680, encompassing 57 clubs in the central Piedmont. The district sponsors the Seminar for Tomorrow’s Leaders (SFTL) in cooperation with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in Greensboro.
CCL has its roots in Vick Chemical Co., whose signature product, Vick’s Vapor Rub, is probably known to many. The then-president decided he needed a way to more effectively develop leaders and set up CCL as a nonprofit to do it. CCL is now an international organization recognized by the Financial Times as one of the leading executive training organizations in the world.
Seminar for Tomorrow’s Leaders, held at Catawba College July 12-15, for rising juniors and seniors, encompasses classroom and experiential exercises that encourage participants to take responsibility to “lead self, lead others and change their worlds” by focusing on how to better understand themselves and others, stretch themselves to learn and think differently and give and receive feedback.
They were given a model of how to look at the role of a leader; examined the importance of non-verbal communication and contrasted how they spent their time versus what they generated as their value system. They examined personal conflicts and provided feedback to each other and their mentors before spending some personal time thinking about how they were going to make use of the entire experience.
They got to meet Catawba President Brien Lewis and his wife Laura at a reception at the president’s house and learned that, just for being a participant, they could get a scholarship worth up to $12,000 to attend Catawba. They also experienced living in a dorm and got a sense of college life.
The incoming president of Rotary International, Sakuji Tanaka, has set the theme of “Peace through Service” for the 2012-2013 year and encouraged the 34,000 clubs across the world to establish their own “Peace” project. When he speaks of peace, it is inclusive of peace within communities as well as across the world and ties in with CCL’s Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative that asks the question, “What would the world look like if all young people had leadership training?”
As I reflected on what Salisbury’s peace project should be, I thought of the tragic death of Treasure Feamster and the unfortunate racial incident at Wendy’s that occurred here over the last several years. It occurred to me that SFTL (that our club had not yet participated in) might be an appropriate response. SFTL is deliberately composed of a diverse group of students and mentors and it might be a way to help young and older people think and act differently.
SFTL facilitators from our district made a presentation to our club and Salisbury Rotarians responded with their typical generosity to provide scholarships for students at Salisbury High.
Comments from a brief interview with some of the Salisbury students are:
Robyn: “I really enjoyed this whole leadership conference because it taught us different mechanisms to use when we get into certain situations and it really taught us the true definition of a leader. It also taught me to deal with different personalities and realize that everybody’s not going to be the same energetic person like you. Some people like to keep to themselves so we have to learn how you can still deal with those types of people but still respect them at the same time.”
Ethan: “At first I wasn’t exactly excited to come. I knew it would be good for college resumes and stuff like that, but after the first day and getting into today and the next day it was really easy to see how even though I’ve been a leader in my lifetime how you can be a better one. … It was kind of surprising to see how interesting everything was and how it all unfolded.”
Khalid: “I thought I was always a great leader. I’ve done numerous leadership things but none compared to this one. I learned I need to step up my game and become a better leader and help other people be better leaders for themselves too.”
Parents and educators know the incredible moment when a young person “gets it” whether the “it” is riding a bike, understanding responsibility or a more complex math problem. There’s nothing quite like that feeling.
Well, to answer the question posed at the beginning, it was a blessing, exhilarating, exhausting, fun and rewarding. It gave me an exciting sense of hope for this new generation of youth.
Repsher is president of the Salisbury Rotary Club.