CSRYE Summer Conference

The 2026 conference will be July 9-12, 2026. Stay tuned for more information! In the meantime, if you have any questions, contact Megan Skelly, Conference Chair, at meganpskelly@gmail.com.

Below you’ll find helpful and important information regarding the CSRYE Summer Conference, where we bring together hundreds of Youth Exchange students, Rotarians, parents/guardians, and volunteer from across 20 Rotary districts to learn, meet, reconnect, and celebrate Rotary Youth Exchange! Keep checking this page for updated information!

Date

• For students and parents/guardians: Friday, July 10 to Sunday, July 12 (suggested arrival on Thursday, July 9 in the afternoon/evening)
• For District Youth Exchange Committees (Chairs, Outbound Coordinators, Inbound Coordinators, Rebound Coordinators, etc.): Thursday, July 9 to Sunday, July 12
• For CSRYE Staff: Wednesday, July 8 to Sunday, July 12

Location

• Calvin University, 3201 Burton St SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, United States
• Link to Google Maps Directions: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1jYpU9PnoXovTqJ37
• Link to a map of the campus: https://calvin.edu/map/
• The University campus is the location for all Conference activities and training. There are no sessions or activities happening off-campus. Calvin is an amazing space for our conference: the buildings are close together and they take good care of us. 
• Parking is designated to specific lots and golf carts are used for support. You can park in Parking Lot 9 for check-in, and then once you’ve moved your bags to your dorm room, move your vehicles to Parking Lot 8 for the rest of the conference.
• They are a Christian university with a dry campus (this means no consuming alcohol or drugs). Please respect their rules.

Registration

• No registrations will be allowed after June 20 without Conference Chair Megan Skelly’s approval. This means no on-site registration will be allowed.
• Districts will be responsible for paying any late fees incurred and there are no discounts for staying off campus.
• Any change of guardian-different gender-attendee after July 1 is subject to a $25 fee unless they stay off campus.
• No payment is needed at time of registration. All payments will be collected by CSRYE Treasurer Joe Sawyer via one per District payment.
• If you are only attending a portion of the conference, please contact our Registrar, Jon Loux, (csryesummerconfregistrar@gmail.com) for the cost of attendance.

Check-in

• Check-in upon arrival will be at the Covenant Fine Arts Center, (park in parking lot 9). Check in right when you arrive on campus. You will receive your name badge and dorm room key. After checking in, you will unload your car and walk to your dorm room. Some dorms are close to the check-in area and temporary registration parking, some are not as close. You need to be prepared to haul your luggage by foot.
• Late/after-hours check-in: We do our best to get everyone check-in during the campus hours, but if you have late arrivals, we can make arrangements as long as you let us know of the late arrival in advance. Please contact your district chair so they are aware of your arrival.

Fees

The fees listed below include accommodation in double-occupancy dorm rooms with a shared bathroom suite as well as all meals:

• Wednesday arrival: FEES TO COME
• Thursday arrival: FEES TO COME
• Friday arrival: FEES TO COME
• All students (i.e., Outbounds, Inbounds, and Rebounds) are required to stay on campus.

CSRYE and District Leadership only: The upcharge for a single room with a shared bathroom in-between or a double room with a private bathroom (Calvin University charges the same) will be $75 per person for the conference. If you are requesting a single room and private bathroom, the upcharge will be $150 for the whole conference. This will also be the ‘jail’ price.
These requests will be fufilled on a first come, first served basis.

Accommodation

• Most attendees will be staying in the dorms/residences at Calvin University.
• All students are required to stay in the dorms on the Calvin University campus.
• We encourage parents/guardians to also stay on campus; however, they are also welcome to reserve a hotel room if they don’t want to stay on campus.
• A couple of notes about the dorm rooms:
  • They are double occupancy: you will be in a 2-room suite (2 rooms with 2 twin beds in each room) with a shared common space/room that includes a closet, toilet, vanity, and shower for the two rooms. So, this means you will be sharing a room and suite with someone of the same gender (or, in the case of parents/guardians, it would be a spouse and another set of parents).
  • Students: you will be roomed with their fellow students and your District’s volunteers will be in nearby rooms as chaperones.
  • Parents/guardians: you will be paired up by couple or gender in suites, you may be paired with a parent/guardian from a different District.
  • Parents/guardians stay in different dorms than the students.
  • Each room has two twin beds. Linens are provided: a flat sheet, a semi-institutional material blanket (a light quilt or fleece), and bath towels. There is no mattress cover or fitted sheet. If you prefer a fitted sheet, mattress cover, bath mat, softer/bigger towels, or your favourite stuffed animal, you will need to bring those with you.
  • There are plenty of outlets in the room, but not always in a convenient location, so if you feel that will be an issue, bring an extension cord/power strip, especially if you have a CPAP machine.
  • The rooms are not air-conditioned! Each room has a box fan, but if you think you want your own fan, bring one with you! 
  • Each residence has stairs and up to 3 floors—and there are no elevators in most of the residences!
• Any district leadership (DG, DGE, DGN, DGND, etc.) attendees will need to stay at a hotel, as there is not enough room for them to stay on campus.
• Here is the link to the Holiday Inn for those who need to reserve a room (i.e., adult not wanting to stay on campus): https://bit.ly/3LTQzzy, or call 877-257-8005.
  • NAME TO COME is the name of the block.
  • There is no conference fee discount for those wanting to stay off campus.
  • We have a reduced rate of PRICE TO COME per night available.

What to pack

• Clothes for the number of days you’ll be at the conference. The dress code is casual, and it can be very warm in Grand Rapids in July, so dress accordingly!
• Toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, etc. The university provides towels for showering.
• Comfortable shoes! You will be walking everywhere, and although it’s not a huge campus, you need to be prepared. Leave the stilettos at home!
• A fan, if you think the box fan in the room will not be sufficient.
• A fitted sheet if the flat sheet provided will not be sufficient
• A small extension cord or power bar if you have a CPAP machine or other items that may need to be plugged in close to you.
• Rebounds and Inbounds: bring your Rotary blazers!

Meals

• The Commons Dining Hall, where we have all our meals, has fresh salads and fruit, hot and cold items, and ice cream at 3 meals a day!
• One of the great things about the meals is that we all eat together, so you can sit with whoever you like!

Agenda

Here is the agenda as of July 2, 2025. Please note that this agenda is subject to change.

In the agenda above, OB = Outbound, IB = Inbound, RB = Rebound, OBP = Outbound Parent/Guardian, RBP = Rebound Parent/Guardian, RTX = Rotex.

Attendees

Who should attend the CSRYE Summer Conference?

Students

All of your district’s Outbound, Inbound, and Rebound students should attend this conference! There are helpful, relevant, important sessions (both plenary and breakout) for each of these groups.

Parents/Guardians

We strongly encourage Outbound and Rebound students’ parents/guardians to attend the conference—after all, the students aren’t the only ones who have a lot of learn and share! Outbound parents/guardians tend to be reassured about their child’s exchange by talking to their Rebound parents/guardians, and the Rebound parents/guardians learn important information about reverse culture shock and accepting that the child they sent on exchange a year ago is not the same person that returned. There are parent/guardian-only sessions as well as sessions where the parents/guardians attend with their child.

Rotarians/Volunteers

Your district’s RYE Committee! Chair, Outbound Coordinator, Inbound Coordinator, Rebound Coordinator, Rotex Coordinator—all are welcome and encouraged to attend!

We also suggest recruiting volunteers from your district to attend as well. This is a great way to get new volunteers to help with your program, including host parents, YEOs and YECs, and Rotarians interested in getting involved in RYE.

Check-In Volunteers: If your district is local or you have people willing to help, we will have a separate need for volunteers to help with registration/check-in on Thursday and Friday.

Ambassadors (aka yellow shirts): We need ~2 Ambassadors per district.

Breakout Session Facilitators: We will need 20-30 facilitators. These folks can also volunteer to be Ambassadors, but this means they can’t be an ambassador at the same time that they’re needed to facilitate breakouts.

District Governor Line/Stream

We strongly recommend asking your District Governor, District Governor-Elect, or District Governor Nominee to attend. Why? The Rotary Youth Exchange Program only runs with the support and approval of your district, so if you don’t have your district leadership involved, in the know, and supportive of the program, it can be challenging to gain traction needed to continue to run the program.

On Saturday morning, CSRYE Leadership will lead a session with all DGs, DGEs, DGNs, and other district leadership—let us do the work of showing them what an amazing and important program RYE is!  Since we did not have an in-person program at the Winter Meeting for the DG Line, please encourage them to attend the Summer Conference; this is an opportunity for them to see the “magic” of our program.

Please note that unfortunately, there is not enough room to host the DG line on campus, so please have them reserve a hotel room (information bel0w).

Glossary and other helpful information

• District Chair: Chair of one of the CSRYE 20 Districts or their representative for the weekend
• Inbound Coordinator: Designated District Inbound Coordinator, this may be just for the weekend or their permanent position.
• Outbound Coordinator: Designated District Outbound Coordinator, this may be just for the weekend or their permanent position.
• District Staff: District Staff refers anyone on your district’s official RYE Committee, which differs from district to district. For the purposes of the CSRYE Summer Conference, it refers to whoever is attending the Summer Conference as a member/representative of your district (e.g., Inbound Coordinator, Outbound Coordinator, YEO, Youth Protection Officer, District RYE Treasurer, Secretary, etc.)
• CSRYE Staff: CSRYE Officers, Country Correspondents, Responsible Officer, Assistant Responsible Officer, YEAH Administrator, Insurance Coordinator, Outbound Coordinator, Summer Conference Chair. See the CSRYE Directory on YEAH for more.
• Volunteer Session Facilitator: Any adult CSRYE Summer Conference attendee who is not attending as a parent/guardian of an Outbound or Rebound student can facilitate a session. Training will be held online prior to arriving on campus. We need all hands on deck!
• Volunteer Ambassador: Our fancy name for Sargent-at-Arms, we use these volunteers for standing at corners in between meetings directing humans to sessions, driving people to sessions if they need assistance, seating people at big sessions, assisting with bedtime headcount, and generally keeping things moving and keeping people safe.
• Dance and Pool Chaperones (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Nights): the nightly activities for students are chaperoned by the districts. Each district will only be asked to provide chaperones for one night. We will release a schedule once we have a better idea of registration and arrival dates. Chaperoning simply means walking around and making sure everyone is following the rules.
• Bedtime/Curfew: the dorm room’s exterior doors are locked for safety all the time, and each attendee will have an access key to get in the front door and your room. The same outside doors go on lockdown at 12 am (midnight). This is not negotiable, and they will set off an alarm if opened. The Head Ambassador will come to each dorm front lobby every night and ask to make sure all your students and parents are accounted for before they are locked down for the night. If someone tries to leave or return in the middle of the night, the alarm will sound and we will have to work with campus security.
• Variety Show: We will have more about scheduling auditions soon. The show is on Saturday night!