{STEERING COMMITTEE MINUTES
Thursday
Personal Check in
Reports from People:
Phone Chains and Liaison Reports
Event Reports
Discuss the Youth Office Role: X-O-FISH-E-O
Youth Council Resolution Updates
CUC/UUA Split
LINC
YPS Evaluation
YPD Evaluation
Cleveland Indian Protest @ GA
Impromptu Working Groups
Friday
Reporting Back from Thursday night working groups
·Resource revision group
·Development Team for AR Resources
At-Large Selection
Working Group-y Goodness
YPS Selection
Saturday
What’s the point of youth council?
The Good:
Improve:
Steering Committee Staff Positions:
Steering Committee Role at Youth Council:
More Working Group-y Goodness to Report
Guests
Steering Committee Resolutions
Youth Council Schedule:
Youth Council Prepacket
Sunday
POA report
SC Input into New POA
YO Role Evaluation
Steering Committee meeting at GA
Youth Council Workshops
Steering Committee Agenda Items @ Youth Council
Steering Committee slush fund
Contacting Applicants
SC Postpacket Cover Letter
Post High TARR selction
Moderator Selection

Steering Committee Meeting Minutes
April 5-8, 2001

Present: Helen Harris, PoC Advisory Council; Abbey Tennis, September YPS; Ann Lapidus, OMD; Robin Lea, June YPS; Jen Harrison, Youth Programs Director; Paris Brewer, PoC Advisory Council; Walt Courtley, UUA Board of Trustees; Micaelaaela Christopher, MDD, graham baas, January YPS; Maia Cudhea, C*SAC; Matt Moore, BCD; Steve Feinstein, Adult at-large; Kate Kidder, Jr. High TARR.
Absent: Julie Slater, Position on Appraisal (arriving Friday Morning.)

Thursday

Personal Check-in- done and done

Assigning Facilitators/Energy People etc.- done and done

Refresh Covenant and Approve (or not) last meetings minutes- Refreshed and approved

Another (business-y) Check-in about how we’ve done since the last meeting-
·Ayn- Working on refreshing the bylaws and P&P, trying to make sure that everything gets REALLY UPDATED. There’s lots of contradictory stuff in there, a lot of work left to be done. Also trying to make template for agenda items for Youth Council, but needs help, feels like her perspective is not enough. Went to C*UUYAN Steering Committee meeting. It was great to hear about some of the stuff that they were doing, it was cool.
· Helen- Worked on recruiting people for YC At-large positions and POA, but mostly none of them applied. Talked to people about PoC caucus, youth and adults. Trying to get youth more active in the DRUUMM(Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries- a group for UU people of color) community.
· Kate- Working a lot. Made PoC caucus application. Frustrated with trying to recruit people for things (YCSCRTF, LRP, adults for stuff), people don’t want to apply for anything. Makes her feel apathetic. Did phone chains, yay. Good communication with other other Steering Committee members. Worked on revising Jr. High TARR job description and on what a notebook would include for a Jr. High TARR. Also wrote a cool natural beauty article for Synapse.
· Steve- Wrote a schmoozing letter, but hasn’t gotten comments back from some people, only Kate. Did phone chain as well.
Matt- Good at doing specific things – write this, create this website, etc. Not so good at indefinete communitcation stuff (phone chain, liaisonships). Did the staff for GA, working on the C*SDC. Made the Steering Committee website the best ever- then, it crashed. Set it back up, and wants to move it to the UUA website so it doesn’t crash so much and add some more stuff before Youth Council.
· Maia- Also good at finite stuff (accomplishing Job Jot, etc.). Faltering at the not so finite stuff. Went to the C*UUYAN Long Range Planning meeting, it was awesome.
· Micaela- Phone chain, liaisonships are done and done. Doing research into Habitat structure. Did Core Curriculum Visioning at district con (with Kate). Still needs to be sent to the Curriculum office. Also co-wrote article for Synapse.
· Walt- Working on recruiting adults of color for Youth Council, etc. Also working on finding a cool adult as the next Board of Trustees liaison (maybe Ed Wilde).
· Paris- Trying to get deeper into the organization, at the inner truth. Planning a conference- revolving around mind-body and spirit. About personal empowerment and going back to simplicity. Spencer Dawson left his district… he felt unsupported. Everything’s great in Florida. Leif Anderson is really hard to reach.

Reports from People:
·Continental Social Action Coordinator and Working Action Manager-
o YSJC happened in D.C. March 16-21. It was great, we’re making some changes, later, we’ll talk more about this.
o Put out another Sac*Pac but hasn’t been sent out. Distributed in YSJC pre- packet. SAC’s, SWAT, & UUA big wigs need to get it.
o Thinking about how to do the best turnover ever. Doing a brain dump and explanation of possibilities, resources, and limits for new C*SAC. Creating a binder of all this information.
o Shea- WAM- Finished prison reform Study Action Issue. Commission on Social Witness accepted it, yay. Now she’s working on a resource for the next WAM. Also, working on the Cleveland Indians protest at GA.
o Side note- Maia’s been thinking about her job and how it’s limited and too broad at the same time, and maybe shouldn’t be a Youth Councitl At-large, should be something else… it’s program vs. representation, etc.
·Position On Appraisal (postponed until emergent agenda, as Julie isn’t here)
·Board of Trustees-
o Walt wasn’t at the last meeting due to recovery, but has been paying attention to the listserve where there’s a lot of heated debate about the CUC-UUA split thing.
o As far as the CUC-UUA vote goes, there is an “affirmation” vote at the April board meeting regarding the negotiations. Lots of BOT members are against it though, so it may not be affirmed. Although if the CUC decides to split, there’s not much we can do. The CUC vote is happening in May.
o Ministry working group- working on Community ministers. There are more and more of them, but they have to be affiliated with a congregation. Trying to figure out a rule as to how many community ministers churches can have as delegates at GA.
o Boy Scouts thing is still up in the air – UUA is trying to be low-profile about it. Not taking much of a stand because it’s a good program, there are lots of UU Boy Scouts. Basically, there are two sides to it. Maia still thinks the UUA is wussy.
·Youth Office
o Abbey – GA, Schmoozing, CSDC, Synapse, AR
o graham-
§ ConCon- Logistics coordinator just quit. Working on plane tickets. Pre-site will be cool.
§ Website- Wishes he had more time to work on it
§ Database- Myles Ericson from C*UUYAN is working on a great web-based database for C*UUYAN and YRUU. Basically, this should make everyone’s information more accessible in a useable way and do the automatic roll over (from the YRUU list to the C*UUYAN list). It’s going to be great.
o Jen-
§ Youth Long Range Planning Meeting in May- Some idea of whose coming. Going to the C*UUYAN one helped with ideas. Some ideas about agenda, etc.
§ YO Tours- There are lots of them. They take a lot of our time, but it’s also kinda cool because the youth who come get really excited.
§ Advanced advisor training- It’s happening this summer (July 7-13?) at Ferry Beach. Susan Harlow, Dan Harper, and Abbey are running it. Need to RECRUIT people to go.
§ Youth Advisor Task Force- Some of the members are beginning to work on writing letters to organizations that have recommendations directed at them…but there is no budget to really implement any of the ideas, nor is there a point person.
§ RE Dept. transitions – Lena is leaving in august, Judith is taking over temporarily for 6 months. Jean is leaving, Sarah is leaving, Emily is leaving, Abbey is leaving soon, Robin is coming.
o Budget Summary- check out your Appendix 1
§ What’s over budget so far? Youth Office travel (there’s more people, and everyone’s travel got cut), Synapse (lost Spider line item which was covering bigger better Syanspe), Steering Committee (more people this year)
§ Programs and projects is under, will cover some Steering Committee overages. Extra $6,000 from Con Con will help equal out other overages.
§ Job Jot: Steve to do a trend analysis of UUA budget over the past few years and work on the budget report at Youth Council with Jen.
§ Job Jot: Jen to put YRUU growth report (that she gave Lena who gave it to executive staff) into postpacket.

Phone Chains and Liaison Reports
·Kate
o Julia- In the next ten years, she wants YRUU to establish more contact with districts.
o Emilia- Wants more life-long resolution stuff, make AR curriculum more youth friendly and more on a local level, make continental events cheaper.
o Lucy- Thinks there should be other ways to look at AR other than trainings, more affordable continental conferences, also CUC-UUA stuff – liked what Maia had to say, also liked the petition thing.
o UU World- Talking a lot with Don Skinner, wants to talk about stuff in general, and he likes to quote Kate. He’s a really cool guy. Wants to have some kind of youth editorial board. Wants to make sure articles are youth friendly.
·Steve
o Rob- Rob’s done with everything he’s supposed to do.
o Rick- Is still collecting advisor resources, wants more. Going to have a website, “peter” also doing stuff.
·Matt
o Slacker, didn’t do his phone chains or liaisons
o District had first con of year, bad adult youth separateness, but powershuffle was good though. District still feels brand new.
·Maia
o Carrissa- Obsessed with youth on boards and anti-racism work. She was nominated to her district board.
o liaisons- Got on LDC trainees listserve, but haven’t done anything yet. There’s not much activity. Job Jot Maia to start a discussion on this listserve on happenings at this Steering Committee meeting.
o UUNIA – Hasn’t done anything there yet. Will try to get background and information stuff together for the next liaison person.
·Micaela
o Vanessa Lott- had the wrong phone number, ha ha.
o Kayle- Did some stuff. MDD is the most on track ever.
o LREDA- Told them that we want to do stuff with them, but they don’t know what.
o Urban Ministries- Not cooperating and very confusing sets of conflicting information.
·Walt
o Covered everything in BOT report.
·Paris
o Spencer D. quit.
o Kathryn- Stuff is going well. She’s sorry about the manual, she’s still great. Passing leadership from older youth to younger youth is not so good there, but they have a plan (create some resources). They do consensus for everything, including elections. There have been some hard feelings and they’re looking at some more formal consensus models.
·Ayn
o Annie- Hasn’t been working on the resource notebook.
o Jacob- Great. Just went to Honduras and built houses with his youth group. Lots of work fighting the CUC-UUA split.
o Alana McGibeny – Told Ann she doesn’t want to do anything anymore.
o LINC – Talked with Justice, we’ll talk about it more later
o
Event Reports
- YRUU Social Justice Conference
- GA Pre-site
- Continental UU Young Adult Network Long Range Planning Meeting

Discuss the Youth Office Role: X-O-FISH-E-O
The Youth Office has an “ex-officio” role at Steering Committee meetings. We need to know what this means. For lots of groups, ex-officio means non-voting—but Steering Committee uses consensus, where talking is like voting! SO…what is the appropriate role for their input, ideas, and information to be included in an empowering and non-dominating way? At our last meeting we said: Give the Youth Office more report time, give few minutes at beginning of each agenda item for the Youth Office to do a “brain dump” of any pertinent info they have.

First we answer some specific situation questions from Abbey:
· Can we ask clarifying questions? When clarifying information for minutes
· Can we make process suggestions? Yes, but don’t make them right away, give us some time to work it out. Also, pass note to facilitator and leave it to their discretion.
· Can we supply additional info during reports? Yes.
· How should non-report time information be added? Use point of information. If you’re not sure if it’s a point of information or an opinion pass notes to other Youth Office peeps to check with each other.
· Should we correct misinformation? Yes.
· Should we add to incomplete information (i.e. mention three of four positions, should we add the fourth)? Yes

Then we make some additional clarifications:
Jen: If Youth Office has an opinion about things, staff- ask us if we want to hear it. We may say no.
Maia: If Youth Office have “the answer” but aren’t going to say it, DON’T MAKE FACES.
Matt: Note passing, must be cut down and be less disruptive. Jen and Abbey will now sit next to each other.
Helen: Why is Youth Office ex-officio? Is that useful? We need to redefine ex-officio.
Jen: Historical answer- LRY was run by youth, wanted that autonomy to carry forward, and wanted staff to do the bidding of youth (not the other way around). SO, they decided to make staff background resource. Also, at any point in the process the Steering Committee can say “We want the Youth Office fully participatory in this process/discussion,” and can use that option at the Steering Committee discretion.
Abbey: Also, there is a staff power imbalance. Youth Office pretends they know everything when really we don’t. Most committees have ex-officio who can speak and participate but not vote.

We read the bylaw. They indicate that the youth office can participate but not vote.
Jen: Since we have switched to consensus, talking IS voting.
Micaela: Often times the Steering Committee is not aware of Youth Office “agendas” until seen in retrospect. Would like to trust the suggestions we’ve made. Should be some distinction for Youth Office role.
Kate: We need to be forgiving if the Youth Office accidently slips out of ex-officio. Also, what about discussions outside of Steering Committee meetings?

Question: Is the Youth Office ex-officio outside of Steering Committee meetings? Home, Office, Steering Committee breaks?
Steve: We’re over time. Trust the judgment of Youth Office.
Maia: Regarding conversations outside of Steering Committee meetings. Split on what is “appropriate.” Probably shouldn’t happen, but at the same time doesn’t influence opinion.
Kate: Leave to discretion of the people involved in the conversations
Jen: This is the difficulty of all advisors, not a clear line between helping & empowering. Glad to have this conversation.

We decide to return to this on the emergent agenda and see how it went this meeting

Youth Council Resolution Updates
Check page B31 in your Youth Council post-packet for the complete text of the resolutions & project proposals.

Project Proposal to Send YRUU Delegation to IARF Conference
· The conference is postponed to 2002. Jacob is on it.

Project Proposal to Change Necessary Bylaws
· Done and done. Ann is on top of further changes

Project Proposal to Compile District Youth Advisor Resources
· Rick is working on it.

Project Proposal to ReviseYCR Notebook
· Annie and Kathryn have not done this. BUT..there’s a deadline.
· Job Jot: Ann and Paris to get said slack asses to get the revision done by May 20th

Project Proposal to Make Resolution Templates Available Online
· Rob finished this, but the process is changing so they may be obsolete. graham has slacked on actually putting them on the website.

Project Proposal to Send a YRUU delegation to UN “Combating Racism Together” Conference in South Africa:
· Honi, Carol, & Jacob- They were working with Olivia Holms (in the UUA International Office) on applying for some grant. They haven’t heard back yet, but they have a good chance. There’s a workshop on it at GA. They are on top of it!

Project Proposal to Plan “The Bus”
· There’s nothing happening here. A semi-similar idea came up at the C*UUYAN Long Range Planning meeting.

Resolution to Utilize GA as 4th Steering Committee Meeting
· This is kind of going places, but we won’t have this money for years. Do we want
to meet this GA? What about the Steering Committee reception at GA?

Here we go off into a tangent on our options for financing our way to GA.
Join CLF and get $500 to go as a delegate (can’t be two delegates).
If you are a delegate from your church, apply for delegate scholarship from the GA office. Gets your registration fee waived +up to $500.
Apply for Youth Caucus scholarships from the Youth Office.
Look for wealthy benefactors at your church.
Ask your district offices.
Job Jots: Matt Moore find out deadline for CLF scholarships. Micaela, Steve, and Matt will meet about Steering Committee reception at GA and figure out what’s going on with that.

Resolution to Foster Lifelong UU Involvement
· The only thing with real initiative here is the 18-25 task force. But Joey Lyons
was supposed to write the grant. This has not happened. He wants more
feedback from people. Ann is working with people involved in this to get more
feedback through the listserves and Synapse. We discuss some problems with this
resolution which come from the Youth Council process

Resolution on Strengthening YRUU in Canada
· Job Jot: graham talk to Jacob about Canadian scholarships to Con Con. Money exists, we just need to make sure scholarships are advertised.

Resolution to Create Youth/Young Adult Political Response Network
· Youth/YA participation in SOA protest was cool, mostly YA. Led to UUIgnite, (email listserve) which led to organizing for inauguration protests, now FTAA protests, pretty active listserve. Good organizing tool right now.
· Job Jot: Maia write letter to World editor about mistakes in description of SOA protest and YOC conference.

Resolution to Create a Youth Council/Steering Committee Restructuring Task Force
· Justin W. quit, Micaela says she probably can’t go to the meeting right before GA, Matt is SC alternate.
· This leaves us with a big problem. We are talking about this later in working groups.

Resolution to Encourage Districts to do JAHNNY DEPP
· Lots of districts have done these. We want to follow up at Youth Council.

Resoluition to Create Cohesive Social Justice Structures in YRUU
· Most of the changes are happening smoothly, except for bringing the WAM to Youth Council. Recruiting SWAT members is unclear. Maia & Shea need to talk to the Washington Office more.
· And the big change is: Two-year term (bylaw change for the C*SAC). Will the next WAM be a one-year or two-year?
· Job Jot: Maia add WAM job description and two-year WAI process to P&P.

Resolution to Create YrUUMM (Capital Campaign, Money Management)
· This didn’t pass, but we are still getting this money and need a way to manage it. Jen lets us know that we have some institutional constraints on endowment money (Y*FUUD), will tell us more later.
· At Youth Council, there was talk about an ongoing working group on this topic. It never happened.

ENERGY BREAK- Helen leads us in Helen Harris’ Tae-Bo.

CUC/UUA Split
The UUA and CUC have recently finished negotiations and the negotiating team has recommended the that CUC and UUA split, with the exception of youth, young adult, and ministerial services, which will remain UUA responsibilities. We talked about this last time and decided it is WAY BUNK! Now we need to figure out how we are going to let everyone else know that.
· Maia’s anti-split/pro-stay letter is now Steering Committee official position. We want it sent to: UUA Board, CUC board, negotiating team, all 41 churches in Canada, heads of multi-national districts like PNWD. Send HARD COPY not via internet.
· We really want districts to take a stand on this issue too. Wouldn’t be cool if at the CUC meeting Jacob could stand up and say that EVERY youth body has come out against this?
· Job Jot: Maia to get Southwest District YAC on board
· Job Jot: Youth Office will put Steering Committee letterhead in PDF and Word format and send to Steering Committee . Helen will print it out and send all the letters out. Get money and addresses from graham.

LINC
Linked Identities Networking in Coalition. This is a coalition of UU groups including YRUU, C*UUYAN (young adults), UU Women’s Federation, DRUUMM (people of color in Uuism), and Interweave (GLBTQ UU group). The idea here is that if all these radical UU groups join together, we can seriously agitate the UUA. So far, the purposes are still unclear and the only action the group has done so far was to host a candidates forum at last year’s GA. We need to talk about the future of LINC and our place in it.
· Ann is the LINC liaison. They have a workshop slot at GA (the night before elections), what should be done with it?
· As a member of LINC we can take initiative and make things happen, potential: take over the UUA. We could “fuck shit up” says Maia.
· Kate: Could YRUU Steering Committee call a LINC meeting at GA to talk about leadership and structure, and brainstorm how we can use this coalition to rock the world? We could use the workshop slot for that.
· Steve: Who are the people (not organizations) of LINC? Who are we inviting? Let’s make each organization responsible for getting their people there.
· Job Jot: Ann will talk to other organizations that are part of LINC. Ask about: finances, how we can be united together, pooling our resources, UUA BOT restructuring, and --- possibility of a LINC Caucus at GA
· Elizabeth Capone-Newton was the point person for this last year, someone should talk to her (Ann?).

YPS Evaluation
YPS performance is now evaluated by Steering Committee, since we hired them. There is a 1 month evaluation (which is basically a check in). The 4 month evaluation is the major one, where Steering Committee evaluates the YPS performance and has the option of giving a “vote of no confidence” and replacing them. We discuss the process for a few minutes (okay a few more than a few minutes, Helen chants “Sub-Committee”), found the mysterious B-17, take a few minutes to read the internal UUA evaluations.

· YPS’s reviewed at 1 and 4 months into their term, but not 6th or 8th month unless there was a major concern during 4 month review or if someone at Youth Office or Steering Committee finds a reason for there to be a review. Steering Committee needs to develop a process for this. Kate proposes Youth Office or Steering Committee member who would like to evaluate a YPS bring this wish to the person making the agenda (can be anonymous). Consensus made.
· So, we do graham’s 4 month evaluation. We heart him, give some feedback, and
decide to not fire him.

YPD Evaluation
Once a year, at their April meeting, Steering Committee evaluates the YPD (Youth Programs Director- that’s Jen). We give feedback and all that goodness.

Cleveland Indian Protest @ GA
During the opening ceremonies of GA this year, all of GA will be taken to march (vigil style protest) to the Cleveland baseball field to protest the racist mascot and team name. We talk about this protest. Will we support/endorse it? Encourage youth participation? What else?

· Ayn went to a conference in Cleveland last weekend and they talked about the protest. They’re going to be making signs and volunteers are needed.
· Concerns that we’re being very crusaderish about the protest. John Buerens is going out to Cleveland to discuss some of the negative aspects of the protest. There is a lot of concern about many aspects of the protest (ex: there wasn’t any outreach to groups in the area that are already doing this work, people won’t be receptive of anyone criticizing their team).
· Who’s organizing this protest (GA Office and Danielle DiBona of Faith in Action)
· The Cleveland UU community is not happy with this protest. They are not pro-Indians, but they’re definitely not anti-Indians.
· What decision are we actually making here? Whether or not we should endorse this protest. Should we help them out? If we do help, what should we do?
· YRUU is an anti-racism organization, and helping out with this protest is definitely part of that mission.
· We can do other things than protesting, i.e. education and conversation. Being in your face isn’t the best thing to do. Concern that this might be alienating for youth in the Cleveland area and other youth.
· Job Jot: Kate is going to talk to Shea about researching and encouraging alternatives to the protest.

Impromptu Working Groups (because we are behind schedule)
Resource Revision and Anti-racism.

Friday Morning

Reporting Back from Thursday night working groups
Resource revision group
The Youth Office is working on revising resources that are distributed to youth and youth groups as many of them are out of date. There have been some snags in this process. We want to help un-snag them.

We want to focus on the most important revisions:
·“How to be a Con Artist” will continue to be revised by Liam and Job Jot: Steve will work with him to get it done.
·“Local Youth Group Handbook” Job Jot: Jen will ask Danielle Lorenzo if she would be interested in resource revision (Danielle used to be editor of Disney magazine). Steering Committee will work to find a youth in the N. Hampton area to work with Danielle, if she says yes.

Publishing options: online, through publications department, through the youth office
The compromise would be to put a small piece of it up on the website (a teaser, if you will) and then sell it. We like this idea.

Development Team for AR Resources
At our last meeting, we discussed (with Josh Pawalek and Danielle D. frm Faith in Action) the creation of a development team. This group would be made up of youth and young adults and would work to create both a new model for AR training (based on youth and young adult input) and a wider variety of resources and models for anti-racism education.

Who are the youth we want on the team? The 3 youth who applied to be AR trainers: Leah Dugan, Jason Liden, Kenrdra Christos Rodgers

Josh has said he will chair the group. We want it to be co-chaired by a youth (specifically, Leah, if she will). This means we need another youth.

Job Jot: Kate will talk to Josh about co-chairing and how this group will proceed (i.e. physical meeting vs. email/phone, is there any money?, getting the young adults on, etc.)
Job Jot: Helen will contact the people who applied and let them know about the team, make sure they want to be involved.

At-Large Selection

Some YCR’s last year didn’t think the People Of Color Caucus was a legitimate body to be involved in Youth Council decisions because they we not elected. Helen suggests that we might need to recruit more people of color for non-People of Color Caucus positions on Youth Council. This might help with the issues that some “elected People” had with the “legitimacy” of POC selected to Youth Council.
We go around discussing selection and recruitment, and ultimately decide to continue recruiting for Post-High TARR and Adult At-Large (since we don’t have enough to fill the positions) and make time on the agenda to select them later. We will select the other positions now.

Junior High TARR: Alexandra Stewart
Canadian At-Large: Jacob Larson
Adults At-Large: Kristen Harper, Chris Hillman, Eric Swanson
Plus we will recruit more adult people of color adults and if we get “too many” for the at-large positions then we can just recruit them for the People of Color Caucus.
Continental Social Action Coordinator: Shea Schachameyer

Working Group-y Goodness

·Youth Council/Steering Committee Restructuring Task Force
They decided that what they’re planning is basically a group who will be planning Common Ground 3 (Common Ground 1 & 2 were where LRY dissolved itself and YRUU was created, along with it’s bylaws and structures). This is basically a long range planning group, so what they should be do is pool their resources with the long range planning committee in order to have one strong group, rather than two mediocre committees.

·Youth Long Range Planning Meeting
This meeting will tale place in Boston in May. This is the meeting that exec staff tells us will determine the spending priorities for the Capital Campaign money we are getting.

With budget tweaking, Jen has figured out how to get more people there. Kate and Maia will work with another (non-SC) youth, and be the LRP planning sub-committee. We are going to select the people to attend and serve as the staff at the meeting (facilitating small groups, etc.).
Job Jot: Maia to talk to Leah about being the non-SC youth on the sub-committee.
Job Jot: Kate to work on selecting a moderator for this meeting.
Job Jot: Kate, Maia, and youth to work on agenda setting and process for meeting.

·People Of Color Caucus
This group spent a good deal of time explaining the POCC to Robin Lea (our new June YPS). Then they talked a lot about accountability and want to bring this discussion back to Youth Council. Recruiting came up next. So far, they’ve used Joey Lyons as their only recruiting resource, so they were unable to get enough people. The WG brainstormed a list of names to recruit.
Job Jot: Kate and Helen are the subcommittee who will be picking the people.

YPS Selection
And Paula Nett is the new YPS

Saturday

Youth Council Planning: The Good the bad and the ugly

What’s the point of youth council?
q train leadership
q vision
q trouble shooting for districts
q Anti-Racism
q accountability, lack of
q to let youth share all the great things that they have on a larger scale
q have fun
q make out
q worship
q learn how to write resolutions and how to use consensus and how to do all this businessy stuff, write budgets, plans, etc,
q go home and do stuff
q get new blood into continental leadership
q direct YRUU
q change YRUU

The Good:
q anti-racism
q small groups
q consensus
q resolutions and project proposals
q worship
q PoCC
q Steering Committee didn’t impose, but they were there and present
q PUDDY- both literal and friends

Improve:
q repetitious resolutions
q bonding
q fun stuff
q more down time
q anti-racism
q accountability
q follow-through
q nitty gritty process/editing of resolutions
q distinctions between resolutions and project proposals, etc.
q people really think things out
q PoCC and YCR relationship
q Preparation for YCRs and PoCC
q space for feelings… get out stuff as it comes
q communication beforehand
q more shared leadership on Steering Committee
q touch groups
q bringing voices of other continental YRUU gatherings (GA, ConCon) to Youth Council
q more small groups
q reports and explanations- any time that a single person addresses the group it should be entertaining
q more communication about how to do the whole resolution thang… logistics of when they happen- get discs, get transparencies, etc.
q making clear what the YCRs and at-larges jobs are
q not addressing the group like they’re all district YCRs
q fewer resolutions, with more time for each

Consensus Process Suggestions/Critiques:
·We need to buy On Conflict and Consensus for everyone (take it out of last year’s left over money).
·No funny mock resolutions, makes people miss the process point and concentrate on being funny.
·The process was good, but people weren’t using it at times
·Surprised that it worked so well.
·Steering Committee was familiar with and could explain the process well.
·Good moderator helped.
·People still had too much ownership of resolutions, not owned by group.
·People had trouble getting Robert’s Rules out of their heads.
·All people with concerns were not at the table.
·Didn’t do Steering Committee Resolution Advisory Committee, we want to do it this year.
·Historian should know past resolutions so we don’t really redo our work over and over.
·Resolutions circus earlier?

Steering Committee Staff Positions:
Here we divide up specific roles at Youth Council. Several people may work on each. Point Persons are in bold. People assigned to jobs are responsible for either doing them, or recruiting people to take these roles (since some can be done by non-SC members).

o Worship – Matt, Paris and Julie
o Workshops- Helen and Matt
o Accountability teams/Puddys- Kate, Helen, Julie and Maia
o Historian- Maia and Ann
o Special Events (social action, super secret, etc.)- Paris, Helen, Micky, and Steve
o Parliamentarian/Consensus guru- Maia and Kate
o Site Contact- Mickey
o Moderator– working group
o Minute Takers- YPSs, Paula
o Time Dawg- Matt and Ed Wilde (new BOT rep)
o Peace Keeper- Ann
o Energy- Paris
o Door keeper/Greeter (greets people and catches up latecomers on what they missed)- Micky, Steve, and Julie
o Gopher- Helen
o Advocates (people help those chocked up by emotion articulate what they’re trying to say)- Kate, Julie, and Matt
o Chaplain Core (adult, youth, male female, white, PoC)- Matt, Paris, and Kristen Harper
o Anti-Racism Experience- Helen, Kate, Julie, and Maia
o ID Groups- Kate, Helen, Julie, and Maia
o Welcoming and Orientation- Micky
o Prepacket- Helen, Julie, and Maia

Steering Committee Role at Youth Council:
o We are ex-officio: express that you are open and invested in YRUU but not pushing own agenda.
o Trust the process, bite lip, sit back, and let it flow
o Base Steering Committee role at Youth Council off of model of Youth Office role at Steering Committee meetings, but with some modifications:
·Don’t all sit together (avoid meal meetings) No cliques.
·Make process suggestions to moderator.
·Limit individual Steering Committee member participation in all agenda items (not point people or sponsors).
·Think about your power all of the time (remember that we are staff, stay in a staff role)
·Don’t whine and complain (let’s have at least one meeting a day so we can vent).
·Remember we provide the framework we need to be empowering at all times.
·Follow the rules, be a role model, be on time
·Support each other (be able to vent to each other, remind each other of our ex-officio role {create signal}, set up backups for your role if you need it)
·Keep in mind Steering Committee covenant

Looks damn like a covenant, everyone agrees to it, and the future is written…

More Working Group-y Goodness to Report

·Agenda Items Process Group
Youth Council agenda items have four classifications: resolution, project proposal, bylaw change, statement of belief. We need templates/resources on how to write them and what they are.
Job Jot: Ayn and Maia will work on creating templates and modifying Mickey’s “How to Write a Resolution” resource. This will be posted on website and be in prepacket

Also, we have a cool process for at Youth Council.
§ At the beginning of YC, we will do a brainstorm with specific questions, and then catagorize them into themes. We’ll ask people to keep these goals in mind while writing agenda items (to avoid pet projects and personal agendas).
§ Advisory Committee for agenda items made up of: Steering Committee members (Maia, Micky, Ann, and Steve), Youth Office, and returning YCR’s (we will ask Jacob, Kale, Laura D.).
§ The Advisory Committee will: give support and feedback to people writing agenda items, and try to join/connect groups of people working on similar agenda items. The committee will have specific hours available, maybe mealtimes plus other time slots.
§ Everyone must bring their agenda items to this committee. Index of past Youth Council resolutions will be there, categories from brainstorm will be there.
§ During the agenda-items-writing-instruction process make sure to include- Powerpoint, handouts, verbal explanation, and something kinesthetic too

·Anti-Racism Training Group
Want better name than “training” cause makes a fucked up dynamic of those with knowledge and those without. Take it home. Good words: “Racism” “Awareness” and “Action”.
Things we want to include:
§ History, demystify what we’ve been taught in history, set record straight, link to present issues, i.e. Prison Industrial Complex.
§ Linking Oppressions
§ Institutional Racism relating to lives as youth and examples
§ Urban Youth Issues tied to racism, privilege, different approach
§ Stress that his IS about conflict, growing pains, etc
§ No Colorblind, get over “I’m not racist”
§ Address Feelings
§ Strong Take-home emphasis: workbook, contacts,
§ Guest Speakers: instead of having people from any UU anti-racist thing, have outside people like NAACP, planting seeds
§ relating concepts like assimilation, co-optation YRUU culture, make it personal
§ Agree with JTW framework of personal, cultural, institutional identity
§ Integrate fun into a lot of the activities
§ Make people think about the norm, fried plantains
§ Empowering hopeful parts, and crash and burn parts
§ “formal educational approach” vs personal approach

And it’s more Working Groups to Report Back

·Y*FUUD
This is Youth Funding for Unitarian Universalist Development. Y*FUUD grants money to local, district, and continental youth doing “new & innovative programming”. Y*FUUD money is allocated by youth Council. For more information, check out the application inforamation in this packet, or see the YRUU website.

How can we publicize Y*FUUD more? Right now, most apps come from Youth Council and continental-clique peeps. The deadline for applications is July 15th.
Job Jot: Maia to write something for Synapse
Job Jot: Kate to talk to World, see if we can get something in for free (good luck!)
Job Jot: Youth Office post Y*FUUD ad to all listserves (Youth of Color, UUIgnite, YRUUSJ, DRE listserves, etc)
Job Jot: Maia to write letter toall DRE’s to be mailed out of Y-FUUD funds.
Job Jot: Everyone to discuss with their phone chain buddies.
Job Jot: Youth Office put Y*FUUD ad in all post-packets, pre-packets, and general mailings for next two months. Also, insert in resources sent from Youth Office like Local Youth Group Organizing Guide, etc.
Job Jot: Helen to lead one-shot workshop at Con-Con on Y*FUUD and how to write for Y*FUUD money.

A concern comes up: How are Y-FUUD recipients held accountable (i.e., getting reports, checking progress, asking for checks back.)? Tthis is not the Youth Office’s job, but it has been.
Suggestion: Have POA take on this responsibility and keep it on Steering Committee’s metaphorical plate, or, have Y-FUUD recipients be part of the phone chain.
Decision: Have working group at Youth Council to discuss this… on parking lot.

·Picking a Moderator for Youth Council
§ Concern that all people selected are white (Some Brainstormed people: Mandy Jacobson, Emily Steiner, Eroca Nicholas, Sienna, Leon)
§ Have working group at Youth Council about how to choose moderator in the future, so the process will be better.
§ Put on emergent agenda: to pick a moderator.

·YCR and At Large Accountability Training
§ First Plenary: Youth Council Training (writing agenda items and consensus process)
§ Workshops: How to be a YCR (led by Micky and Ayn), How to be a POCC member (led by Paris and Helen), How to be an At Large (led by Maia and Kate) and How to be an At Large Adult (led by Steve). These workshops should all talk about their role at Youth Council, but ESPECIALLY how to take it home.
§ Make sure we use buddy system, matching people with like positions.

Guests
Who do we want to invite to rock our world at Youth Council? We have no money, in the past these people have always been UUA staff who pay their own way.
Brainstorm:
§ Paul Kivel, author of Uprooting Racism
§ William Wimsatt, No More Prisons, Bomb the Suburbs
§ Johnathan Kozel
§ Victor Lewis
§ Jose Ballister
§ Josh Pawlek
§ Daniell Dihond
§ new UU prez and moderator
§ John Milsbaugh
§ John Reed
§ Critical Resistance facilitators
§ FAMM lady from YSJC
§ Chris Crass from Challenging White Supremacy
§ Howard Zinn, you know who he is

See theme of anti-racism, so we decide to let the anti-racism workgroup use their discretion for choosing guests.

Job Jot: Walt and Abbey will coerce candidates before they are elected into agreeing to come to Youth Council. If that seems promising, Micky will take charge of drafting invite letter.

Dance party energy break.

Steering Committee Resolutions
We can’t find the parking lot and decide to add this to the emergent agenda.

Youth Council Schedule:
§ No activities should be planned after 10:30 in order to keep everyone healthy.
§ graham says meals can be served whenever we want.

We decide to look at last year’s schedule and see what needs more/less time, and what we’re adding/eliminating

EVENT TIME LAST YEAR CHANGES?
Plenary 15 hours ok
working groups ok
anti racism 8 hours more time
Orientation 1 hour ok
Worship 7 hours ok
Training
ego groups 2 hours more, own time everyday
Fun more time
Closing 1 hour more
accountability/ touch n/a less
Yfuud ok
Slam 2 hours less
Meals 16 hours ok
Dance 2 hours combine w/ slam
super secret 4 hours ?
nitty gritty ok, better use though
agenda times ok/more
staff meetings more
guest time ok
Elections 2 hours less
clean up ok, better delegation
agenda items ok/less

Further discussion is put on the emergent agenda.
Youth Council Prepacket
This has already been discussed some. Julie is the point person. We will now brainstorm a list of things to be included.
§ cover letter
§ stuff to bring & do before you come
§ accountability teams explanation
§ consensus process information
§ puddies (plenary buddies) list
§ table of contents
§ airport & travel info
§ site map
§ schedule
§ plenary agenda
§ youth council process
§ how to check Steering Committe
§ process for selecting the BOT observers
§ resolution process
§ youth council works how?
§ LDC planning
§ GA workshop proposal
§ outstanding advisor award
§ @large ad
§ Y*FUUD grant apps
§ massive con report
§ YPS application
§ past resolutions
§ steering committee minutes
§ yruu p&p/bylaws
§ what’s my job?
§ continental structure
§ UUA p&p
§ youth office mission
§ how to run a meeting without killing yourself
§ principles for community
§ UU alphabet soup
§ AR “experience” information
§ Roster for Youth Council members

We need to find some way to make YCRs/at-larges/PoCC members read their pre-packets.
§ We could advertise the prepackets information through the phone like chain (pop quizzes and prizes such as making out with Steering Committee member of your choice) and on yruuyc-l (Job Jot: graham will do this)
§ Hide secret words in the pre-packet and have prizes for the “winners”. Job Jot: Matt is going to find some cool way to get people to do this

SUNDAY
EMERGENT AGENDA

POA report
Julie is going to write a substantive report and send it to the youth office for inclusion in the postpacket.

SC Input into New POA
At our last meeting, we discussed that we wanted to make the next POA continue the anti-racism focus, but with a more specific mission. We brainstorm what that might be. Ultimately, the selection is up to the Youth Office.
q Work with development team to develop a variety of AR resources for local youth groups
q Assessor of YRUU/Youth Council/Steering Committee/district AR progress
q Help to develop those resources to support people of color and their networks, a la more POC conferences
q Work on creating a model for a continental AR conference
q Work on grant writing- the one big grant to cover all the AR projects and proposals we want to do
q Get involved with other fields/organizations of AR work
q Pay attention to the YCSCRTF and make sure that it’s accountable to the POC communities

YO Role Evaluation
We all agree that minus a few small slips (tape on the mouth?) it went well.
In working groups their influence is underestimated, but their input is really helpful- the next Steering Committee needs to really consider how it’s going to work.
We recognize that they are human beings, it’s really REALLY hard for them to be XOfishyO about something that they’re so passionate about.

Steering Committee meeting at GA
Do we need to meet? Where? Who’s organizing? Who’s doing the agenda?
o Helen, Steve, and Julie may or may not be there.
o We can meet in the sweet suite.
o We will meet from 11:00-1:00 on Sunday
o Job Jot: Maia will create the GA meeting agenda

Youth Council Workshops
How To Be… trainings and working groups may be replacing workshops, depends on schedule. If we do workshops, we like the idea of combining fun & business (i.e. fingerpainting with the BOT). We brainstorm some workshop topics that would be good.
o How the BOT works
o UUA 101
o Meet the BOT rep
o C*UUYAN long range planning
o Building Coalitions
o Grant Writing
o Opportunities to Infiltrate the UUA
o Structures and Services report, Decentralization
o SOA, FTAA, Smash the State– report back
o YSJC- a training or a conference?

Steering Committee Agenda Items @ Youth Council
Steering Committtee has the opportunity to bring agenda items to Youth Council, since we’re ex-officio otherwise. We brainstorm things we might want to do.

·House keeping- Ayn and Maia are on it. The bylaws/P&P will blow everyone away.
·Long Range Planning, Capital Campaign management
o there’s lots of issues around this
o steve is unable to do it.
o why the hell isn’t anyone volunteering to help?
o it’s not good for an adult to be on the team.
o the poa should do it., julie will do it.
·Getting money for the AR development team to meet- Y*FUUD grant
o Job Jot: Kate will talk to Josh about writing the Y*FUUD grant for the development team.
·Make the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice role more official.
o Micaela will be in contact with Morgan Fanning about her role with them.
o If we don’t have a seat on the coalition, do we want to keep having a liaison?

Steering Committee slush fund
Robin knows some anti-FTAA activists who need some money. Maia, Kate, Helen, and Julie would very much like to meet to plan YC AR Experiecnce, which means money. Possible Y*FUUD loophole: There is no P&P around what happens to money which is allocated, but not used by the group. Can we have a slush fund?

We decide that although we totally could use the money, that would be completely unethical and a big bad idea.

Contacting Applicants
We decide who will call people who applied for jobs, but didn’t get them.

SC Postpacket Cover Letter
Job Jot: Paris will write cover letter for the SC postpacket

UU World editorial board
Some people at World have mentioned the possibility of a youth editorial board at the UU magazine.
Job Jot: Kate is going to talk to Don Skinner to see if this is gonna happen at all

youth council schedule
o the smaller the committee the better,
o people staying after the meeting can work on this.
o we need to make sure that there’s time for all of the business stuff
parking lot
o yfuud
o write an agenda item
o some info in synapse
o youth council page in synapse
o making uu world more youth friendly
o kate is all over it.
facilitating the working group on moderator –ayn and Micaela
stickers, graham is having trouble focusing on this discussion.
this is going to happen in the beginning
bonding activity
it’s all kate’s problem

Post High TARR selction
We pick…Jen Tsoi

Moderator Selection
We look at our brainstormed list and decide it’s too clique-y and narrow.
We decide to give ourselves more time to come up with people (send suggestions to Matt) and vote online.
Job Jot: Matt to set up a cute little moderator selection site (with candidate bios and little buttons that we can push to vote) and then put results on SC listserve.