Steering Committee Meeting Oct. Minutes
Meeting roles and jobs
Youth Office Role
What’s ex-officio mean?
How is it inappropriate for the Youth Office to act?
How can Steering Committee keep the Youth Office accountable?
When is it necessary for the Youth Office to step in?
Should the Youth Office be involved with working groups?
Defining the Youth Office’s Role in Steering Committee meetings
Creating the damned covenant!!! Follow it for I’ll eat your spleen!
Defining the adult role
Can You Really Assume Good Intent?
September 11th tragedy.
Our response to the 911 tragedy.
List of things that YRUU needs.
Consensus Word
Agenda item updates
CUC SOB
LRP (talked about later)
mb/cb federation
Partnership for strategies in action
UUDPR
Event Reports:
CSDC
ConCon
Phone Chain Reports
Position Reports
POA
Steering Committee discusses bonding.
Working Action Manager (WAM)
Youth Office reports
Paula Nett
graham baas
Jen Devine
YRUU Programs Specialist job descriptions
RE department changes.
Budgets Budgets Budgets
cu2c2 meeting
Phone chains
Friday Morning
Jesse Jaeger
C*UUYAN Random news
Judith Frediani shows up and gives us some of her time.
Attempts at restructuring the agenda
Working groups
Print
Liaisons
Phone Chains
Talking about YFUUD
LRP
Steering Committee is reviewing Youth Council
bad:
change:
Good:
Youth Council working groups report back
community focus
AR experience
Agenda item group.
Brainstorming Youth Council 2002
Discussion of the p&p of how the moderator is selected.
CUC/UUA split
YSJC Report
YRUU Programs Specialist evaluation
YRUU Programs Specialist selection
Saturday Morning
Defining ourselves
It’s 5:00 time for Revisiting the Emergent Agenda
Reason for removing the outside moderator
Reason for not removing the outside moderator
Side concerns

Steering Committee Meeting Oct. Minutes

Present – graham baas (YRUU Programs Specialist), Jen Devine (YPD), Eric Swanson (Adult@large), Ayn Lapidus (Steering Committee), Sasha Hood (PCD Youth Council Representative), Annie Abernethy (PSWD Youth Council Representative), Greg DuBow (MSD Youth Council Representative), Jennie Dunmore (PoCaC), Leif Anderson (WC Youth Council Representative), Chris Weber (POA), Paula Nett (YRUU Programs Specialist), Lili Sparks (PoCaC), Helen Harris (PoCaC) Lili Sparks (PoCaC), Helen Harris (PoCaC)

Not Present – Ed Wilde (Board Rep)

Everybody Checks in

Meeting roles and jobs
Ayn goes over the roles of people in the meeting, and then people volunteer to do things through out the meeting.

Youth Office Role

What’s ex-officio mean?
· no one answers
· Ayn lends some historical perspective to what has been done before.
· The Youth Office does this work more than we do, and they have some definite opinions about things. Ex-officio is brought back up
· Jenny says what her district does (CMWD).
· Greg- not official, not part of the officiating body in decision-making, can aid in the process, but can’t actually push it through.
· Ayn talks about what has happened in the past again, when Steering Committee got stuck, the Youth Office would have some ideas.
· Greg moves onto actually defining ex-officio for this Steering Committee, and not for previous Steering Committee’s.
· Eric thinks that the Youth Office can have good input depending on the context of what the discussion is around.
· There is a power imbalance between Youth Office and Steering Committee, and for Steering Committee to allow Youth Office to participate would not be for the best.
· The Youth Office has defined opinions and they’re not necessarily the best opinions.
· The Youth Office says what they think.
· Treat us like youth advisors, don’t let us lead. (us being the Youth Office)
· Use us for specific things, but be careful
· The Youth Office does like some clarification of what our roles really are.
· More discussion about clarifying

How is it inappropriate for the Youth Office to act?
· Manipulate Steering Committee’s ideas
· Speaking up with strong opinions during brainstorms and the such.
· Manipulating the decision making process

How can Steering Committee keep the Youth Office accountable?
· Steering Committee keeps clear about their expectations of the Youth Office, and the Youth Office will live up to those.

When is it necessary for the Youth Office to step in?
· During AR stuff, and to keep Steering Committee thinking with an AR lens
· Ditto, but rewording it with tact.
· Chris says what his job is.
· Eric rambles on about random things and roles and stuff.
· There needs to be more process checks besides just an AR check, gender dynamics, extro/intro check, etc, etc. Everybody needs to be aware of this.

Should the Youth Office be involved with working groups?
· The Youth Office could be used as a resource
· It was said earlier that to just ask for their opinions, the same thing should apply.
· They should bring information (i.e. Red Flags)

Defining the Youth Office’s Role in Steering Committee meetings
(written by Chris, Greg and Jenny)

For the purposes of the 2001-2002 Steering Committee ex-officio is defined as; certain groups attend the meeting because of their position, and because of that they are not a part of the officiating body.

We, as the Steering Committee, agreed that the Youth Office is here to help, not to guide. A good analogy provided was that the Youth Office is a life preserver, used to save lives, not as a crutch because you are tired of swimming. In times of confusion, if the Youth Office feels that they have a valuable opinion, then they can ask the group if they can share it. We don’t think that its acceptable for the Youth Office to share in ways that manipulate our opinions to be theirs and that they should not talk during brain storming because of power dynamics and their history with the UUA. Steering Committee should agree on Youth Office participation on special sections in the agenda (ex. working groups) as they come up.

Since YRUU is attempting to become an anti-racist organization, and since we are accountable to YRUU, every person in the meeting is responsible for paying attention and speaking up on racist group dynamics, decision, and actions. The Youth Office, should call our attentions to these, but should allow a short time for a Steering Committee member to speak up on it.

The Youth Office should also alert the Steering Committee, when a “red flag” about a person being considered for a position comes up.

The Steering Committee of 2001-2002 would like to close by saying that we greatly appreciate the Youth Office and all their hard work. Blessed be.

Creating the damned covenant!!! Follow it for I’ll eat your spleen!
· try to Follow our principles (UU principles)
· stay at the table
· keep the AR lens always on
· be friends/ bond
· be respectful
· assume good intentions
· call Eric on his shit.
· follow roles.
· call everyone on their shit
· all generalizations are bad.
· speak the truth
· use I statements
· never ever say, “who’s facilitating right now?!?”
· talk one at a time
· address the idea, not the person.
· no side conversations
· kick out the jam.
· keep inside jokes to a minimum.
· keep confidentiality
· be aware of the power you hold by being on Steering Committee
· power + sex appeal + be aware = bow chick a wow wow.
· live it up!
· be accountable; know whom you are accountable to.
· follow through.
· sign the covenant.
· thou shalt not kill
· self care
· just do it.
· be aware of boundaries.
· try to stick to time.
· use hand signals.
· keep it simple, stupid. language wise.
· be aware of power imbalances within Steering Committee
· try and break power dynamics, destroy them, smash them, throw them off of a bridge rolled up in blanket, take a hammer to their kneecaps. tie them to the train tracks and let the train run them over. cut their body up with hacksaws dissolve their flesh with hydrochloric acid and burn their bones with gasoline. etc, etc, etc.
· remember that not everyone on Steering Committee is here, and they might have things to add to it, this is not a finalized static document, it can be dynamic and ever changing.

Defining the adult role
· Eric feels that within a body of youth of this leadership caliber that he can participate fully
· Greg feels that Eric can be a full member.
· Chris wants people to be open to constructive criticism.
· Eric is an adult in an organization that is run under the principles of youth empowerment.

Steering Committee spends 5 minutes discussing taking a 2 minute break.

· as an adult on Steering Committee Eric should govern with us, not over us.
· Jen reminds us of Ed Wilde.
· people need to be aware of power imbalances. (hasn’t this been said 19 times already)

Steering Committee needs to be woken up.

· A summary is needed:
o be aware of the dynamic of adults
o be careful of working within that dynamic.

Can You Really Assume Good Intent?
Paula brings up the fact that assume good intentions can be harmful to PoC, and how if something racist is said to them, they have to assume that the racist comment is being said with love in their heart and stuff.
· There is discussion of that “assume good intent” really means.
· This can be a stifling concept and reduce the chance of essentially dealing with problems as they arise.
· Just b/c something is assumed doesn’t make it true.
· Address the problems, don’t act like it didn’t happen b/ you presuppose they're coming from a good place.
· Call the community on its shit.
· Time is unmitigated again.
a break is taken.
try to wash your own dishes.

September 11th tragedy.
· How we are, how other people are, what we're gonna do.
· People talk about their emotions, and how they're doing.

10 minute break is proposed, and accepted.
We reconvene.
steering committee unable to blow out a candle.

Our response to the 911 tragedy.
· Jennie doesn’t like what people on the radio have to say, i.e. racist statements. but some people aren’t so bad.
· Bush’s speech was ridiculous.
· The news has been horrid.
· Bill Sinkford sent a letter to all the listservs describing what the Unitarian Universalist Association has been doing work with the Sikh and Islamic communities.
· The Unitarian Universalist Association has put up a plethora of resources for people; worships, social justice, sermons, consciousness objectors,
· We should come up with an idea of what we, as a group believe/feel about should be done.
· Chris talks about the hajiebs that Islamic women wear, and how that could be a symbol of solidarity
· The possibility of Steering Committee drafting a statement of belief for the next Youth Council
· The variety of opinions within YRUU would make it difficult to create any concise formal opinion.
· Do some research, write something up. Be detailed.
· Actual activity would be much better than just writing up a document. Do something, stop talking so much.
· Clarification of what we're doing, as a group, as an institution, etc.
· Paula brings up YRUU's principles and goals and stuff.
· Steering Committee talks about the proper process to decide upon the proper way to talk about this.
· This isn’t a problem that can be solved easily.
· We need to start somewhere, and do something.
· We should figure out what we're gonna do.
· What have people been doing
· What does YRUU need right now?
· What can we provide?
· Lots of time=not resolved

Gesticulate, don’t playa hate

· Chris brings up common ground 2 and what they thought, and the part about being peaceable members of society.
· Chris asks for a scribe and no one responds.
· Jennie asks for a reiteration of what resources are currently available
· lots of stuff on the Unitarian Universalist Association website. It deals with family stuff, connecting with Islamic groups, lots of stuff from Sinkford, what churches are staying. There’s also a good amount of anecdotal information

List of things that YRUU needs.
· “Like” resource to help start dialogue
· Solidarity… action? Aka on this day do “this”
· Suggest a variety of this
· Ideas for action
o visit mosque
o vigils
o etc.
· Something about racism
· Create workshops
· YRUU community, solace
· Synapse articles
· There’s a call for a definition on pacifism
o People talk about what it means to them.
· There is discussion of whether tabling is a good idea.
· More talking about talking. Where’s the doing?
· Ayn says that we should do the work that we're willing to do, then talk ‘bout this later.
· Greg doesn’t want something coming out of YRUU that don’t comply with the views of the group.
· Is the delegation of work the best way of accomplishing our goals?
· Presenting ideas of possibilities of things to do isn’t really action oriented or political.
· Organizing YRUU could possibly not be the best thing, not everyone agrees on the same things, it’ll be difficult.
· If there is an action resource, make sure that it has a good disclaimer on it.
· Some action ideas not so controversial, some more so. We need to discuss what the differences between these are.
· There are some problems with some of the action ideas proposed.
· How about people just go and do their thing.
· Get people to do things. We don’t necessarily need to agree to all of it as a group.
· Kind of consensus on assigning work to people to do.

Consensus Word
Brainstorm of ideas
· bow chicka bow wow
· craptatstic
· thank god it’s over
· can we do this another time
· up yours, punk.
· awwww…. freakout.
· prevail
· marmoset
· breathe and allow
· mmm… nachos
we’re straw poling and straying off topic in a horrible way.

the consensus word is: aawwwww Freakout!!!

Agenda item updates
CUC SOB
· Jacob Larsen has been in communication with the CUC exchange task force,
the CUC has expressed an interest in keeping in contact with the Youth Office.
LRP (talked about later)
· everything that’s supposed to be done so far has been done.
mb/cb federation
· planning their first conference, it’s rolling deep.
Partnership for strategies in action
· nothing much concrete has been done yet.
UUDPR
· Stu hasn’t sent his letter, neither has Leif.
· Greg has been in contact with them. There’s been some discussion of was possible.

What exactly is an agenda item?

Event Reports:
CSDC
· site great
· problems with adults not understanding youth empowerment, created lots of problems
· AR stuff went really well.
· SDC’s are beginning to happen, that’s great
· one of the lead trainers was missing, and that created some issues.
ConCon
· Leif mentions that cost was too high, especially for Canadians with the exchange rates
· We should look for institutional support.
· Is this something that Steering Committee should decide upon?
· Get Youth Council Representatives to talk about their board rep
· We should also look for sights farther in advance
· Finding a cheaper site for ConCon will not necessarily lower the quality.
· The fact that ConCon is self-sufficient makes it a better thing.
· Would getting institutional support make ConCon less independent?

Phone Chain Reports
Nobody has really done them, so we don’t talk about them.

Position Reports
POA
· Chris refers us to the Youth Council postpacket, p.e11.
· goes on about talking about how he’s different from the rest of Steering Committee.
· talks about the AR stuff that he’s doing. it’s all in the letter.
· Chris rags on Julie in a nice way (but not really at all). When you stop being on Steering Committee give your stuff to the next Steering Committee!
· Chris is doing research on LRY, and it’s AR work.

ayn embarrasses herself

Steering Committee discusses bonding.
· Chris says he ‘s not the “Youth Office bitch”
· graham talks about the Saturday agenda
· Steering Committee decides that there is time on Saturday to talk about giving Chris direction

Continental Social Action Coordinator (C*SAC)
· Steering Committee reads Shea’s report before they talk about it
· They talk about how they can create institutional support for the C*SAC
· They discuss how creating a budget would work.
· Jen explains how that process would work.

Working Action Manager (WAM)
· Ayn explains what the WAM is, how they're elected, etc, etc,
Tabled till later

Youth Office reports
Paula Nett
· we're referred to a page of confusing designation.
· GA – we aren’t going to be doing housing like we have in the past. We are advertising the youth hostel, and telling people that this is where the official youth housing is even though, we are not going to be organizing it. We are also asking the youth under the age of 18, who have sponsors to stay in the same housing. Sponsors have to be over 25, and can’t drink. We made these changes because there have been some sponsors who have been seriously neglecting their duties as sponsors and most sponsors aren’t active parts of the Youth community. With the new intergenerational focus we are trying some new things, we are really excited about this, it will be a great opportunity.
· Youth of Colour Conference
o We're going to be doing some support for this.
o The Youth Office will be handling registrations, and possibly future financial support
· Networking
o A lot of FIA networking
· Eric comments on the quality of the numbers and graphs in the packet.
· The same numbers impacted the GA planning committee
· It took lots of meeting in order to have a meeting with the GA planning committee
· GA discussion

graham baas
· graham has schmoozed with the Information Technology people by going bowling with important data base person named Charles McNulty.
· Supporting the Family Matter Task Force…in Developing programs to support families. 4 step process on how to support families in congregations. It will be modeled on empowerment models.
· ConCon costs too much in grahams opinion. He is trying to find a cheaper site. These are often not easily accessible by airports. graham didn’t like urban setting. i.e., cars, thieves, and locking door, he will be trying to find a rural setting. Called 30-40 sites in PNWD. 3 sites are ok…One sites outside Vancouver Washington is possible. Camp Melanoma. We would have to deal with cook because they wouldn’t provide it.
· Camp Roganunda in Eastern Washington… also might be possible.
· graham had an emotional break down at Youth Council from the stress. AR work great, but too much pressure on a few individuals to do the work. Wished everyone could have been more involved… site was good except for air conditioner brokenness
· Web site- had great intern doing the web site all the time…
· Tell graham to put stuff up on the web site…wants to create a con tracker on the web site…wishes he had more time to do work on it.
· Synapse was all set to go…and we had a plan… had to spend a week dealing with trauma and putting out resources…
· Synapse is on slight hiatus now….trying to decide on the theme…please recruit articles anti hate synapse…perhaps… target date out before School of Americas on Nov 16-18. Shortening Synapse by a few pages make it more focused…maybe 40 pages…new deadline for submissions. October 18th…
· ConCon Site Search
o 02-TBA PNWD
o 03-TBA NE
o 05- Alpine Meadows
o 05- Boone camp Hantesa (maybe)
o 06-The Mountain

Jen Devine
· Salary grades and job descriptions
· Religious Education People
· Restructuring
· Budget
· Our Whole Lives
· CU2C2

YRUU Programs Specialist job descriptions
· New one makes YRUU Programs Specialist's accountability to YRUU, Youth Council and Steering Committee more apparent.
· New “job description” makes it more apparent who is doing what. Makes it easier to recruit.
· Salary stuff.
· The Unitarian Universalist Association did a study of salaries and how much people are getting paid. They realized that not enough people are getting paid enough.
· They decided to give people salary increases to make them more realistic.
· Jen and the RE department advocated for YPS raises.
· YPS’s got a salary grade increased… i.e. more money.

· Jen hands out handouts. – Phone budget fun

RE department changes.
· Lena’s not the director anymore, now Judith is.
· Pat and Marjorie and Jacque are now the curriculum office
· There’s a lot of newness in the RE department. This reflects how the Unitarian Universalist Association as whole is looking.
· It’s important to advocate for youth input in the restructuring
· Some of the information about this is confidential/vague/foggy

Budgets Budgets Budgets
· There is a budget crisis at the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Unitarian Universalist Association asked us to cut our budget. We said no, you cut money and give us more! For some reason it kind of worked.
· We talked about cutting some lines, but not really all that many.
· We also talked about outsourcing some of our work.
· More in depth and numbers.
· Intern line got cut
· Travel budget went up, we're the only travel line that went up in the Unitarian Universalist Association
· District training expenses is a typo
· Steering Committee meetings went up, that was for GA. some weirdness around that.
· Pamphlet development got removed.
· Almost everyone in the UUA is getting cut, except us.
· Programs and projects lines
· All that money has been spent already
· The other hand out is now looked at.
· Youth council is going to end up being really close to budget.
· POCC got sent to Youth Council on the actual Youth Council budget. YAY!
· The Steering Committee line is going over, the POCAC is costing more money
· Also some of the November AR plane tickets came out of the Steering Committee budget line.
· So how does Steering Committee want to do the rest of their meetings?
· Free lodging and stuff.
· From now on we can’t go over budget.
· Plane ticket prices have been going up and that’s really screwed over the budget.
· It’s possible for people to buy tickets online and to get reimbursed.
· ConCon budget
· We're over budget mainly b/c of stupid cell phone bills and stupid cab rides.
· These overages will be made up from the cldctot.

cu2c2 meeting
· Jen schmoozed them, and they don’t like the Unitarian Universalist Association.
· Our Whole Lives. Jens been talking to lots of people ‘bout this.
· Capital campaign.
· $1 million spending
· $1 million endowment fund.
· The Youth Office is meeting with the Mind the Gap people next week.
· So all of a sudden we might be able to actually hire more staff out of this budget. YAY!!!!!!!!!
· Sinkford stated his goals. (Get this from jen)

Phone chains
· Chris talked to Nan… LRP has e-group (she wants to do stuff for us… she gets a gold star)
· She suggested we be positive and is looking into becoming a DRE
· y’all c is a coalition of youth she is working with
· … first con Oct 19 to 21 (social action in Nov?)
· graham has those fliers…. folks are dwindling in that district but they are seeking people out… they need more AR training… Steering Committee AR trainer to massive con
· they are doing intergenerational stuff to “raise up” their youth he isn’t on the LRP e-list

· Laura Douglas is MIA and probably up to no good!
· Jenny hasn’t been able to reach Allison Dawe from PNWD
· Jason Tanzman is bearing witness to weird thing… fall con
· winter con will be anti oppression
· their YAC is being redone
· Maura says nothing is going’ on with LRP
· People need to transition properly with phone chains and lists (IE changing Youth Council Representatives etc)
· New contact information goes into the parking lot
· Phone chains are observed and changed
· Updated phone chain is to be sent to Youth Council Representatives
· Youth Council Representatives need to contact their Youth Council Representatives replacement if their current chain gang buddy is 2nd year

Friday Morning

Jesse Jaeger, Continental Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network and sponsored organization status
· Jesse introduces himself, he’s like an YRUU Programs Specialist, but older and for C*UUYAN.
· There are some things that C*UUYAN would like us to talk about
· Is Ayn still the C*UUYAN liaison? Not technically, but probably.
o By the end of the meeting, its confirmed, Ayn is the C*UUYAN liaison
· C*UUYAN would like to have people at our Steering Committee meetings, and an YRUU person at their Steering Committee meetings.
· Kathryn McIntyre needs to know what’s going on with sponsored organization status. Needs to be decided by January Board of Trustees (Board of Trustees) meeting.
· Several YRUU and C*UUYAN people need to meet together to draft a proposal to give to the BOT.
· C*UUYAN thought that the Board of Trustees was working on this, but that wasn’t true.
o The Board of Trustees was waiting for us to present them with something
· So we need to decide what we want
· Sponsored organization status mean historical perspective.
· At common ground it was left rather vague what the relationship between the Unitarian Universalist Association and YRUU were/are.
· Several years ago at Youth Council a resolution asked us to be a sponsored organization.
· So this is a new status for any group. It has no real designation.
· After YRUU decided to do this, C*UUYAN copied us yet once again.
· It would be a good idea for C*UUYAN and YRUU
· There needs to be a decision.
· Jennie agrees to work on this.
· The last configuration was an YRUU Steering Committee member, YPS, Jesse’s job, C*UUYAN Steering Committee member.
· put the proposal out on the listserv for people to look at.
C*UUYAN wants their next Steering Committee meeting to be at the same time and near the same place as the YRUU Steering Committee meeting.
· There is a concern that having C*UUYAN at our first meeting would interfere with bonding, and that the second meeting would be better.
· Some other people think it’s not that big of a deal.
· The group come to a consensus to have a joint meeting
C*UUYAN Random news
· Tostada was created by Kevin and it’s rawkin
· The GA bridging ceremony planning has begun.
· C*UUYAN has really been growing recently.
· More C*UUYAN news, check out Ferment (their news letter) for more in depth details.
· Michael Tino is the new director and stuff.
· The Youth Office gave some names to Michael to help plan the bridging ceremony.
· Does Steering Committee want to give Michael some other names?
· Slight confusion as to what is really going on right now.

Judith Frediani shows up and gives us some of her time.
· She’s the current director of the RE department.
· She’s a strong youth advocate and is doing a really good job around youth issues on the exec staff for us.
· Judith has been working at the Unitarian Universalist Association for 16 years.
o Only 7 people there have been working longer here than her.
o She’s been the director of curriculum director for 10 years.
· She started and led a youth group for two years. She used to be a high school teacher (graham didn’t know this)
· She has 38 first cousins, and most of her family still lives in the area.
· The RE department has started a new curriculum. It incorporates anti-oppression info to a greater extent.
· There is also work on creating curriculum that is geared towards youth interests more. Also work that isn’t pandering to youth.
· More talking ‘bout Sinkford and how he’s doing things differently.
· Sinkford and the exec staff have been meeting almost all the time. It’s ridiculous.
· The exec staff is almost ready to propose a resurrected Unitarian Universalist Association.
· Is the budget an example of Sinkford's commitment to YRUU?
· Bill definitely is a youth advocate.
· The changes will be phased in gradually.
· One of the first things that’s gonna happen is that helping to place and provide service to ministry and not out of RE.
· Major changes will probably not start happening till Fiscal Year (FY) 03
· A list of cool RE stuff that people have done in the past.
o Holidays and holy days.
o Stepping-stones.
o Dr. Seuss summer program
o Slight confusion as to what the family curriculum is.
o Problems
o Haunting House.
o Chris hated his childhood.
· A better UU history curriculum would be great.
· Positive experiences with modifying RE curricula towards youth needs.
· Facilitators can make or break a good RE experience.
· You can use curricula for lots of different things that you wouldn’t expect.
· Holidays and Holy Days can tread the fine line of cultural appropriation
· That can definitely be a problem for a lot of RE programs.
· How to avoid cultural tourism?!?
· What about Canadian issues?
o who knows? we try.
o due to the new Unitarian Universalist Association /Canadian Unitarian Council split, the Religious Education department isn’t really serving Canadians anymore. It’s a contractual problem… it’s gonna take some work and exploration to make it work well.
o It’s really difficult to provide quality and accurate Canadian curriculum, due to the differences.
o But not impossible, and general curricula are still usable.
o Canadian youth will still be supported

Attempts at restructuring the agenda
The concern that Helen isn’t here needs to be paid attention to.

Assigning priorities
· anti-racism 8
· anti-classism 2
· put the r backing YRUU.0
· refocus on the priorities of YRUU
· restructuring 7
· making Youth Council productive 2
· accountability 1
· political support within the Unitarian Universalist Association.
· mind the gap between YRUU and C*UUYAN
· make sure all the Youth Council resolutions are followed through with.
· be at the table. be at meetings.
· self care 1
· serve YRUU
· steer not do busy work 1
· honor covenant
· social action – promoting it.

Working groups

Print
· going to write a 5 page press release
· it’s going to talk about YRUU, Steering Committee, YC, AR
· there’s going to be excerpts taken from this and given to a plethora of publications to be listed later.
· banner exchange and the creation of a new banner.

Liaisons
· why liaisons?
· make other groups aware of our goals and visions
· find opportunities to collaborate
· exchange resources/ideas/info
· curry favor/ build political power
· get info on their programs and resources
· recruit more youth
· get play (hot BOT ass)
· list of groups to talk to:
o finance committee
o executive body of cuc
o BOT
o lreda
o world
o Canadian Unitarian
o UUMA
o FIA
· we don’t do as much activism within YRUU as people do outside of YRUU.
· why is this?
o liability issues
o lack of cohesive politics
· why don’t we get ruckus to do some training work
· action groups:
o ruckus
o druum
o ara
o linc
o greenpeace
o yinmo
o anti-globalization folk
o anti-prison resource groups
o secular youth activist groups
o icuu
o luuna
o rcrc

Phone Chains
· they can be effective if it works and people do them
· they haven’t been too effective in the past b/c of contacability issues
· phone chains should be figured out at Youth Council rather than after.
· will phone chains work at all?
· is it easier to do it electronically? maybe

assigning more roles for more of the meeting.
assigning deadlines for job jot
Lunch (it’s good)
we’re going over the updated schedule due to lateness.

Talking about YFUUD
· maybe money could be delegated along the lines of Steering Committee priorities
· Annie Chris and Greg are going to come up with a comprehensive structure for giving out YFUUD grants

LRP
· Jennifer, Greg, Erick are going to make sure that the resolution from Youth Council actually gets followed
· Steering Committee brainstorms what they would like for LRP to look like, what does the Steering Committee think the LRP meeting should look like or discuss.
o More outreach
o More Mobilization
o visibility
o decentralizing of power
o less racist system
o working with C*UUYAN
o what to do with money
o more focus on local groups
o no mas representation democracy , mas consensus
o RE-evaluate YRUU
o governance transformable plan
o distribute consensus info
o more relationships, networking
o more accountable to more identities
o spirituality
o more varieties of trainings
o relationship with UUA and CUC
o growth strategies
the list is going to be left up and people can add things if they would like. the list is going to be given to the LRP group to add to their compiling of ideas and things that need to be talked about at the LRP meeting.

Steering Committee is reviewing Youth Council
· Every person writes down two things about each of these topics on note cards.
o what sucked
o what they liked
o what needs to change
· The cards are going to be redistributed and people will read off the cards.

Lily arrives
bad:
· schedule
· community
· racism
· too much affirmation
· why do we do resolutions? so time consuming and never gets followed through on.
· all of SC was not involved in leading the AR training
· dictatorial (or insensitive) tone of some AR facilitation took away from the message
· very late schedule make revoery from community deadlock much harder- too many tired people.
· emotional stress
· lack of sleep
· visitors on site
· meetings went way too late
· took too long to get to actual point
· energy breaks weren't organized
· steering committee job list during meeting was unorganized
· the racist magician
· didn't teach peeps how to lead AR
· SC felt they didn't know what to do with problems
· tired people + overtime@meeitngs=more tired people

change:
· be more productive in the way we spend time durin YC and what happens after YC
· fuck the system. it's old.
· NEVER WORK THROUGH BREAKS!!!
· better idea of what POCC is there for (this is very much an internal issue)
· yfuud
· elections
· make it open to all
· agenda items are dumb
· process
· the ar training first while discovery - second how to teach
· ar facilitation should be handled carefully - I would love a program that let people own up to their place in the regime without having to call themselves "racist".
· a commitment to nightly worship no matter what.
· time- not enough or too much to be done
· more personal time
· less time learning about plenary and more actual time 2 make resolutions
· everyone involved in AR training
· ar work should have done more leadership training
· abolish resolutions and crate anew system of accountability where they deal with the priorities of yruu better
· create a more open Youth Council that is more democratic and representative of the constituents of YRUU

Good:
· consensus worked in end, yeah consensus
· people got amazing AR experience
· pocc rep
· site
· AR processing
· a-teams
· ar experience
· community and consensus
· incredible end result-most of community bonded and AR processes pretty well
· AR stuff was very in-depth
· slumber party
· AR
· the whole week, once it was over
· puddies
· worship
· suppa secret
· super secret kicked ass (boo-tay)
· sex Olympics kick ass
· AR experience
· graham was there
· AR experience was super powerful

keep things in mind while meeting in working groups

Youth Council working groups report back

community focus
· make sure that non-work needs of yc are met.
· over-budget time so that
· learn consensus and plenary in a-teams to conserve time
· not enough free time at yc last year.
· more icebreakers at beginning of week
· more cool things in a-team.
· most people liked a-teams, but they needed to do more.
· part of the reason for a-teams was to keep people in the teams accountable, but there’s not structure in place to make that happen.
· it’s a good idea to do more stuff in a-teams.
· smaller groups might not be the best place to learn consensus.
· it might be a good idea to initially do consensus in the large group then answer questions in small groups.
AR experience
· the AR goals at Youth Council, what are they?
· epiphany for white folk.
· empowerment for people of colour
· include AR stuff in other parts of meeting.
· how much time?
· quality not quantity
· more time at the beginning, more taking it home
· 3:2 ratio of AR to business
· facilitators shouldn’t make judgment calls
· more white ally adults
· YRUU, yaaur
· Maia, Mimi, other old AR kids
· attention to detail, having core people
· make sure that the rest of Youth Council is AR
· recruit adult allies, preferably at November AR training.
· find more people of colour who aren’t black.
· reflect somewhat on last year.
· it might not be a good idea to not have the facilitators to let stuff slide.
· people need to be guided to the realization that they’re racist, not just told.
· we need support for youth of colour, more diversity. i.e. Islamic and Arab youth.
· yay, not so much affirmation
· a place for bi-racial youth.
· there needs to be more support for the POC id group.
Agenda item group.
· do we need as many resolutions as we’ve been getting?
· accountability to districts needs to be predefined.
· a lot of work can be done without Youth Council’s say
· districts operate without yc’s oversight.
· we don’t need to pass resolutions that govern individual districts.
· way to save money; eliminate external moderator
· two types of agenda items.
· rubber stamps
· action items
· prioritize what needs to be done.
· have people bring finished resolutions to YC.
· Youth Office then prints them up for second day, third day revisions made, fourth day redistributed, and then decided upon on the fifth day.
· we can do all of this in one longish plenary, giving more time to AR
· there are more business things to be done besides just resolutions
· there are more people at Youth Council than just YCR's… i.e. @larges and POCC.
· point of info, there’s a people of colour conference in May.
· what if the people of colour conference were to elect the POCC for YC.
· it might not be the best place, due to lack of representation
· there is a larger issue of accountability and who is being represented.

Brainstorming Youth Council 2002
· AR
· breaks
· food
· evening activity
· sleep
· worship
· a-teams
· puddies
· bonding
· restructuring planning things
· working groups
· free time
· Steering Committee meeting time
· spirituality
· opening/closing
· yellow clown suits
· yellow grahams
· consistently wear leadership symbols
· careful travel logistics
· super secret
· racist magician
· go offsite at some point.

Discussion of the p&p of how the moderator is selected.

CUC/UUA split
· Eric enlightens us as to the history
· the CUC have for several years been negotiating with the Unitarian Universalist Association for more support.
· these discussions reached a head and the CUC decided to split from the UUA.
· this is going to make the districts be redesigned
· ministry, youth and young adults are going to continue to be continental
· this split is going to happen sometime 02. there’s some weirdness with money
· it’s important it to make events more Canadian accessible.
· how to support cross border districts?
· pnwd, st.law, heartland, one other.
· be more intentional about communication and lowering prices.
· a lot of social action doesn’t take Canadians into account
· a lot of the reason this split is happening is due to these types of issues.
· it’s hard to stay focused on topics when being inclusive of both.
· what about GA/youth caucus?
· it’s gonna be really hard for Canadian youth to make it to these things.
· what about the possibility of creating a Canadian social action coordinator?
· we should get youth caucus to make some sort of decision.
· CLF is a way of getting Canadians to GA
· it is assumed that Canadian churches will join the CUC
· it’s been heard that some churches can still be a part of the Unitarian Universalist Association, even though in Canada.
· what should be done with Canadian youth, should they be their own entity? is this a good idea?
· it might be a good idea to help the CUC create youth programs, but most youth have been against the CUC split.
· western Canada is the least populous district.
· graham stopped paying attention for a minute, then people stopped talking.

YSJC Report a la Robin
See handout
Youth Council passed a resolution changing the YSJC
the Washington Office (WO) and the Youth Office have traditionally collaborated on the YSJC
the resolution changed the focus of the YSJC into more of an organizer training
the Washington Office decided to no longer be involved with the YSJC.
this means that the Youth Office has the same budget, but no staff for the YSJC.
the Youth Office put together a proposal for the UUSC
the WO is to FIA as the Youth Office is to the RE
has the UUA given any funding to the WO for the YSJC?
yeah, $1000. we should try and get it back.
the Youth Office has $7000
going over the YJSC proposal
staff structure
old idea: the WO, Youth Office, c*sac and WAM
refer to the proposal.
one of the two budgets is a perfect budget, the other budget is a realistic budget.
looks good.
has there been anything else done to convince people to give us the money?
there’s been meetings with Kim McDonald, she’s gonna help us. We’re not sure about money, but maybe staff… almost for sure.
What about travel equalization?
Probably not, unless we get lots of money.
What if this plan fails?
Then we gotta charge money.
We’re going to try to use the YC resolution about getting sacs to attend and the two people.
If that doesn’t work we’re going to have open registration till we hit approximately 50.
Is there a chance of the YSJC to move around?
It’s all open; we’d like it to move around. Finding a site will be the difficult part.
Going over the process to the creation of this.
The Youth Office sends the WO the resolution.
There had been discussions about changing the YSJC.
The WO then sent a fax about them not supporting the YSJC.
Robin then created the proposal.
Shea and Amir haven’t been in much contact with the Youth Office.
How can Steering Committee help the Youth Office do this work?
Explain to Sacs and districts what the hell is going on
How do the two other people in the district get selected?
Its kind of self evident about how it’s going to be done
How can we write something to make sure that it’s more obvious?
You can talk to sacs and tell them what it is that you want to write.
Steering Committee can do stuff.

YRUU Programs Specialist evaluation
They’re all fine

YRUU Programs Specialist selection
and it’s Wendall!!! Other wise known as Bill Seitz

Saturday Morning
Defining ourselves
There is some discussion as to what we’re doing process wise
graham is finding it difficult to pay attention
There is some going over of definitions.
Chris reads the definitions from the Youth Council prepacket
· Defining:
o Race
o Racism
o Anti-racism
· There is some dissent as to the wording of the definitions, but that they’re inherently correct.
· Jen brings up some problems from the Youth Council definition creation process, i.e. people need to internalize the definitions, not just be told.

Chris helps light the chalice with a reading

Should we keep brainstorming or what?
Greg thinks that semantics isn’t the most important thing to do right now
So we decide to brainstorm, but just not about definitions and analysis, but about work we can do.
Brainstorm:
· Devoting more time at Youth Council to AR
· Abandoning some of the things that people think are traditional YRUU things, b/c they’re racist and can’t be made anti-racist
· Teaching others how to be active anti-racist
· Active first
· Teaching ourselves
· Being willing to be hurt/to hurt
· Do work in own community
· Incorporating AR into not just all events/ but all programming/ all resources
· The Youth Office is asked to join in the discussion
· Dismantling white privilege/ creating equality’n’shit
· It’s the UU principles
· Getting it into the district/local churches
· Getting everyone in YRUU doing AR
· Get everything to do AR
· Diversifying our communities
· Creating a safe space for community of colour
· Create a safe space for people to make mistakes AND learn
· Being willing to let people go and how to make sure the community is OK.
· Creating sustainable relationships with AR groups that aren’t UU
· Encouraging people to work with these groups.
· Setting an example for other UUA peeps on AR work.
· Develop more programming than just the week at Youth Council
· More bringing it home components.
· Connecting YRUUers with adults who’ve gone through AR
· Adding stuff into programming that allows more emotional and spiritual work.
· A list of what resources other groups need. Local/district groups and cons.

Local churches:
· Get jubilee world involved with pulling adults into this work, so that youth have allies.
· Trying to stop cultural appropriation
· Promoting working with AR groups outside of themselves
· Start discussions
· Encourage diversity/ get new kinds of people – both in youth groups and in the church
· Developing RE curriculums that discuss AR and cultural appropriation
· Discussion of identity in Coming Of Age programs.
· Resources for multi/bi-racial children to deal w/ identity
· Make the jubilee trainings need to have the whole damn church
· It should be like owl, life span curriculum (owf, our whole fight)
· Create resources for local youth groups
· Gear AR work at YSJC for bringing it home for local youth groups
· Create something that is geared towards people are outside of currently established leadership positions
· Use the LDC model for bringing AR work
· ID group resource for youth groups
· Evangelistic AR work – reaching out to people
· Advisor training

District groups:
· Create a worship resource (AR chalice lighting)
· Include AR info in the local youth group handbook.
· Make Toby take a shower (Karen wins)
· Getting FIA to help sponsor an anti-oppression conference
· A resource for “people who get it” to help people “who don’t” FAQ
· Cons all about ID, resources, network
· Support people of colour
· Information on where to get resources/lending library.
· Youth transformation – encourage districts are reorganizing their structures. Use the jahnny depp. Change bylaws, new positions, etc
· Publicize when AR trainings are going to be happening.
· Creating a resource for youth to go to district boards and ask for funding.
· Publish trainings and funding sources
· Get youth on district transformation teams/ create transformation teams
· Cheerleaders for AR (woohoo)
· Organize districts coalition
· Training for Yaks every year yacs-o-rama, maybe regional
· Make every district do AR
· Make youth of color cons regionally available and advertised

We break to have a check in so that we can all know where we all are

· UUA Youth Office:
centralized location for resources, trainings, and training calendar
· All ages AR
· Youth YA list for AR resource dev…going
· $ For AR
· Look at hiring practices with AR develop P&P to deal
· Board of Trustees &Steering Committee &other leadership bodies embodies principles so they are AR
· Publish something in the world about YRUU AR

Youth Council:
· Better take home
· Rewrite bylaws
· 10:1 AR to business ratio
· Multiple tracts
· Remove moderator
· Make yc members feel comfortable to lead AR sessions
· more stuff poc – id, allies
· More prep ahead of YC for POCC
· More personal connection
· More support for trainers, it’s a tough job, need to stay facile mode,
· Have done own work
· Have contacts with people ahead of time so you know where people are
· Trainer from outside
· Youth Council Representative training and orientation needs to be better
· How to be a Youth Council Representative training more
· Consensus training—streamline

Continental:
· White ally organizing
· Non-id group workshops
· GA-AR – more than one workshop
· Preview the YC AR training at GA
· Rewrite by-laws/pnp

We break for Lunch with the JTW working group
2pm We come back together

We are trying to decide where we want to go from here
There are going to be working groups that will split up the brainstorm and start prioritizing what Steering Committee will focus on

Discussion about who will go to the transformation meeting in January. A small group will decide what youth we will be invited to the meeting. The youth will be chosen from the list of youth who are on the transformation team.

“assume good intentions”
· The group decides that we should go over the covenant and address the issue of “assume good intentions”
· There is a lot of conversation about whether or not people would like the statement removed from the covenant.
· There are a lot of good comments, and there is a new statement.
o Working to a state of assuming good intentions.
· This is the new statement that is on the covenant.

New agenda

Prep for Nov training
What things Steering Committee should observe in the training, how to be critical with thinking about the training we will be doing at Youth Council. What the trainings are like and what people should expect.
· People who went to the training last year give a little feed back on their experiences.
o The teaching style was for intellectual types
o Mostly for White people and can be alienating for POC especially youth
o Last year Steering Committee each took roles during the training including
o See news print for roles
· We decide to break the roles down and people chose what they want to be the point person for specific ones.
Break (people will make working groups during the break)
Paula Leaves to go to sleep
Break into working groups

4:25 Matt Moore inappropriately shows up and takes some food from the kitchen
4:30 Groups come back together and Report

AR Training Group:
· how to hold a one day AR training for 15-40 youth
· how to get in contact w/ local AR group and event/activities that can be done
· AR FAQ
· Video guide applicable to youth w/ FAQ
· why ID groups, what are, and how to use
· AR TOT
· Paula and Robin will do all of the work

ID Group Group
· Create liaison with Jubilee World
· Start outside liaisons
· compile list of outside orgs and info on how to connect with them.
· compile set of resources on starting discussions
· Through Jubilee World liaison, start dialogue about how best to serve/include youth in JTW workshops.
· Synapse article about inspiring local youth to create new leadership positions geared towards AR
· Get someone to finish the anthology, add AR chapter/event
· Brainstorm w/ Toby Chase about progress on updating local youth group handbook - Eric and lily will work on reaching him and summarize for next SC meeting
· Form stronger bonds with FIA in hopes of arranging future joint conference.
· Create resource for helping people who "get it" bring along people who don't.
· Create bibliography of recently used resources. Future goal: lending library.
· Create list of outside resources including funding and training sources.
· Research good additions to bibliography.

It’s 5:00 time for Revisiting the Emergent Agenda

Ayn was the linc rep last year.
· List of who is in linc
· They put together stuff on sharing resources
· They’re like captain planet, together they’re stronger
· Ayn wants to do it again… she’s gonna.

Bylaws pnp
· Ayn doesn’t want to do it.
· Ayn describe why the pnp need to be changed.
· Annie wants to do it!!!

Buying resources and using
· It was suggested to buy AR resources and use them
· But there’s no money for this really
· We should try and get local youth groups to buy them
· We might have some extra money.
· Use the library

Steering committee plane tickets
· It’s a bigger issue than just tickets; we also have to discuss where we’re going to meet next.
· There’s the issue of not having the money to buy the tickets and then be reimbursed.
· Nan Moore has offered her place for the next Steering Committee meeting.
· Lily is gonna look in
· Cape cod is too far away to meet in Boston.
· Going over the niceness of Nan Moore's house.
· List your priorities, make a decision! quit being apathetic

September YPS and going to events.
· It’s more than just that YRUU Programs Specialist; it’s all the Yeses.
· If the person isn’t there, it will be more difficult for them to learn their job
· The Youth Office is already thinking about this.
· One possibility is to give that YPS the intern line.

GA
· Look at the housing proposal from Paula
· Paula goes over the proposal
· There were problems with sponsors last year.
· The youth staff/Youth Office’s roles were ill defined.
· This created some problems with sponsors
· From now on sponsors and youth will be staying in the same hotel, not the same room.
· Before youth can register for youth caucus they have to have proof of having registered for the hotel.
· The hangout space will be at the convention center, rather than at the hostel. This hang out space will also be the youth caucus meeting space,
· Sponsors will have to be 25 from now on.
· Rule infractions. The whole sponsor and sponsoree thing.
· Chris Weber asks questions that really don’t need to be answered.
· Ayn makes sense and is rational.
· Graham almost falls while typing
· Steering Committee needs to remember that they’re all going to be at GA, so if they don’t promote it Paula is gonna cry and beat them.
· Publicity about the changes is very important – many youth and sponsors will not expect this and we need to make sure it’s widely publicized

Youth council
Discussion of removing the moderator as outsider, to save $

Reason for removing the outside moderator
· Steering Committee can moderate the meeting
· Streamline the agenda process
Reason for not removing the outside moderator
· Steering Committee might not be ex-officio…
· With out outside moderator would be conflict of interest potential
· Could be perceived as Steering Committee abuse of power to just change it with out accountability
Side concerns
· What is the point of Youth Council needs to be discussed and what are the priorities, AR or resolutions

Decision
· Have a working groups discuss having a Steering Committee moderate Youth Council
· The working group will talk to the list serve and all Steering Committee will talk to their phone chains about the moderator issue
· Anne will talk to matt more before it gets discussed on the list

Nominating to go to the Florida AR youth and ya resources development Kendra Christos Rogers, Leah Dugan will be invited.