YRUU Steering Committee
January 8-11, 2004
Boston, MA
Table of Contents:
Decisions
and Follow-up Items page 1
Thursday
Minutes page 3
Friday
Minutes page 7
Saturday
Minutes page 15
Job Jot page 21
Phone
Chain page 23
Executive Summary of Decisions &
Follow-Up Items
Decision: Meggie, Jazmin, and Hannah will work with the youth office to get the ConCon Revisioning Taskforce moving.
Decision: Lydia Pelot-Hobbs is selected as the 2004 ConCon Dean!
Follow-up: Meggie will let her know and Jazmin will write a letter to her to tell her who her supporters are.
Decision: Steering Committee will begin working on CommonGround III
Follow-up: a sub-committee will put a survey together for both youth groups that are heavily involved with YRUU and those that are not.
Follow-up: Sub-committee will further identify who should receive a survey
Follow-up: Youth Office will collect all the surveys
Decision: Betty Jeanne Reuters Ward is selected as 2004 June YPS.
Follow-up: Kyle will write the letter to Bill in order to get a rubber stamp of his approval of this decision.
Decision: There will be some awesome Special Events at Youth Council including an awards ceremony, some type of Olympics (maybe water), community building activities, A-team games, and something social justicey.
Follow-up: Annie, Hannah, Jova, and Meggie will divide up the special events and develop them for the next SC meeting.
Decision: Steering Committee will do their own facilitation at Youth Council.
Decision: Plenary last year went way too late. People should have their resolutions in earlier. The first day there will be a “how to write a resolution” workshop. The third day they must turn their resolutions in so they can go be photocopied. Day 4 resolutions will be passed or sent back. There will be two days to pass resolutions so they do not all get left for the last day.
Follow-up: Katie, Asha, Tim, and Jose will continue to plan out plenaries for the next SC meeting.
Decision: AR/AO trainers will be decided on by the New Orleans AR training Jan 25, 2004.
Follow-up: Jazmin, Laura , Kyle, and Jason will contact each of the potential organizations and see if they are a good fit for Youth Council and if they are available and willing.
Decision: Regarding observers at Youth Council: if someone from an organization wants to come then their group needs to pay their way there. Hope to have the Youth Observer to the board at Youth Council. If someone from a group wants to come they can also apply to come via YFUUD grant. People who want to come just because they are interested are not allowed.
Decision: The People of Color Caucus (POCC) application will be revised.
Follow-up: By January 30, 2004 the POCC working group will have an application revised and reviewed by members of the DRUUMM YaYA Caucus and past members of the People of Color Advisory Committee (POCAC).
Follow-up: The application will be available on the YRUU website by mid-February and other means of distribution will begin. DRUUMM YaYA Caucus and past POCAC members will help develop a process for reviewing and selecting applicants.
Decision: The At-Large positions at Youth Council need more clear responsibilities both at Youth Council and for their job throughout the year.
Follow-up: Laura, Asha, and Tim will write up specific roles of the At-Large positions and bring them to the next meeting.
Decision: Steering Committee will work on fundraising for Youth Council
Follow-up: Annie will talk to JJ about t-shirts, Frisbees, and silk screened bandanas.
Follow-up: Hannah will find out about selling chap-stick at GA
Follow-up: Jazmin will find out about selling Condoms at GA and talk to Judith about that
Follow-up: Kyle will find out what is being done with the $10,000 that is being made by his district cons!!!! :P
Decision: Worships at Youth Council will be planned by both Steering Committee and a worhip planning group. SC plans the first and last worships. A worship planning group will meet daily with the facilitation of Jova and Kyle. There’s some kind of theme: Dreams (Sharing your dreams, getting to know each other, and justice).
Follow-up: Jova, Kyle, and Hannah will head up the rest of SC to plan the 2 worships they’re responsible for before Youth Council
Decision: A-teams will have specific topics to discuss at every meeting. The participants of each group will be selected before Youth Council and will break people up so there is a diversity of folx in each group (ie: people from different areas, people that have different jobs, ages, folx that are in different ID groups)
Follow-up: Katie, Meggie, Laura, and Annie will plan out the groups participants and topics before Youth Council.
Decision: To help with the costs of sending SC to GA, the people who applied late will pay the $50 late fee out of their own pocket, as it was not the youth office’s responsibility.
Follow-up:
The Youth Office will check up with people to make sure they get their late
fees pre-GA.
MINUTES
Thursday January 8, 2004
Welcoming done by Jose
Agenda Overview:
Covenant overview
Check-In’s
Consensus training
YO reports and questions
Brainstorm meeting agenda for Bill
Common Ground III discussion
HUUPER selection and general selection process discussion
ConCon Taskforce
ConCon Dean selection
Covenant is accepted as it
is with no addendums.
Lots of SC members are feeling a little ill… must make sure we are focusing on self care a bit.
Because Megan and Jesse aren’t here we are going to wait on the Consensus training and YO reports.
Tim takes it away with a recap of the need for Common Ground to happen. Laura mentions that the thought she understood was that we were coming up with a questionnaire for our constituencies (i.e. youth of color community and youth districts)
Discussion with Bill Brainstorm:
Common Ground III:
-issues that we should be addressing at Common Ground (i.e. addressing problems, reasons for change)
-how does he see Common Ground I and II relate to this one
-$$$$
-When and Where?
-How we can
have a partnership with the Board and with him?
-up to SC and Youth Council to
decide who should be involved in Common Ground but who does Bill see as needing
to be involved in the discussion
-Who does he want to be in Partnership with? SC? Board?
-Whose Common Ground is this? Responsibility, Accountability?
-What about the Survey? What is its purpose and who is going to take that information?
Other Stuff:
-$$$$ like for reinstating YPS positions and other YRUU money issues
-Some major UUA stuff going on right now
-Share what YRUU is doing right now
-Curriculum project going on and what is going on for youth in that
We will come back to this in the morning before Bill comes so that we can make sure we have everything on here that is needed.
Kyle: It is difficult to have a discussion about something that we do not have exactly a strong idea about what it is.
Asha: I think it would be helpful for SC to have a discussion
Common Ground is a TOTAL Revisioning of YRUU… it is a HUGE structural change that can result in some major implications.
Common Ground I was lots of brainstorming of what to do after LRY was falling apart and then CG II was when bylaws were created and YRUU was formed.
Jesse is going to ask if Pat could come and discuss with SC about the first two Common Grounds
Megan Selby RULES!
Going over the Formal Consensus process
Introductions:
Clarify Process: discuss what would best work for how to go about the discussion
Present Proposal or Issue:
Questions to Clarify Presentation
Level 1 Broad Open Discussion
Group Discussion:
Level 2 Identify Concerns
List any concerns
Group the concerns (i.e. AR/AO issues, leadership)
Level 3 Resolve Concerns
Resolve Grouped Concerns
Restate Remaining Concerns
Questions to Clarify Concerns
Discussion Limited to resolving one concern at a time
Alternative Closing Options- Stand Aside, Send to Committee, Declare Block
Jose has concerns about the process of how to use Consensus on how the YPS selection works or on choosing people as a whole.
Hannah brings up the “hypothetical” situation of having one ConCon application and then what happens if someone blocks that person as a possible Dean and the answer is that the SC and Youth Office would send out a call for more applications and then SC would go through this process via phone or email to come up with the decision.
Kyle reads the YPS selection process from the SC handbook
Megan observed at the last meeting that people were having difficulty sticking with the process and not jumping to different places when things aren’t done yet.
Youth Office Reports and Questions:
Look at reports from the prepacket
Additions to reports: Jason found a place to have ConCon, unfortunately because ConCon and Youth Council will be happening in Pacific SouthWest District (PSWD) and the PSWD Summer Camp will be happening when ConCon usually is it is necessary to have Youth Council BEFORE ConCon this year. Sorry, the Youth Office did not see any other option. Jason is also working on SATUURDAY which will happen after GA in California.
Jesse: we found $6,000 that helped offset the losses from ConCon. WOO! There isn’t enough money right now for all Steering Committee members to go to GA. This issue will be bike racked for later. More money for ConCon and Youth Council is probably coming our way but this is not confirmed yet.
What should we change for the future?
* Deal with ALL the concerns during process
* Have big consensus decision making sessions earlier in the day.
* Write things down during the decision making. Actually list concerns on butcher paper.
* Have this list up during the next selection so we can keep in mind what we need to work on.
Youth Council decided that this should happen. A list has been set up for decision making. There’s a structure of who should be on the taskforce. Meggie, Jazmin, and Hannah will work with the youth office to move this process along.
People who didn’t receive their prepackets read the application.
We will use the YPS selection process when choosing the Dean to practice that process
Qualities we want in a ConCon Dean
* Fun
* Organized
* AR/AO- has a strong vision of how this will be a part of ConCon
* Energetic
* Able to deal with stress
* Accountable
* Experienced with understanding how ConCon works.
* Can coordinate staff
* Able to ask for help
* Committed to YRUU
Lydia is selected as the 2004 ConCon Dean! Meggie will let her know and Jazmin will write a letter to her to tell her who her supporters are.
Jazmin gives a summary of what happened at the General Assembly Youth Caucus Revisioning Task Force (GAYCRTF). The group brainstormed what was going wrong with GAYC, discussed who GAYC is supposed to serve and what the staff’s purpose was. The next day they were broken into 5 smaller groups to discuss ways certain programming/logistics could work more effectively for GA’s targeted audience and purpose. More details about these groups’ decisions are in the SC Jan prepacket.
Much to the agitation of the Youth Office, “the Sheridan letter” keeps coming up. Jose says that this has been blown out of proportion mainly because of the large deficit the UUA owes at the Sheridan and that the youth should tell the board what they have done to remedy the Sheridan 24 hour space situation so that they have it in front of them, then it might stop coming up. Also, the board needs so documentation about what will prevent things like this in the future.
Friday January 9, 2004
Tim dictates reading for chalice lighting
Pat from LFD joins us to give us some info about CommonGround1. Steering Committee requested some more info about it since they’re trying to get a CommonGround3 going.
The feeling around the time of the first CommonGround was that LRY had just ended, conferences were not happening and adults, parents included, were nervous about having their kids involved in a UU youth organization. Each district was told by some continental leadership to send certain members of the district, and then the districts were left to decide who else from their district should come. Some districts (Ballou Channing) did not send enough youth delegates. There were many youth there, none from the same congregation. People were put in circle groups to break people up by region and experience. Consensus was used. There was an issue with adults following the same rules as youth (the particular issue was adults wanting to sleep in the same bed as their partners). Wonderful worship services. The governance structure, connection to the UUA, and the purpose of the UU youth organization were all decided upon here.
The UUA had staff and ministers there. The UUA paid for it. There were over 200 people there. The second CommonGround happened right after GA.
Q: Do you feel there needs to be another CommonGround?
A: Yes, I do. One of the major foci of it [in my opinion] would be to have one single group of youth instead of the 2 groups that I see going, which are continental and local youth.
Q: Do you think it was effective to have 200+ people there? I feel torn between having as much input as possible and having the size of the group be so decisions can be made.
A: The consensus model was the process that made CommonGround work. It worked well back there. The fact that we didn’t accomplish everything we had hoped in one year, may be because of all the people. Could we have done it in one year instead of two? Maybe.
Q: How much did the governance change after CommonGround from LRY?
A: LRY had an executive staff like presidents, treasurers, etc
Q: Do you notice things that were good right after CommonGrounds 1 and 2 that have gotten worse in our time?
A: We brought the vision home to our local congregations and celebrated youth after CommonGround. We invited ministers and religious educators in addition to youth to do workshops. They actively involved the congregation that was hosting a con, as well as the local congregations youth leadership. People felt empowered and in relation with the district leadership.
Q: Do you feel YRUU needs a total restructuring or just look at specific areas that need work?
A: This is my personal opinion. I see the dichotomy between local and continental youth. They need to be brought together and integrated. Coming together to re-imagine yourself allows you to do many creative things. It allows you to develop and live out your faith. You can get a new life to re-imagine who you want to be. Strengthen the partnership between YRUU and the UUA. Starting from fresh can be a really good idea. But do it in one year instead of 2.
Q: Do you think YRUU is as cliquey as LRY was?
A: LRY was very cliquey. YRUU has gotten worse with this as time has gone on. It seems like in the beginning YRUU empowered all youth to be part of the organization. I will say that I saw St Lawrence district cons diminish as time went on.
Q: At the first CommonGround were there a lot of Canadians and did you talk about what their role in the organization would be?
A: There were a lot of Canadians there. We didn’t really think about them differently because they were part of the UUA then. We did make fun of their accents.
One thing that could be an outcome of another CommonGround is more adult support in YRUU. I would like to see that recommitment from adults, a renewal. Because I’ve seen the support diminish as time has gone on. – Judith
There are a lot of issues out there on our ministry with youth that we need to deal with. At Youth Council the Resolution to have a CommonGround was not passed because more work was needed to be done. This Steering Committee is engineering a survey to assess the needs of youth in districts and local congregations. This SC will also draft a resolution to be passed at Youth Council 2004.
It is very important to me, that this venture [CommonGround] be a partnership. We want to get all of the stakeholders together for planning meetings. This preplanning will probably take a year.
TIMELINE
Jan 2004… survey goes out
Youth Council 2004… approves CommonGround
Fall 04… Create planning group
’04-’05… planning group begins working
Fall 05… invitations are sent out
Summer 06… CommonGround3 after GA St. Louis
Reasons to have CommonGround
* to keep YRUU on track
* lack of money
* need to meet goals we say we’re going to meet
* bring district and continental leadership together
* same leadership in position
How do we find a way to get info from youth who are not involved in their congregations? What would YRUU need to look like in order to get these youth involved?
GETTING INFO:
Surveys in
* congregational mailing
* list serves
* article in the UU Ministers Association (UUMA)
* Religious Leader
* The World
* Online survey
Other
* identify which congregations don’t have active youth groups and approach them directly, maybe interviews/focus groups. half a dozen interviews with congregations who are not involved in YRUU.
* interview/focus groups with success stories of youth groups, districts, etc. Half a dozen interviews with success stories.
* General Assembly focus groups.
* from Canadians
* interview people who went to CommonGrounds 1 & 2 (Wayne Arnason, Mark Morrisson Reed
TO DO FOR SUBCOMMITTEE
* create interview questions to ask youth and youth groups that are and are not involved.
* who exactly will we be contacting?
Partnership and Accountability
What role should the UUA board play, beyond blessing it? Money,
Natural allies: field staff, district presidents, congregational presidents (who are coming to GA), LFD staff group, DRUUMM, DRUUMM YaYA, Design/Transformation Team, LINC
Ask a board member to serve on the planning committee.
How do we contact these folx? Write them a letter, send an e-mail out to them,
MONEY
Q: Who is going to pay for this? How is YRUU accountable?
A: This is very high priority for me programmatically, and when something is high priority you find a way to pay for it. I think a conversation about how you could contribute monetarily would be a very healthy thing. Accountability is not just financial. In a partnership we’re both responsible for making sure things get done.
Post-survey: Bill’s Assistant Marjorie may be able to tabulate the survey results. Jova says that the SC subcommittee working on CommonGround should help tabulate so they can have help writing the resolution. Maybe we can have some spring break interns work on the surveys.
ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED
* YRUU vs. non YRUU congregations
* youth empowerment in a partnership
* role of the staff (youth office, YPSs) where should their energies be focused.
* how to get YRUU to work from the grassroots
* adult relations
* rules
* how can YRUU use money more effectively?
* stuff from LRP
* how do we connect our leadership: trainers, social justice folx, steering committee, youth group presidents
* the governmental structure of Youth Council, Steering Committee, and GA Youth Caucus
* how will the Transformation Team be a part of this remake?
* What does it mean that YRUU is a “sponsor organization”?
* putting the “R” back in YRUU
No new YPS, but we got our money for Trainings!!!! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Working a lot on same gender marriage. How can we leverage change in other states?
Building relationships at the national level with communities of color. Bill’s met with the NAACP religious leadership council. We are well received when we show up.
New Anti-Racism consultancy program that is being tested now. It uses the training that we’ve been doing over the last 10 years. We’re hoping to take congregations where they are and use what they’ve done to help them move further.
Better support for religious educators.
There’s a lay leadership site.
Next major public witness- march on Washington for reproductive rights in April.
Free registration at GA for congregational presidents
Voter registration
Public witness team has a process for choosing issues to work on, such as reproductive choice. This process may be useful for YRUU to look as we’ve talked about how do we go about taking a stance on issues.
Working out a process for electing youth members to the board.
Canadian youth are working hard to scrape their money together and using it as effectively as they can. There are still old networks from the old structure that are working together, such as the old St. Lawrence district. There are a few Canadian youth on the continental level.
GA Youth Caucus is still in the process of being revisioned.
AR Training happening in New Orleans. It was supposed to be a LINC training, but most of the energy was coming from YRUU and CUUYAN Steering Committees. So we’ll be trained.
Design Team will be at the New Orleans training and things are going well with that group.
CommonGround3
Establishing a better relationship with DRUUMM, especially between the youth. How does YRUU pick positions that are for youth of color with DRUUMM
Trying to figure out the role and responsibilities of the People of Color Caucus.
AR Training of Trainers being worked on by the Youth Office, YACM, Congregational Social Justice Making, Curriculum Director of LFD, and IDBM. Developing a training structured like LDCs, and SDCs.
SATUURDAY is coming back. And the title is
Chaplain Trainings
Youth have a lot of programming at GA and that is SOOOOOOOO exciting!
Because of the new Youth and Young Adult collaborations there is a group meeting to talk about what kind of guidelines need to be established to have a safe space for youth and young adults.
It is lifespan- infancy through all stages of adulthood. The changing needs of people at different stages of life. The most important goals or outcomes for folx, instead of focusing on content (ie: you should learn about buudhism) we want to focus on who do we want to be. We care about spiritual development, UU identity, we’re a religious community, faith development.
There are youth components of this program. One is a Coming of Age resource, which has never existed before. It is not one single program. It explains how to create your own that incorporates all the different components like spirituality but it will also give examples of good stories of COA. The second is a poetry project for high school aged youth. The process of youth voice being involved in this. So far, there have been representatives from the youth office on the curriculum project development, Steering Committee 3 years ago gave input, and focus groups of youth gave input for these projects. Youth also read over manuscripts of these curriculum before they are published. They’ll also be tested in youth groups.
“I believe that I am love and happiness is great for all people.”
There were issues with sexual harassment at the November DRUUMM Conference. It was the second annual conference for people of color and white anti-racist allies. This year it was also used as a time for different groups to meet (DRUUMM YaYA, YaYA Design Team). The
Design Team decided not to go about its designing in a different way than the UUA usually does. The Design Team will be assessing what the needs from the community are.
The annual spring YaYA DRUUMM and white allies conference will be in New York, NY this March. Some of the youth organizers have been having trouble getting in touch with one another. The main focus will be identity with AR/AO analysis to compliment it.
Alicia Gladman (British Colombia)- going well. There was a problem with their elections, a power struggle between youth and adults.
Heather DeLong (New Hampshire/Vermont)- she’s an out of state YCR because she’s at college. She’s been having a hard time getting info, getting AR started. She would like some input on how to implement it.
Jody Slezak (Metro New York)- had an LDC. They had a problem with their YAC because right now they pretty much let anyone on, they don’t have an election process. They have some AR workshops coming up, the first in their district. Wants info on JAHNNY DEPP.
Gareth Smail (Central MidWest District)- lack of continuity between conferences. Not many events happening lately. Elections in the spring.
Marcus Leifert (Pacific Central)- resigning because he is too stressed out with school. Their district is screwed because no churches want to support YRUU. No AR/AO. They’re trying to save their district right now.
Grace Garner (Pacific SouthWest)- district re-electing soon
Paul Kendrick (Post High TARR)-
Hannah Eller-Isaacs (Prarie Star District)- lots of cons. Pretty much one con a month. Problems with pot and vodka at the conferences. Adults have started a list with who is on the vodka and pot lists and youth have found out about this and are upset because some of them have been wrongly accused. SAC is enthused about AR.
Avalon Zimmerman (Mountain Desert)- still trying to deal with serious issues from last year, so they haven’t been focusing on AR or any other endeavors.
Jerry Franklin (adult from CMWD)- doing AR at his church. Someone outside
Marissa Gutierrez (CSAC)-
Vanessa Pope (CUUYAN rep)-
Matt Glatz (Northeast)- doing ok. Wants a little more AR resources.
Crystal Cook (Ohio Meadville)-
Mary Ellen Morgan (adult)-
Amy Leyenberger (SouthWest District)- working on Houston rally, codean for
SWUUSI, SWD AR TRAINING! WOOO!!!. She’ll be an apprentice at the AR training
in New Orleans. She’s been having workshops and putting out resources and
people are starting to get excited.
Katie McCauly (Florida)- wanted to know what was going on in YRUU outside florida.
Kendra Rodgers- excited about the Design Team.
Lehna Huie (People of Color Caucus)- codean for Spring DRUUMM YaYA conference. Frustrated about the planning of it.
Hope Johnson (adult)- looking for a church outside of NewYork to be a minister to. Is a trainer for the New Orleans training. Looking through the chaplain training manual for
Jenevra Bucklin-Lane (MassBay)- new YCR!!! Putting an advisor manual together. Sub committees doin stuff, but it’s not working out well. 2 conferences and a social justice con coming up.
Lydia Pelot-Hobbs (WAM)-
Erica Lantz (People of Color Caucus)-
Brianna Rioux (Clara Barton)-
Angelica Adkins (Thomas Jefferson)-
Lori Worthen (Mountain Desert)-
Molli Freedman-Lynn (Mid-South)-
Rachelle Rickards (Western Canada)- she is transitioning out of leadership and trying to help out her RYSC and youth group. They have a cluster con coming out, plus their newsletter. They will be hosting CanUUdle in Edmonton.
Dale Brydon (QuOM)- 2 adults of the YAG. Getting overwhelmed. Another newsletter is coming out. Putting out a survey to find out what is going on with youth groups in the region. 2 Cluster cons east of Ottawa. Crossborder stuff going on. And planning stuff for summer. Happy with their relationship with St. Lawrence.
Kyle Butler (Pacific Northwest)- joint YAC meeting in Vancouver, BC. Their AGM is being held in Victoria, BC. Last con went well. Having trouble because there is no spring con site as of yet. Making LOTS of money at cons.
Annie Powell (Joseph Priestly)- LFD coordinator is not very nice. She’s been telling youth not to be a part of YRUU. There will be a youth summit in March. Came $200 ahead on their budget so will be giving it to Youth Council or SATUURDAY. Social Justice Conference
Siri Larsen (Heartland)- 2 successful conferences. Send money to youth council and Canada. LDC in 2 weeks. AAT hopefully in May (they will invite CMWD and Ohio Meadville). Social Justice con this spring.
Words from Tim Fitz
Do we want the nominating committee to put someone on the ballot for a youth Trustee?
Youth Trustee working group will meet with Tim tomorrow night.
DRUUMM- trying to make another sub called La Familia Global, which will encompass those who identify as Latino/Latinas, Hispanics, though the specifics are still being decided.
APIC- There’s a conference that will happen in Boston at the end of February. On Friday the sticky rice project (an AR training/workshop) will happen, Saturday identity, AR, and Asian/Pacific Islanders’ role in UUA. Delores Cuenta from United Farm Workers will be one of the 4 major programs at GA.
CUC- Canada still exists. Hannah will go to their AGM at the end of May. They would like an American liaison. Hannah and Jesse will be doing a workshop at the AGM.
People’s Institute and Freedom School- will have their huge advanced training in February. It’s a real big deal. Huge cultural sharing. Organizers roundtable is a tool for everyone doing organizing in New Orleans. Once a week there’s an organizers roundtable on a different topic like education. Next week is the first meeting to plan this summer’s Freedom School. Freedom School did an AR training at this and last year’s YSJC and one of the youth, Aubry, and an institute trainer, Jyaphia, will be two of the trainers at the New Orleans AR training.
Food Not Bombs-
UUJEC- VOTER REGISTRATION!!! Creating space at all major protests in the US for UUs.
CUUYAN
Paul Kendrick
RCRC- is coming to do a workshop at JPD. Galina Yakovenko is the YRUU liaison to
LINC- Laura will e-mail us next week about them.
CUSJ (Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice)- planning a intergenerational Canadian social justice conference. Stuff will be happening at the AGM.
UUDPR-
LUNA- Planning for GA. The Pinata project to get people out to the streets to tour LA.
Jubilee World
GAYCRTF
UU Washington Office- We may be having a gender conference before the reproductive choice march. There may be a 1 day AR workshop in JPD that Annie will do with Rob.
UU BoT
CUC BoT- new process for electing a youth observer to the board that will be more accountable to youth.
CSW
LISTEN
CUCAR (CUC Anti-Racism Taskforce)- not much happening yet. Some talking on the listserve, but no action. Hopefully workshops at the AGM and other places.
Crossroads- Jason and Megan went to a training on Design and Transformation Team building that was really helpful in understanding how our teams should proceed.
Betty Jeanne Reuters Ward is selected as 2004 June YPS.
Saturday January 10, 2004
Chalice Lighting
Report on what’s new
Money- we got an extra $2000 in the budget for both youth council and steering committee. This is still not enough money to cover our costs. Whittier College is confirmed for August 2-8. We would like to meet a day before at a church to pre-plan.
Same gender housing. Youth Council is before ConCon.
Special Events: Annie, Hannah, Jova, Meggie, Megan
Alright, so, umm… we had some words for wisdom for all of steering committee and youth council, “make sure the schedule starts on time”.
Super Secret is an awards ceremony. Everyone would have to dress up, walk down the red carpet, and get their picture taken by the poparazzi. Awards would include stuff like “best brown hair”. After the ceremony we’ll have the dance so people will be all dressed night. It’ll be the after-party.
Water Olympics or some other kind of Olympics but they need to include people with disabilities. Or some other kind of Olympics.
Some type of social justicey/calm activity like the hunger banquet, but something new that people won’t have done before.
Other community building games during the week
A-team tug of war and other A-team activities/competitions.
Real World/Road Rules Challenge with a-teams and less of the multi-million dollar budget.
Coffee House
Business: Katie, Asha, Tim, Jose
Plenary last year went way too late. People should have their resolutions in earlier. The first day there will be a “how to write a resolution” workshop. The third day they must turn their resolutions in so they can go be photocopied. Day 4 resolutions will be passed or sent back. Not sure if we should have an outside facilitator come. Or one member of steering committee could be the business manager. Or the job of facilitator could rotate among steering committee members.
Possible Speakers: Bill Sinkford, Wayne Arnason
Want a resolution circus, reports from different peeps (youth office)
Phone chain: encourage people from districts to write resolutions before youth council. Maybe an ad for resolutions should go in synapse.
Thoughts of facilitation: The lesson of poor facilitation was learned at last year’s youth council and maybe we shouldn’t spend our money on a facilitator.
People were unclear about what their positions were, so there needs to be a way for people to have that explained. In the prepackets and during a plenary we could do that. The role of Steering Committee also needs to be made more clear.
AR/AO Trainers and other events/activities: Jazmin, Laura , Kyle, Jason
$4000 for the trainers.
Options:
1. Seattle Young People’s Project- a totally youth run group out of Seattle. Youth undoing institutionalized racism. Youth empowerment
2. People’s Institute- been doing AR training for a long time. Based in New Orleans. Youth Freedom School is the youth initiative from this group
3. Challenging White Supremacy- from last year. If Chris and Clare do it again then we’d be interested in getting some trainers of color to back them up.
4. SOUL (School of Unity and Liberation)- develops “ a new multi-racial generation of young organizers- especially young womyn, young people of color, queer youth and low-income youth-who will have the skills and the vision they need to struggle for the liberation of all oppressed people. These young leaders need to be trained in nuts-and-bolts organizing skills to mobilize their communities, and they need to develop visions for social change.”
To Do: this group will get in touch with these groups to find out how much they cost and if they can come (this week). The next week at the New Orleans they will finalize who we’re talking with.
Some of their positions are really unclear. The Junior High and Post High TARRs don’t have any kind of tasks or responsibilities or ways of being accountable. There should be a working group to work out what responsibilities of these people could be
There was no clear process for accepting people as observers to come, people just kind of brought their friends. They had no purpose there. If we want to have observers it is important to have money budgeted for them to come, otherwise it turns out that people with money are able to come to this event, and people who may be just as interested in the process are left out because they don’t have money.
The relationship is still unclear. There needs to be communication between the observer and youth council and steering committee in order to do their work on the board. It makes sense to have the observer come to youth council instead of the trustee because the trustee isn’t supposed to have any links to other organizations.
Observers: Annie, Hannah
If someone from an organization wants to come then their group needs to pay their way there. Hope to have the Youth Observer to the board at Youth Council. If someone from a group wants to come they can also apply to come via YFUUD grant. People who want to come just because they are interested are not allowed.
People of Color Caucus: Katie, Jazmin, Meggie, Jova, Kyle (who was asleep so he doesn’t count)
worked
on the application to be more accountable to DRUUMM. Made a rough draft of the app. Timeline for POCC 2004
We talked about involving the DRUUMM members in creating the application and the process used to choose members. The selection will then be done by members of POCAC
At-Larges: Laura, Asha, Tim
The people in these positions will look at their positions and try to create more specific responsibilities for them like YCRs have.
Transitional Age Range Representatives (TARRs)- being a part of planning the JR. High welcoming circle at GA, watching for ageism at Youth Council, create resources for district (Jr. Con), have a Jr. High section on the website, getting in touch with people from districts that have stuff going on to get info collected and distributed.
Everything is checked and accounted for– K Dizzel
Some members of Steering Committee wanted to include Identity Caucusing in the agenda. So we did. People LOVED it! Let’s do it again!
Brain Storming
Worship: Steering Committee plans the first and last worships. A worship planning group will meet daily with the facilitation of Jova and Kyle. There’s some kind of theme: Dreams (Sharing your dreams, getting to know each other, and justice)
Monday August 2, 2004
12:00pm= Lunch
2:00pm= Registration
5:00pm= Din Din
6:00pm= Orientation
7:15pm= A-Teams!!!!
7:45pm= Trainer Intro
8:15pm= ID Groups
9:00pm= Break (worship people meet) (SC quick check-in)
9:30pm= Battleship
Tuseday August 3, 2004
8:00am= Break FAST!!
9:00am= AR Training/Common Analysis/Covenenting
11:00am= Group Activity
12:00pm= Lunch
1:00pm= Plenary 1
3:30pm= Free Time (SC meet at 3:30)
5:00pm= A-Teams
6:00pm= Dinner
7:00pm= ID Groups
8:00pm= Special Event
9:30pm= Break (worship people meet)
10:00pm= Worship
Wednesday August 4, 2004
8:00am= Breakfast
9:00am= Plenary 2
10:00am= A-Teams (Resolution Focus, Discuss and share resolution)
11:00am= Free Time (SC meet)
12:00pm= Lunch
1:00pm= ARRRR!! Pirate Time
3:00pm= ID Groups
4:00pm= Break
4:30pm= Plenary 3
6:00pm= Din Din
7:00pm= Community Building
9:30pm= Worship
Thursday August 5, 2004
8:00am= Breakfast
9:00am= AR
11:00am= ID Groups
12:00pm= Lunch
1:00pm=Community Building
2:30pm= Break (SC meets)
3:00pm= Plenary 4
6:00pm= A-Team, Dinner
7:00pm= YFUUD
9:30pm= Worship
10:30pm= Special Event
Friday August 6, 2004
8:00am= Breakfast
9:00am=AR
11:00am= ID Groups
12:00pm= Lunch (SC meets)
1:00pm= Free Time
2:00pm= Guest Speaker
3:00pm= Plenary 5
5:00pm= A-Teams
6:00pm= Din Din
7:00pm= Super Secret Activity
9:00pm= Dance
11:00pm= Worship
Saturday August 7, 2004
9:00am= Breakfast
10:00am= Plenary 6
12:00pm= Lunch
1:00pm= Free Time
2:00pm= AR
4:00pm= ID Groups
5:30pm= Break (SC meet)
6:00pm= Dinner
7:00PM= Community Building
8:00pm= Cawfee Haus
10:00pm= Worship
A-teams: Cake decorating with you’re a-team. A-teams should be as diverse as possible: people from different areas, people that have different jobs, ages,
Asking for YRUU to sign on as a supporter of this campaign which has the goal of reducing teen smoking
-YRUUers smoke, attacking them
-Attacking tobacco industry not individual smokers
We decide to get more information on this (Annie will) and put in the youth council listserve as a discussion to be decided on later.
-Resolution passed at youth council
-Need to put info on registration forms for conferences, websites, hold workshops on this
-We need to start acting on it
-Phone chain-talk to yc folx and tell them to distribute information on voter registration and put links on websites about it
-Lots of orgs. Working on voter registration in swing states.
-Megan drafting a letter to YCR’s with swing states in their district to hook them up with these organizations doing the voter registration work currently. Get SACs to help. Just to pump people up in districts about this.
-How does this work with Canada? Con call with asha and megan to discuss this
-Jazmin, Kyle, Annie have travel paid for
-Jova’s on staff-no costs for her.
-People can apply for scholarships
-No youth housing, Westin recommended place for youth to stay
-Everybody who messed up on sending in registration on time can/should pay the $50 late fee cuz its not the youth offices fault.
-Everybody needs to set up their own housing, send YO the bill
-be visible, maybe specific time when we’re all together so folks can meet us
-Mabye open/public steering committee meeting that anyone can go to
-Support for staff
-Mix and Mingle with people
-Act real excited about everything
-Introduce ourselves at HUUPLA
-Encourage people to/ yourself go business meeting
Jazmin