Youth Council 2006
Walker Center - Boston, MA
July 30^th through August 5t^h   

Attendees

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

(note: there are no business notes from Thursday)

Friday

Present:

Zarinah Ali (PoCC)
Nick Allen (YCR - PSD)
Casey Asprooth-Jackson (YCR - STL)
Sarah Baxter (YCR - QuOM)
Maggie Boylan (YCR - CMWD)
Becca Brown (YCR - H; SC)

James Brown (Adult At-Large)
Charlie Burke (YCR - MBD)
Sean Capaloff-Jones (PoCC)
Tony Carpenter (SC)
Sara Castro (SC)
Joo Young Choi (YPS)
Lyn Conley (BOT, SC)
Sam Cory (YCR - NE)
Margaret Cummings (YCR - PCD)
Helia Daigeau (PoCC)
Beth Dana (YMA)
Marissa Gutierrez (YMA)
Amelia Harati (PoCC)
Kristen Harper (Adult At-Large)
Jessy Hennesy (YCR - MDD)
Eliza Hens-Greco (YCR - OMD)
Carolina Holt (YCR - NHVT)
Lehna Huie (SC)
Paul Hunt (YCR - Canadian At-Large)
Derek Kravitz (YCR - PSD)
Lizzie Lamb (YCR - PNWD)
Braeden Lentz (TARR - 18-20)
Alice Mandt (SC)
Kat Manker-Seal (SC)
India McKnight (PoCC)
Chris Mitchell (C*SAC)
Elisabeth Moore (TARR - 12-14)
Ian Moore (YRUU Rep to Consultation Task Force)
Nan Moore (SC Adult)
Tsuki Naka (YCR - BCR)
Eric Neal (YCR - SWD)
Kasey Neiss (YCR - MNY)
Paul Phillips (POA)
Rose Roberts (YCR - WCUC)
Mary Roffers (Adult At-Large)
Connie Rowse (YCR - CBD)
Julian Sharp (BOT)
Robert W. Smith (Adult At-Large)
Laura Spencer (Adult At-Large)
Terry Stafford (Adult At-Large)
Elwood Sturtevant (Adult At-Large)
Ethan Taylor (YCR - MSD)
Katrina Thralls (YCR - JPD)
Jova Vargas (YRUU Rep to Consultation Task Force)
Victoria Woodard (YCR - FLD)

Sunday

Covenant
Rules
Orientations
-First Year YCRs
-Second Year YCRs
-Adults
-At-Larges
-Young Adults/Facilitators

Monday

YCR Reports

Victoria - Florida

• increasing attendance
• stayed together
  
Lizzie - Pacific Northwest

• 2 cons, attendance smaller
• Youth Advisors pulled
• Sponsor Con
• Piloting AR/AO in congregations
• Youth Empowerment Services (YES) - appointed positions of Youth Ministry Consultants
• 5 new youth groups
• trainings for youth ministry consultants
• Con Con 2008 hosts
  
Eliza - Ohio Meadville

• 4 cons with 100 attendance
• huge social justice work - great energy
• YAC grew
• strong leadership
• eliminate YAC clique
  
Connie - Clara Barton

• YAC focused on relations with adult Board
• 2 members asked to leave YAC
  
• poor communication
  
• social justice had problems
• had a "School Con" on problems with education system
• issues with cliqueyness
• no elections (nullified) - NO YAC instead of New YAC - will be re-elected in fall
  
Charlie - Mass Bay

• 5 cons, small
• SAC Con 70-80 people
• Excellent new district youth coordinator (Chris Cayer)
• Need SDC (missed 3 years)
• doing a little AR/AO work - need more
• "Call-Out Committee" deals with sexuality
  
Margaret - Pacific Central

• SDC and LDC
• newbie meetings at cons
• Council (not YAC), need to find adult leaders
• age range 12-22 may change but need to get UUYAN programming up

Carolina - New Hampshire/Vermont

• better communication
  
• better finances
• attendance biggest concern - tiny cons

Jessy - Mountain Desert

• 2 out of 3 social justice cons - done by clusters
• youth-adult relations improved until last con - adults only ones who knew what was going on
• need ideas for making business meetings more effective
  Sarah - QuOM
  
• madlib
  Derek - Pacific Southwest
  
• excellent year
• 5 cons in California
• election Con went well
• younger youth, good transition
• need more social justice and spirituality
• District Assembly not welcoming to youth
  Casey - St. Lawrence
  
• Looks good from the outside
  
• Good relations with district board, have a youth on the board
• BUT not really doing anything, not productive
• need programming
  Katrina - Joseph Priestley
• 9 cons, 40ish attendees
• lost a lot of money for youth programs
  Kasey - Metro NY
• Kasey is new SAC
• 4 social cons, 2 working cons (social action and anti-racism)
• Lots of newbies (but still no growth)
• outreach coordinator visits congregations - very effective
• ICO Intentional Community Outreach at cons
  Maggie - Central Midwest
  
• 3 cons 150-250 people
• 3 Area Youth Councils - try to do things on local levels for action and bonding
• need to bring back spirituality and community
• stamp out cliques
  Sam - Northeast
  
• didn't attend YC last year
  
• 5 cons
• good social justice cons
• in 2007 NHVT and NE Districts will begin sharing a Program Consultant/Youth Coordinator
  Nick - Prairie Star
  
• not at last 3 YCs
• district is growing - hired more staff (Program Consultant and Youth/Young Adult Coordinator)
• low tolerance initiative at cons - safety
• need to increase communication
• only one district con - elections, the rest are "district seal of approval" congregationally-hosted cons
  Tsuki - British Columbia Region
  
• reinvigorate
  
• 1st AR/AO workshop
  
• met with PNWD - adults took over
  
• some YAC dropped out
  
• 4 committed youth keeping it going
  Paul Hunt - Canadian At-Large
• Explained Canada
  Rose - Western Canada Region
  
• large but empty
  
• 2 cons - very small
  
• no money
  
• lack of developing leadership - no critical mass
  
• no adult on RRYSC
  
• no bylaws
  
• junior high con coming up - the future!
  Chris - C*SAC (National SAC for Canada)
  
• develop continental website like her Canadian one - needs info about GA
  Braeden - Post High TARR
  
• concern - bridging to nowhere
  
• need to know about CUUYAN info
  
• inconsistency among districts about when you leave
  
• GAP is too huge from YRUU into 18-35, need 18-25 support
  Elisabeth - Junior High TARR
  
• 1 ½ years ago became active continentally
  
• develop resources for newbies so they know what YRUU is and has to offer

AR/AO Training
Overview of the afternoon:
-Chalice Lighting
-Opening Circle
-Identities, Gifts, Challenges and Expectations
-Mattering and Marginality
-Break (10 min)
-Ground Rules
-Team Development
-Welcoming Resistance
-Break (10 min)
-People Like Us: Social Class in America (Video)
-Why Do We Caucus?
1 hour of ID Groups


Sara Castro shares reading from Rosemary Bray McNatt
Laura Manning shares reading from Rebecca Parker
Sing "Enter Rejoice and Come In"
Pass the pulse exercise - get in tune with each other to anticipate when the pulse will come

Identities, Gifts, and Challenges:
Write on index cards the identities you bring into the room - think as broadly as you can about multiplicity of identities you bring into the process. On other side of card write the gifts and capacities you bring to the work.
Groups of three to share for 6 minutes what came up for you when you were writing stuff on the cards.
Write on index card what you want to get out of/take home from this workshop. Share with someone next to you.


• Better understanding of AR/AO
• Diverse opinions
• Learn ways to bring it home to community and district
  
• Find people and resources in each district to help with AR/AO work
• Resources about how to introduce AR/AO to people who it's new to
• Learn as much as possible b/c interested in applying for Groundwork and starting AR group at school
  
• Assess progress and status of AR/AO work in YRUU, feel satisfied and comfortable with that work and how it's going
  
• Ideas on how to bring this work into adult communities, onto campuses
  
• How to approach everyone - doing the work with love as well as a true sense of seriousness (so people aren't hurt, but don't blow it off)
  
• Ideas for how to incorporate into RE and programs for younger kids
  
• Develop new mindset, open mind
  
• How to deal with people who are very resistant to AR work
  
• Ability to change racial tension at school
  
• Excited about discussion of classism - looking for good techniques to deal with it
  
• Broaden ability to see how my actions and lack thereof affect people around me
• Make it so that it's not only the POC who are doing the work and educating people
  
• How to approach people without making them feel bad about things they've done - do it in a way to build relationship rather than bring about guilt
  

Mattering and Marginality:
Visualization of time when you felt like you mattered and time when you felt marginalized.
Write down thoughts on worksheet.
Share thoughts out loud.
Why do we do this in the UU community?

• We often marginalize people who haven't done this work as long
  
• Mattering/marginality come hand in hand in YRUU, happen in the same situations/settings
  
• Being welcoming is important
• Get caught up in our principles and sometimes don't realize we marginalize folks too
  
• Helps us work with each other
• Helps bring it home personally
  
• Understand on emotional level rather than just intellectualizing it all
  
  Big difference in what people can give to the community depending on how much they
  feel they belong in the group. Growth of UUism, how do we become more diverse - this
  conversation (marginality/mattering) needs to be brought into these discussions. We all
  know what it feels like to matter or be marginalized. We also know what it feels like to
  do it to others.
  
  Ground Rules:
  For the AR programming.
  
• Step up, step back
  
• Get out of your comfort zone
  
• Talk to each other
  
• We're all teachers/learners, gather and grow together
  
• Remember that we're all here to support each other in the struggle
  
• Allow people their humanity
  
• Remember whose shoulders we stand on - owe history and struggle
  
• Remember the importance of community - change comes from a collective
  
• Be aware of power dynamics
  
• Remember that everyone comes from different background
  
• Engage in conflict lovingly
  
• Don't assume you know everyone
  
• Use "I" statements
  
• Remember racism isn't just black and white - remember to include all people of color in discussion
  
• Stay at the table
  


Stages of Team Development:
1. Forming - neutral, meeting new people, finding out what's going on, people are dependent on convener of the team to give them a sense of purpose
E.g. Youth Council this week
2. Storming - people begin to position themselves in the team in terms of role and power, difficult time in the life of a team, lots of good ideas die on the vine during this period b/c people don't recognize it as a natural part of group process, need to build community in the face of the issues (mattering and marginality happens, team gets divided), address differences to establish new norms
3. Norming - establish how we're going to be together as a community, have already looked at some of the biggest challenges before you, groups can get stuck in this phase
4. Performing - strong interdependence on each other, mattering is very important in the life of the team, easy group to work with b/c can take on much more with less energy tied up in conflicts/avoidance
5. Transforming - team will change depending on level of difficulty its taking on or other changes in the team, transition

Can bounce between these stages of development - when gain members, lose members, take on new project, etc.

Seven Levels of Resistance (Chris Hobgood):
As change becomes more personal, people are often more resistant to making those
changes.
1. Maintenance
2. Reinforcement - deliberate intervention, but goal is to put things back how they were
3. Adapting - people begin to come to the table, hearts may not really be in it yet
4. Revisioning - begin to do work in a way that we integrate shared values (diversity, AR/AO, etc.), look at lives and community in a way that embraces all involved
5. Retooling - if we had the tool, we would have already created an AR/AO community, so we need ongoing training b/c we're not equipped by society to do this work
6. Restructuring - if use new set of tools we'll run into bump in the structure that won't let us move forward, use of new tools wll show us where structure can't support new vision
7. Transforming - the result of all these other things, internalization of new vision and reality, one thing to say these and another to put it into practice

"Welcoming Resistance" by William Chris Hobgood
"Soul Work" by Marjorie Bowens Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones
"People Like Us" Video

Caucusing

UUA and CUC Introductions

YRUU Visioning


• Communicate more between districts
  
• Be radically inclusive
  
• More multiracial
  
• More outreach to youth of color
  
• More info on when cons are
  
• YRUU send out more AR/AO resources to individual congregations
  
• More YRUU activists working in their communities
  
• More bridges with the community and with surrounding areas
  
• Getting back to following basic components of what YRUU is really about, taking each of them seriously, more of a balance (have lost spirituality and social action in some places) - when you come in no one tells you what YRUU is
  
• Resources for social justice and leadership development
  
• Get back to the function and structure of YRUU - more info on governance and structure
  
• Safe community for youth to grow in
  
• Include environmental justice and other issues in social justice efforts
  
  Share purposes of YRUU:
  
• Fostering spiritual depth
  
• Clarifying both individual and universal religious values as part of our growth process
  
• Provide and manifest greater understanding of UUism
  
• Encourage the flow of communication between youth and adults
  
• Etc.
  
  Five working groups will be:
  AR/AO and Social Justice
  Governance
  Outreach
  Youth/Adult Relations
  Spirituality
  
  Count off into six groups. Each group addresses all five areas.
  
  
• AR/AO - range of different trainings (not just beginner), POC-specific AR/AO trainers
  
• Variety in social justice - more than just AR/AO
  
• Everyone should be really clear about governance structure (all youth and adults)
  
• Infiltrate the UUA - get youth in leadership positions that aren't YRUU
  
• Prevent youth leader burnout (same youth do jobs over and over again) - reach out in congregations and districts and bring them to events, bring new people
  
• Adults need to be trained by youth, youth talk about what they want adults to know, not just trained by other adults who think they know what youth want
  
• Bring back spirituality
  
• More SDCs
  
• Make sure people have awareness of cultural misappropriation - problem with a lot of UU worship and spirituality
• Working cons!!!
  
• Focus on UUism and UU history
  
• Position in YO dedicated to youth of color support and programming
  
• DRUUMM and Groundwork activity in all districts
  
• More support for bridgers
  
• Communication between different districts
  
• Stronger youth groups
  
• Put the R back in YRUU
  
• Canadian position on YRUU SC
  
• Burn out prevention
  
• Adults who have issues with cons should talk to youth and not district boards
  
• More inter-district events
  
• Districts more interested in AR/AO work
  
• More non-AR/AO social action work
  
• Different people in leadership
  
• More special events variety
  
• More adults in leadership
  
• More information to newbies - what is YRUU, etc.
  
• More info from district boards about what's happening continentally
  
• Outreach to POC
  
• Friendlier environment at cons, fewer cliques
  
• More ID caucusing at district level
  
• Better communication throughout the continent
  
• Let younger youth be leaders
  
• Resources on social justice, spirituality, youth groups, etc.
  
• Identity work - find out who you are so you can talk with other people
  
• Increase youth-adult relations - youth on boards, young adults more involved in youth work
  
• Continuity in districts
  
• Don't lose spirituality when you get more involved in governance
  
• Build safe and comfortable communities at youth events, code of ethics - people will leave if it's not a safe community
  
• Life changing social action
  
• Let people know what YRUU is, in congregations
  
• We demand fun time! More community building
  
• Information about continental events
  
• Inform all about activism, especially newbies
  
• Create more congregational youth groups
  
• Budget info for youth!
  
• More youth on UUA Board
  
• Create stronger ties with adult community
  
• Districts share worship ideas
  
• Networking between U.S. and Canadian youth
  
• Save the trees!
  
• More communication between SC and YCRs during the year
• More support for bridgers and college-aged people. Particularly those that are not
  in college.
  o Continental Bridger Con - all local people are invited
  o Strengthen campus ministry and young adult groups
  o Build partnerships between congregations and campus/YA groups
  o Promote bridging packets for youth aging into young adulthood
  o Mentoring relationships between bridgers and young adults
  
• Youth and young adult collaboration at GA
  
• Cool, respectable, AR/AO knowledgeable young adult leaderships
  
• Locally-based anti-creeper curricula
  o WaA young adults
  o Former LRYer youth advisor creepers
  o Cosmic Truckers
  
• More young adults become youth advisors
  
• Really strong city-wide young adult networks - advertising, money/resources
• Work with DREs on AR/AO, bridger/young adult support, bridging packets (YO push these packets)
  
• Let churches know about UU college students so they can reach out
• Support and promote young adult ministers (don't currently get as much support or credibility)
• Mentorship relationships between youth and young adults
  
• Youth Office:
  o Connect bridgers
  o Encourage youth to join young adult/campus ministry groups, go to Opus/Concentric
  
• More youth representation on congregational and district boards
  
• Best practices resources - guidelines for congregations on membership age, board representation, etc.
  
• Training and education for boards on youth-adult relationships and how to work as teams
  
• More programming where adults and youth are doing things together, rather than separate programming all the time
  
• Progressive responsibility model - instilling responsibility and empowerment in youth and children from a young age so they can grow into it
  
• Explore restorative justice in both youth and adult communities
  
• Increase youth endowment for funding
  
• Mentorship opportunities and resources for bridgers
  
• Adult support for campus ministry - don't assume everyone is in college b/c some stay at home in their congregations
• Intentional AR/AO training for adults who work with youth
  
• Job positions in YO would be staggered two year positions
  
• POC Outreach and Support Specialist in the YO, coordinate with DRUUMM YaYA
  
• Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Specialist in YO, work with Groundwork
  
• Handbooks and manuals for YPSs and YMAs
• Mission statement developed by YRUU and YO that includes who we are serving and our commitment to AR/AO/Youth Empowerment
  
• Encourage YO members to create communication between Board, Administration, and YRUU
• 1-week paid work week to create AR/AO youth-friendly resources

Tuesday

Community Building

Consultation Workshop

Let's duu it/Let's muuv it Orientation

How to Write a Resolution

AR/AO Program
We are framing the future. We CAN change the world.
We must frame the future in right relationship.
Change takes time. Some of us want the changes to have happened yesterday, but it takes time. Need to build a super highway.

1968 - MLK Jr's assassination; UUA Black Empowerment movement; FULLBAC (full support for the Black Affairs Council); BAC trying to get support for moving their work forward; POC joining UU congregations but had to fit right into the "white reality" rather than congregations changing; Black Caucus walked out of GA

1970-1990 - Period of shutdown and silence. Because of pain we had experienced during the Black Empowerment controversy, we couldn't talk about race in our congregations. Guilt, anger, lack of safety. "Urban justice work" was code word for racial justice work during that time.

1980s-1990s - Began to enter discussion about race again.

1997 - GA passed a resolution (after five years of small group discussion) encouraging UU community/congregations to do anti-racist, anti-oppressive and multicultural work. Some people embraced the resolution and others were very resistant.

2006 - Responsive resolution passed at GA saying every congregation in next year should do one AR/AO program and report on it next year at GA. UUA staff created a website of resources. Youth are helping to move the Association along because youth (esp. youth of color) are not experiencing right relation.

2007 - Summit on Youth Ministry. 10 year anniversary of opening the AR/AO conversation in the UUA. Still trying to "sell" it 10 years later.

Trying to live into a framework of what it truly means to be an anti-oppressive community.

How do we lead to transform?

Transformation:
Emotional Intelligence - understanding the relationship between how we feel and how we behave
Structural Intelligence - understanding of relationship between a structure/system and how we behave
Spiritual Intelligence - understanding of self to level of connection (world, community, environment); recognizing relationship between one's core beliefs and their behavior

Have to function in all three of these areas to transform.
Emotional intelligence is often lacking - inability to be in right relationship. Has become OK somehow in our culture.

Social Change and Social Justice:
If we're doing social justice well we won't need AR/AO because that will be the way we live.
Accountability, Justice, Empowerment ---> Social Change

Community:
Right Relationship is our goal
Reconciliation is how we get into right relationship
Accountability is how we stay in right relationship
All three of these work together to form Beloved Community

When accountability is present, we're not questioning accountability/right relationship because we know it's there. It's the establishment of trust.
Accountability is key to social justice, key to community building, and key to transformation.

Accountability diagram exercise.
Center is the center of power:

"…race and all its categories have no significance outside of systems of privilege and oppression, and it is these systems that created them." - Allan G. Johnson's interpretation of statement by James Baldwin

We've all been socialized to be accountable, obedient, etc. to that center of power.
Learning how to be accountable to the marginalized groups leads us toward transformation. Groups on margins also need to be in right relations with each other.

What does accountability look like?
Marriage equality
Sunday school stories

What's the difference between apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation?

Avoidance: Silence and denial is an avoidance of relationship.
Negative Projection: Buttons easily pushed, preoccupation with the problem, complaining about other person, justifying own actions
Encounter: Communicating with the person, shift from judging and defending to listening and sharing
Apology, Forgiveness: Empathizing with the other person
Personal Resolve: Moving from focus on the issue to focus on learning and growth
Mutual Resolve: You trust that the other has resolved and moved from focus on the issue to focus on learning and growth
Right Relations: Hold each other in esteem and are accountable for communication and new behavior

Peer mediation isn't about reconciling the problems or conflicts that are there.
If you bring third person in you have to be clear about motives - not about getting them on your side. There as a resource to help you move toward reconciliation.

Intrapersonal - reconciliation with yourself
Interperson - reconciliation between individuals
Intragroup - reconciliation within a group to keep it a strong community
Intergroup - reconciliation between groups

Pair up and talk about first experience where you realized race played a factor.

Racial Identity Development:
Goal is to establish healthy identity around race.
POC and white people are socialized into a racial identity.

POC (developed by William Cross, based on African American ID development)

Evaluation of today's AR/AO session:
Positive
ID groups
AR/AO work - a great first experience
Very inclusive when talking about different groups
New activities!
Feels like almost everything is inclusive to Canadians
Like UU perspective on the work, makes it more real
Gradually moved into AR/AO work, way things are being presented is helpful, flow
Concrete, not just theory
Heart examples
Pace - have time to write things down

Delta
Pay attention to time/schedule
More time needed for ID groups

More info about how to bring this back to district
Extreme separation is hard to feel included
Need more moving around and energy breaks
Role plays, more interactive parts
Different ways of sharing our ideas and thoughts
Not all learning styles are being addressed

Paul does process check report
-Energy is low
-Things move a little quickly, preventing shyer people from participating

When doing searches for ministers for a congregation, the congregation needs to identify where in the stages they are. Immersion ministers have trouble when come into preencounter congregations, and pre-encounter ministers have trouble when come into immersion congregations. Search committees, boards, nominating committees need to get trained in an analysis of this.

Question for leaders: Have you been through the UUA's anti-racism work? Are you willing to go through? (If not willing, turned down from leadership position. YRUUers can help shape some of the processes that get people in leadership positions.

ID Groups

Consensus and Business Etiquette Workshop

Wednesday

AR/AO Program
Bill speaks about "journey toward wholeness." Brokenness in our faith community which is brought by racism. Each of us carries this brokenness in our own hearts. Contradictions between our country's supposed commitment to liberty/justice and how we actually behave in the world. Journey toward wholeness is way of seeking healing, finding reconciliation, working for justice, creating right relationship in our communities, congregations, and in our world. We're called into this journey by a 1997 UUA GA resolution "Toward an Anti-Racist UUA." This is a sacred document that defines an identity for our community and calls us into new ways of being. It calls all of us into this journey and into this work.

Responsive reading of the resolution.

Call to struggle with diversity in the UUA. Formed five year plan. 1995 Charlotte GA - had whole day devoted to AR/AO programs.

Critical questions came up in discussion leading up to the resolution (1992-1997):

Friday

AR/AO Program
Many processes we use are not designed for inclusion, but for efficiency. Look at the room we're sitting in - lots of tables and microphones. This is the way people in the white power structure do business. We didn't have this same "box" setup at the Walker Center. It was more fluid there. If we are successful at changing the white powersystem, the business of the UUA will not be structured this way. An invitation!

How do we take the work back home?
1. What are the stories, examples, and models of what's going on in congregations and districts that we can learn from? What are learnings from those that can be helpful for everyone?
2. Resources from Groundwork trainers
3. Resources from UUA
4. On the ground tools - how to bring the conversation home

"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
If you can get a certain number of people on board you'll reach the tipping point. Then "changes happen in one dramatic moment." Want a message that is sticky and contagious - people are connectors embodying the message. Think about seven levels of
readiness (rather than seven levels of resistance).

Small groups to talk about, in your part of the world, what signs are you seeing of movement? What's evidence of something being built, signs that the one dramatic tipping point moment might happen?

Julian Sharp reports about UUA BOT.

Clarify the consensus process.
Questions about the process.
Tony facilitates. Kat takes stack.

YRUU Proposal from the UU-United Nations Office
(The UU United Nations Office serves as a gateway for UU's to learn about, participate in, and take action on major UN issues such as human rights, peace, equity, and environmental sustainability. We are the official representative of the UUA to the UN.)

Reid Robinson presents the proposal.

Proposal: One UU-UNO Envoy (envoy 1: a diplomat having less authority than an ambassador 2: someone sent on a mission to represent the interests of someone else) on every district YAC/DYSC. Will bring info about UU-UNO to the district youth, will attend the UU-UNO Spring Seminar.

Time is given to read over the resolution.

Clarifying questions: (Eric, Reid, Sam, Sara Elizabeth, Chris, Helia, Eric, Charlie, and Margaret)
The following questions were brought up:

How will it be paid for (travel and registration)? Registration (Housing, programming, food minus two meals) can be paid for in a few different ways. The envoy can pay for the registration on their own, some envoys can be sponsored by their district, region or congregation, and others can get a scholarship from the UUUNO.There isn't any set policy on how the envoys are paid for.

Can a YAC or DYSC vote in an envoy that isn't in their district or region? No, the person picked should be part of the district so they can bring the information gained at the meeting back to their district or region.

Is the meeting always in New York City? Yes, because that is where the UN is.

Is there a process for how the YAC or DYSC will pick their envoy? That is up to the DYSC or YAC, also upto the DYSC or YAC is whether the envoy will be avoting member on their YAC or DYSC, will be a representative that merely reports back to the district. Even the position itself cannot be mandatory it is up to the YAC or DYSC if they want to participate in this.

What are the dates for the meeting? April 11-14

What do you mean by the deadline in short term goals? Contacting all YCRs and district staff to get YAC/DYSC to decide who the envoy would be. Deadline for deciding is September 29, 2006. So office can start informing them of the Spring Seminar.

What about YRUU subsidy for the position? That was a secondary goal/hope.

What would the time commitment be to fulfill the position? The time commitments would be to go on the website to get updated, compile information to send to district youth about what's happening at the UN and act as correspondent to the office.

Are there any specific qualifications for person filling this role? It can be someone who wasn't as involved in district before, but preferably connected. It's important that the person picked has an interest in international issues or would like to.

Can you explain how the UU-UNO works? How does it tie into the UN? UUUNO is an NGO of the UN. Also belongs to UN Association of the United States of America. UU-UNO also represents part of Canada. Go to panel briefings. Very active within the church center at the UN. Just organized a week-long banner hanging outside the building. UN takes action NOW, rather than going through bureaucracy. They are activists of UU principles and values.

Could this position be combined with the SAC position? Whatever the YAC/district feels is best. If SAC wants to take it on, then yeah!

Can you explain the pre-existing envoy program? There's a pre-existing envoy program - usually adults - from congregations. This program would be working on what the office has already built to expand it and allow youth envoys.

Are there any specific positions in envoy program for Youth of Color or GLBPTQQI youth? No.

Group Discussion:
1. Many districts will have trouble sponsoring an envoy to go to the Spring Seminar.
2. That would limit who could go - this is a class issue.
3. A new YAC position might not work because districts might not respond to our
recommendation (past resolution for new YAC position wasn't as successful as
hoped to be).
4. The envoy could be someone who's already involved in the YAC/DYSC.
5. Even if not a new YAC position, still creates a class issue.
6. Lack of District/region language, not inclusive of Canadian folks.
7. Travel Equalization would be helpful.

Switch to Jova taking stack.

List Concerns:
It's unrealistic to expect all reps can go to the Spring Seminar, for money reasons.
Where money is coming from, if Youth Council is sponsoring registration.
There's no process for election of positions and whether they'd be on YAC is 'up in the air'.
Costs for travel. I respect the organization and their effort to reach out to youth. GA is a lot more costly and people still attend that.
If no process for deciding envoy, adults might decide and that could be really disempowering.
Name of position is not inclusive of Canadians.
Timeframe for implementation - my district doesn't have gathering of youth until half-way through November this year. Couldn't meet the deadline. Would ruin democratic process to meet the deadline.

Group Concerns:
Cost to districts
Where YC sponsorship money is coming from
Name not inclusive of Canada
No process for election of positions
Timeframe/deadline too early for some YACs

Could group together first two - about expenses.
But these two are different - from different sources.

Resolve Concerns:
Travel Equalization/Cost