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Youth Council Restructuring Task Force Hearing Young Religious UUs |
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Youth Council Restructuring Task Force Hearing Young Religious UUs |
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Elizabeth Capone-Newton ran this workshop in a small group discussion format, which was possible because of the small size of the group. The group first went around and introduced themselves. Many in the group were former YRUUs or LRYers.
Several people talked about the history of Youth Council and the youth organizations of the UUA. Youth Council is the governing body of Young Religious Unitarian Universalists, which is a sponsored organization of the Unitarian Universalist Association. In the late 1970s, LRY was in collapse and had a strong disconnect from the rest of the UUA. LRY was about youth autonomy; when YRUU was created, in the early 1980s, it was about youth-adult partnership.
Youth Council has one youth from each district, seven adults in specialized roles, and four at-large youth for specified roles. The Steering Committee is the executive committee of YRUU and consists of six elected youth from and by Youth Council, a representative from the UUA Board of Trustees, and a representative from the Commission on Appraisal.
In 1999, Youth Council invited a youth of color, but it didn't work very well and not much got done. In 2000, Youth Council invited a Youth of Color Caucus and it went well, so well that there is now a three person Youth of Color Guiding Committee to the Steering Committee. The Youth of Color Caucus is not self-selecting; they are recruited from all levels of involvement.
The workshop group then brainstormed items of governance, followed quickly by brainstorming problems and issues with the current system of governance. YRUU is not about membership, and so everyone in a youth group in a member congregation is a member of YRUU. There are many lists around, and people feel that they should be joined to get a more comprehensive list of youth. One attendee said that YRUU and Youth Council needed to restructure so that we don't just rely on volunteers. Another mentioned that Youth Council has no sense of history and it passes things again and again. The mixed reports on the effectiveness on formal consensus were brought up, as was the lack of Youth Council focus on district and local events and the over-focusing on continental events. The one person per district general rule was questioned on the grounds that many of the people don't contact their district enough.
A current adult assistant said that the commitments are too big for adults who have to devote large amounts of time to their jobs and still hold a job, this is why the burnout is 18 months.
Several of those in attendance spoke about how the elections appear to be popularity contests with an uninformed electorate.
At the end of the meeting it was mentioned how useful another total overhaul would be to reform YRUU.Reported for the Web by Phil Morse-Fortier
General Assembly 2001 · Program Grid
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