RAAD Photos and Vids

Hi everybody, this is Becca signing in. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who was at the meeting last night, there was some fantastic energy going on! For those of you who weren't able to make it, you were missed. We kicked of the meeting in typical fashion with a high energy icebreaker. Later, we shared our Read Across America Day experiences from the middle, elementary and pre-schools.

I don't want to speak for everyone, but I had a total blast on Read Across America Day with Ian, Grace and James at Gypsum Creek Middle School. Those guys tapped into the students creative side with artwork and some sick "beats." Each of you were fantastic with the kids and made it such a pleasure to work with you all!

I wanted to share with the group some photos from RAAD at Gypsum Creek, as well as a few of the raps the kids came up with.

I would love to hear from you guys on your RAAD experiences! I hope you had as much fun as I did!

As we move into the planning stages of the next few projects we have for the rest of the year, I challenge you guys to continue bringing your talents to the table and put forth the same amount of energy, if not more, that you did for RAAD. You guys may or may not realize it, but each of you made a lasting impression on each of those kids you worked with. Way to go guys!



As Amelia mentioned last night, she will be leaving us in a few days to go travel the world and we all will hate to see her go, but I am excited to finish out the rest of the 09-10 YLC year with you all. Don't forget we have some great projects coming up and some celebrating to do too. I hope you all have a great week and I look forward to seeing each of you at our next meeting.

Over and out,
Becca

Retreat Pictures

Sorry these took so long to get up. I'm a bloggin' newbie.

Summary: We hate the human knot!

YLC-- Bob Vanourek's Leadership Presentation

Hello Everyone!

Last night we had an awesome and very helpful presentation by Bob Vanourek, a teacher of leadership and a leader himself. We focused on a list he created called the Leading with Authority List. While we were able to attribute these actions to other situations such as a business meeting or wedding planning (very creative!), we then concentrated on looking at our group's positive and negative actions. Here is what we came up with:

Positives

• Continue to write what we discuss -- our brainstorming, goals, and reflections.
• Continue to "bridge factions" -- we love everybody from every school in the valley <3.
• Continue to recognize and embrace our unique personalities.
• Continue to be accountable.

Further improvement

• Stay focused -- set goals and avoid wandering off topic with tangents and idea rockets.
• Be accountable as a group --> to reach this goal we need positive reinforcement, encouragement, and to hold each other accountable.
• Always work to improve communication!

With these things in mind, let's get enthusiastic about our next project and work to make YLC even better than it already is!

You can contact Bob with any questions at bobvanourek@comcast.net

Lifelong endeavor

Dear all,

Many of you know me well, and some of you haven't met me, yet. My name is Cristina, and I'm another adult leader with Youth Leaders Council. For those I already know I can't wait to catch up! For those who I don't know I am really excited to meet all of you.

I just returned from a Group Study Exchange trip to Australia where my leadership was developed, tested, and renewed. As you can see leadership is a lifelong endeavor. All of you are blessed to have YLC as a starting point to develop your leadership, and those of us who are adult leaders are fortunate because we learn as much or maybe even more from you during this process.

Since I wasn't able to attend the retreat this year I would welcome your blog entries to find out more so I can see through your eyes what you're learning and what you want to gain from participating in YLC. I will look forward to meeting you in December.

Also, I want to send out a special thank you to Amelia, Katie and the YLC Executive Team for doing a great job with the retreat and YLC this year. I am grateful for all you've done. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Retreat Follow-Up

It has been just under a week since our Youth Leaders Council retreat and I imagine many of you have had some time to process the experience, think about what was good, bad, uncomfortable, etc. I hope that you have been able to debrief a bit with your friends and I would really like to open the door for you to share your thoughts and feelings about Youth Leaders Council with any of us as adult mentors; we are learning through this process as well. I have heard from some of the participants that the activities were very eye opening and brought to your attention new issues; I have heard from others that some of the topics were uncomfortable and we addressed too much, too soon. All of your feedback is really important and know that each of you bring incredible perspectives to this group – we need each of your strengths and uniqueness in the Youth Leaders Council in order for it to be a success. The Youth Leaders Council is each one of you – your voice is essential to building a great YLC!

Throughout the year we will continue to discuss some of the retreat topics and share ideas on how we develop the leader within in order to become strong community leaders. I hope that through YLC you develop new friendships, build trust among the group, are challenged to be outside of your comfort zone and stretch a little bit, and of course have fun through this experience. During our next meeting, on Wednesday, November 18th, we will have some time for further dialogue about retreat topics. We also have some other fun activities planned – please let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas of things that you would like to see happen.

Thank you all for your commitment and I look forward to getting to know each of you better. I am eager to see what this year will bring.

Feel free to call me anytime (970.376.7713) and let me know if anyone needs a ride for the next meeting.

Thank you - Katie

Welcome!

Hi everyone,

This blog is a place for members of the Youth Leaders Council to reflect on meetings, activities, and service-learning projects. Feel free to add poems, pictures, short paragraphs, articles, anything that shows a bit of what you gained from our project or activity.

This is meant to be a place where you can be creative, so have fun with it!

Thanks in advance for all your great posts!

Amelia