GLOSSARY


Arnason, Wayne
This is the man probably most often held responsible for the successes and failures of LRY starting in the Seventies. He was an involved youth and a youth leader and then he became the mediator between the UUA and the LRY leadership in the late Seventies and early Eighties, and finally he was the first YRUU Youth Programs Director. In 1980 he published a book called Follow the Gleam which details most of the life of UU youth programming.
Check-in
A ritual, common at youth group meetings, during which each member of the group has a chance to tell the rest of the group how she or he is feeling and how his or her life is going.
Common Ground
These were two conferences, the first held at Carleton College, MN and the second held at Bowdoin College, ME, which brought youth and adults from across the country together to recreate continental youth programs after it was determined that LRY was no longer viable. The conferences were called for by the SCOYP report and ultimately put together by Wayne Arnason
conference
Youth conferences were and are weekend or week-long gatherings of youth, organized and run by youth, and, in YRUU, supervised by adults. Good ones incorporate fun, spirituality, learning, and lots of leadership opportunities for many of the youth who plan them.
district
A geographic region which serves as an administrative unit, and helps to connect local congregations with the continental structure.
Execmember 1977Executive Committee
The LRY Executive Committee was the governing body of LRY for most of its existence. It went through various incarnations, but there were always LRY members on it, and sometimes it had  adults  on it or supervising, and sometimes it did not.
Fellowship
A UU congregation which has no minister. It is a group of UUs who lead themselves in worship, community care, and other aspects of ministry.
Federation
A geographic region of LRY which was similar to a district.
General Assembly
The annual business meeting of the UUA. Congregations send representatives to make policy decisions for the denomination.
LRY
Liberal Religious Youth. It was a continental youth organization created from the merging of the Unitarian and Universalist youth organizations in 1953. It remained in existence until 1983, when it was replaced with/restructured into YRUU.
SCOYP
SCOYP was the Special Committee on Youth Programs. It was created at the request of LRY leadership to figure out what was wrong with LRY and how best to fix it. The report which the committee generated caused a great deal of disagreement and strife and some fault it with the dissolution of LRY.
Taco, Joe
Joe Taco was the generic LRYer and the name under which the LRY Executive Committee's phone number was listed. See also The Joe Taco Syndrome
Unitarianism
A Protestant Christian religion which held as one of its tenets that God was a unity, not a trinity. It existed in various forms from the 1500's until 1961, when the American Unitarian Association merged with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Universalism
A Protestant Christian religion which held as one of its central tenets the idea of universal salvation--everyone would go to Heaven. It existed in various forms from the 900's until 1961, when the Universalist Church of America merged with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.
UUA
the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is an association of congregations which call themselves Unitarian Universalist. Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion which emphasizes personal direction. More information can be found at the UUA website, linked above.
wink
a difficult to describe game which is rough but has no winners.
Youth Office
Also known as " 52 ", the UUA Youth Office is the office which handles administrative details for continental youth programming. It is staffed by one adult, the Youth Programs Director and two youth, the Youth Programs Specialists. The YPD is a permanent position; the YPS's are each one year paid internships.
Youth
Youth, as currently defined by the UUA's YRUU, are people aged 14 to 20. This definition applies only to continental activities--local groups make their own definitions, some including people as young as 12 and as old as 22 or 25.
YPD
Youth Programs Director. One of the positions created during the Common Ground conferences as part of the new YRUU structure. The Youth Programs Director is the adult staff member who works in the UUA Youth Office.
YPS
Youth Programs Specialists are the two youth interns who work in the Youth Office with the Youth Programs Director to oversee continental youth programming.
YRUU
Young Religious Unitarian Universalists. It was created from the ashes of LRY as the new youth organization for the UUA at two conferences called Common Ground I and II .