News from our Canadian Friends
by Asha PhilarHey, Continental Youth! We, from the great white north, just wanted to let you know how things are going up in Canada. Youth programming has gotten off to a rocky, but exciting, start during the past year and is still gaining momentum with great new possibilities on the horizon for this year.
We now have three Youth Adult Committees (YACs) for our three youth regions (British Columbia, Western Canada and Quebec-Ontario-Maritimes Regions). The members of these YACs are incredibly hard working and have done some incredible work over the last year. In the British Columbia region, they are holding a Leadership Development Conference (LDC) and advisor gathering, as well as a youth conference in Vancouver. In Western Canada, the Radical Religious Youth Steering Committee (like the YAC) put on a great conference October 3-5 as well as an advisor training, both on the same weekend! Whoa dogs, that's impressive!! In Quebec, Ontario, Maritimes (QuOM), we had a conference in February where we learned about many topics concerning youth in youth groups and Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUUs), and established our first YAC which has worked very hard to put out two newsletters and organize a cluster con in both halves of the region.
In the bigger Canadian picture, the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) is starting work on the annual youth conference for Canadian YRUUers, called "CanUUdle". We hope to have over one hundred youth there this year in Edmonton, AL (It's in May if you want to come!!) We have also published two Canadian newsletters, edited by the amazing and talented Saille Bishop-Legowski.
Other than that, we're just really excited and confident about our continuing continental connection with all the amazing Americans we love so much! I think we've really proved to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and the Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC) that the youth cannot be separated, even when our organizations have disagreements. Way to go, youth!
What can you do to support this continental connection? Talk up Canadian youth programming in your districts and PLEASE send us a $1 per-person per-conference tax (as resolved by Youth Council 2002) so that we may have an acceptable level of programming and funding like the youth in the UUA do. We really, really appreciate all the love and help and support you have given to us thus far and we definitely believe that the youth will overcome all obstacles and stay together in our super awesome YRUU!
Asha is the Canadian At-Large on Youth Council as well as a member of YRUU’s Steering Committee. For information on the $1 per person tax, contact the Youth Office.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
