Spill the Basket - Letters to the Editor
Great Synapse Site!
HEY, you Youth Office staff and Youth Program Specialists (YPSers) are doing wonderful stuff...Hi! Jesse!
I LOVE the Synapse web site. It's well-designed, efficient, and smart! The article by Tim Fitzgerald is so well written, and I adore the poem by Evan Brand. As UUsual, when I want thoughtful and delightful writing and ideas, I look to a Unitarian Universalist (UU) youth publication.
I will read the rest tomorrow, but keep up the great work, despite falling funding and challenges of attendance etc., Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUUs) must never die!!
My son has moved on to other things now, but when he was a YRUUer, it was the most important thing in his life...and BTW, the youth worship was awesome in Boston. Looking forward to what youth will bring to the table in Long Beach this year!
Go Pacific Southwest District (PSWD)!
Gina Whitaker
Continental Conference Concerns
Dear Jason, Jesse, and Megan,
It's great to see Synapse back in my church mailbox. I guess I didn't realize how much I've missed it until it came back. It's much easier to hand over a real-live actual copy of Synapse to members of the youth group here at UU Church of Berkeley than it is to say to a youth, go check out Synapse online.
I liked Tim Fitzgerald's article on continental youth events. Tim writes: "Continental Conference (Con Con) is on the table as something that might need to be cut loose from the Youth Office's workload.…" For what they're worth, I thought I'd pass on some personal feelings on this issue.
Con Con is a great institution—I was at ConCon '97 as (adult) logistics coordinator and had a blast—and I love hearing people like Cindy Spring talk about Con Cons in the late 50's and early 60's.
But when I was at Con Con '97 as an adult, I realized that when I was a UU youth I could not afford to go to ConCon. It's not like my family was poor—we weren't, we were solidly middle class. But we wouldn't have had the money to send me (and my sister) to Con Con, and besides, I had to work all summer every summer right through my teens to save money for college. So I started thinking—if only upper middle class youth and wealthy youth can afford to attend, I'm not sure I can support Con Con. And even though I had a fantastic time at Con Con in 1997, I decided that I couldn't, in good conscience, support it again as an advisor, and I've never been back.
Maybe I can put a more positive spin on all this. I would rather the time, money, resources that go into Con Con—instead go in to an improved, expanded, Synapse. And of course I support your decision no matter what happens with Con Con!
Just my $.02 worth—and I'm impressed with how you folks manage to support youth ministry so well in this time of major Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) budget cuts—hope it's not driving you too crazy.
—Dan
Rev. Dan Harper
Assistant
Minister of Religious Education
UU Church of Berkeley Kensington,
CA
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
