There is change afoot everywhere in Unitarian Universalism. That’s ok. There’s some things that really need to change to serve the needs of the folks who want to stay connected to their faith.

The UU Young Adult Steering Committee is working hard on changes to better serve the community we have served for years. For one, knowing and owning who we are and why it is important that we exist at all. For another, knowing who our community is and how we can help you stay connected to your faith in ways that work best for you.
I’m simultaneously fascinated, excited and overwhelmed by the amount of change going on in how we communicate with each other. Contrary to how I deal with fashion(just doin’ my own thing), I usually like to wait until technology has become popular before I use it, because having something without having anyone to share it with isn’t very fun and doesn’t seem to be worth my time. I’ll just have to learn something else next month.
I want to find something where I can reliably reach the people I want to reach. It can be simple, I just want it to do the job. I also recognize the importance of innovation and change to improve the products we use for communication. So I keep informed the best I can and I listen to the friends who get all excited about digging into why one method is better than another.
I also wonder about how many of us still read newspapers and magazines. It’s hard for me to slow down long enough to read the UUWorld. Even now that I am subscribed to the email newsletter for UUWorld, my inbox gets so much “important” stuff that I skip through most of it. When I do take a little time to read a story, or there’s a link on Facebook, with a little commentary by a friend, I marvel at the ideas circulating now. It’s at those times that I want to go back and read it all – I feel I can never keep up with it. With the help of some very smart colleagues though, I’m finding more balance between my all or nothing tendencies.
The most important thing, though, is that our message gets to the people who need it, and the only people who can tell me if that’s happening are the people out there looking for UU Young Adult news.
That’s YOU.
So today I really just want to know -
How do you get your information about Young Adult goings on? Facebook? Email? Google Reader? The Newsletter from the Youth and Young Adult office? The blue boat blog? Twitter?
Let me know in the comments below!
Thanks!

*CAYAN is the proposed new name for C*UUYAN. Official action on this proposal will be taken at the ConCentric 2012 business meeting in Honeywell, Ontario during this year’s Opus. If you have ideas and enthusiasm around making this meeting as accessible as possible to those not able to be there in person, please email steeringcommittee@uuyan.org

SC January 2nd Conference Call Minutes 2012

SC December 19th Conference Call Minutes 2011

SC December 5th Conference Call Minutes 2011

SC November 21st Conference Call Minutes 2011

The three days of our face to face meeting in Boston were an incredible journey of exploration. We began with many questions about who we are as a young adult network, who we serve, and what and how much we should be doing. What can we do with the resources we have now?

We had some incredible moments of clarity around these questions, and here is a piece of the result.
We determined that the people we serve, the ministry gap that we fill, are the young adults that find a spiritual community in the conference culture. We proudly affirm that those who attend conferences are a legitimate faith based community that deserves recognition.

For many people, conference culture is what keeps them connected to their Unitarian Universalist faith during their transient years. While General Assembly is typically seen as the event that draws UU leaders, 120 young adults attended Opus in 2000, and by 2007, 40 of them were ordained ministers. Opus indeed draws leadership, it’s the kind of leadership that sees the opportunity to minister to each other and build community.

This cohort of leadership also sees the importance of taking a break to recharge one’s batteries. I know every time I have attended Opus I have returned home renewed in my enthusiasm for Unitarian Universalism and ready to bring the better me that emerged to my day to day life. At local conferences I experienced how an intentional community coming together for even a short time, over a weekend, could have a transformative effect. Even the conference when I drove ten hours by myself for a weekend with maybe 10 people, turned out to be refreshing and worth the trip. These are the kind of experiences that enrich not only individual lives, but also the communities and congregations that are touched by those lives. This is a small taste of why the support of conference culture is important to Unitarian Universalism.

As the C*UUYAN steering committee discussed what we do as an organization, what we should do, and the role we play in the larger faith, we brought up the above points and many more, both positive and negative. Through challenging discussion about the community we hold so dear, we came to a very clear conclusion that while we have had lofty and worthy aspirations about who we could represent, what services we could provide, the reality is that a group of five volunteers working five or ten hours a week could not support such goals. Many of the problems of the past ten years have been simply because the leaders have been trying to do more than was really reasonable for a volunteer run organization. What we can do however is continue to support and finance those who put on the conferences we love. This is what we have been doing for years. This is what we are capable of doing really well. It is time we claim the importance of this work and advocate for its recognition.

The goal for this year is to do one thing, and do it really well. The goal is to serve Young Adults by making Unitarian Universalism accessible to them through conference culture.

The Youth and Young Adult Office at the UUA serves Young Adults in congregations. The Young Adults your steering committee is serving are Conference Attending Young Adults. While there is definitely overlap between Conference Attending Young Adults and Young Adults who are members of congregations (myself included), conference attendees are a specific identity group with specific needs. In recognition of this, as well as our renewed focus, we’ve decided that a more fitting name for our organization is Conference Attending Young Adult Network – or CAYAN. Yes, it is an acronym. I wish we could come up with something that wasn’t and still identified us accurately, but thankfully, it is a much catchier name! Easy to remember, easy to pronounce. So we proudly present, your CAYAN of Unitarian Universalists.

Tell us what you think right here on the blog! And continue to check uuyan.org for updates and email steeringcommittee@uuyan.org with any questions. We’re looking forward to an amazing year.

SC October 21-23rd Boston Meeting Agenda 2011

Well just in case, here’s an update from the CUUYAN Steering Committee.
The Central Midwest District hosted a wonderful Opus retreat for the second year in a row at the beginning of August. We’re so grateful they’ve reignited that flame. Robbie Bryden came forward with a proposal from our friends in Canada to host Opus 2012 at Unicamp, north of Toronto. The Opus community came to consensus in favor of the proposal.

Kelly Rauch was elected Facilitator of the Steering Committee at Opus.

Julie Brock was elected for the vacant At Large position at Opus.

Raziq Brown was appointed from a wonderfully strong pool of applicants to be our Observer to the Board. I look forward to watching him wield those mad observing and communicating skills.

Suzanne Bernardi resigned from her 2nd year At Large position. We are grateful for her dedicated work over the past year!

We’ve taken a couple of months to get organized. And I do mean that literally. There is a great deal of clutter left over from the last 10 years or so that we’re either not using or we can’t sustain. So we’ve put it in storage while we deal with some basics. Here is the plan for this year’s Steering Committee.

1. Cultivate a culture where we work really well together as a committee.
2. Cultivate a healthy working relationship with the UUA board and Youth and Young Adult Office.
3. Create a transitional budget for this year.
4. Help Canada put on a really fantastic Opus.
5. Come up with a plan for the next two years.
6. Come up with a sustainable budget for the next two years.

We’re meeting every other week for an hour if we can or an hour and a half. When more time intensive planning is called for, we’re meeting weekly.

For example, our face to face meeting in Boston is October 21-23, and we’ve been asked to plan the Sunday worship for the Board and UUA Staff. Thanks to Julie’s connections and super-duper seminary skills!

Because both groups are in transition and we all are all doing such important work, we are just thrilled to pieces to have the chance to worship in community with our fellow leaders. This kind of mutual support is essential.

The nature of Young Adult life is chaotic, but this work is so important to all of us that we have decided to take the slow and steady approach. We will do the things we can and do them really well. When we are ready to add to our responsibilities, we will look carefully at how to plan new things responsibly and sustainably.

Because of the committee’s commitment to consistent work towards building a healthy organization, we decided not to scramble to appoint someone to fill Suzanne’s position before our meeting in Boston. While it turned out great for the Observer position, and we had a fantastic pool of applicants, that kind of down to the wire pressure is not something we want to become a habit.

The two main goals of our upcoming face to face meeting is to develop some clarity around the purpose and scope of CUUYAN and build some healthy relationships. When we have that healthy foundation and clarity, then we can dig into the best ways to do that work for YOU.

In absolute faith,

Kelly Rauch
Julie Brock
Alexis Ettner
Bethany Lowe

SC September 28th Conference Call Minutes 2011

SC September 12th Conference Call Minutes 2011