To the YRUU Steering Committee
On behalf of the UUA Board of Trustees, I want to thank you for writing us. We share your concerns that the process of implementing the recommendations of the Summit on Youth Ministry should be transparent and fully in partnership with youth. We also want to make sure that during this transition, that youth ministry programming continues. Accordingly, we passed the following resolution at our April meeting:
"The administration shall make the transition in youth ministry an institutional priority now. This process must be transparent and those responsible for implementation must be in authentic relationship with the youth community and its elected leadership. During this transition, the administration must provide monthly progress reports to the Board. The administration shall ensure that UUA support for youth ministry programming is maintained throughout the transitional period."
In addition, we recognize that without Youth Council, there will be no way to elect a new Steering Committee and so, we encourage you in seeking to find a new process to democratically elect a new group of youth leaders for the next year. We have amended next year's budget to provide the same level of funding that Steering Committee got this year to a new "Youth Transition Team," the temporary successor to Steering Committee. We trust that this team will be able to be active participants in the further work of the Youth Ministry Working Group and communicate directly with the UU youth community.
Finally, we have placed on the General Assembly 2008 agenda a business resolution entitled "Youth and Young Adult Empowerment Resolution." By doing this, we hope to provide a springboard for substantial and productive discussion during plenary on youth and young adult ministry and empowerment.
This is a time of change and we thank you for being essential partners in the process of building effective congregationally-based youth ministry. We look forward to working with you and the Youth Transition Team that succeeds you in the year ahead.
In faith,
Paul Rickter, UUA Secretary
Friday, April 25, 2008
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1 comments:
This is very heartening, thank you Steering Committee for speaking loud and clear on the behalf of youth. I am especially heartened to hear that the board is assigning funding to the soon to be created Youth Transition Team --the same ammount of funding ST recieves. This shows concrete faith on the board's part. I am very happy to hear it.
--Hazel G.
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