Wednesday, October 12, 2005

            My dear friends,

                        I regret deeply that I have sent you this at the eleventh hour and I am very sorry to do this at all, but this is my official notice of resignation from the Joseph Priestley District Youth Steering Committee. My reasons for this are varied, but I shall do my best to explain.

            I see the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) program on our district level falling apart. Far too many first time conference attendees never return. Their reasons for these vary, but they include discomfort with tokenization, sexual harassment, and the gender binary system. On several times I have raised this issues and I feel that I was not taken seriously. In my article published this spring in Synapse I wrote on the topic of gender bias. Nothing has changed. This spring, I was challenged to step down. Several then members of YSC, some of who are currently members, supported this challenge. I did not and do not feel supported by the YSC.

            I also feel as a youth led organization we should dynamic and vibrant. However, I find we are static, stubborn, and set against change. Although there have been some changes, I feel we digress more than we have advance. I know am I not the easiest person to get along with, but I feel had I been born male I would not be told I was “out of line”. Nobody ever made those comments when I wore mini-skirts. I’m also very disappointed by the actions of many YSC members at Annapolis Fall Conference Confused? 2005. Members of YSC unhappy with scheduling changes that had been decided on by the conference deans, the co-chairs, and the worship coordinator. Accosted first the worship coordinator and then a dean to have worship moved later. On the way home from the conference one youth nearly crashed because they hadn’t gotten enough sleep

            I also have personal reasons for my resignation, but I would not have let them interfere if I hadn’t been so disappointed by the YSC. We have not had an official Conference Affairs Committee (CAC) in a great deal of time. This does not mean that rule breaking has not occurred, quite the opposite, the rule breakers grow more and more brazen. We don’t decide and plan far enough in advance to be effective. I had goals for all the things I’d hoped we could do, but we won’t. I am not willing to see us go the same way as the Liberal Religious Youth.

Please, don’t ignore what I am saying. I can only hope my successor is taken more seriously. I’m willing to train whomever is selected, but I shall attend no more YSC meetings or conferences. I would also like to receive no personal responses to this letter.

Wynters

August 2004-July 2005 in the Joseph Priestley District

As seen by Wynters Leigh Geimer, JPD Youth Council Representative

            This year was a year of numbers, some good, some not so good. Par example: We have come to the end of our first year without bylaws. Although things continue, we have yet to approve a new set of rules known as “Policies and Procedure”. It is hoped they will be ready for approval by our next by our annual meeting in Spring 2006. Nine conferences were held in our district this year. Four conferences were organized by the Joseph Priestley District Youth Steering Committee (JPD YSC) a Leadership Development Conference, Winter Conference (an Anti-Racism training conference), Spring Conference (our annual business meeting), and Summer Conference (our annual fun conference). Three out of four suffered poor attendance. Winter Conference, our Anti-Racism conference, was in fact over attended. Individual churches organized five additional conferences.

We also held a Youth Advisor Training and sent our Social Action Coordinator to the Youth Social Justice Conference in Chicago. In addition, we paid for the registration fee for two other youth and their chapter of Young Religious Unitarian Universalists paid their travel. This year the Continental Youth Social Justice Training will be held in our district and we can’t wait. We published three newsletters this year that were distributed to youth at conferences. Our policies on phuufing have been revised. For a period of two conferences phuufing was banned. After the ban was lifted surveys were distributed to judge whether or not it should be reinstated. Despite evidence that phuufing is hazing it was not fully banned. Phuufing is now only allowed in one workshop at each district conference. We are hoping to get individual churches to comply with the new district regulations are their conferences.

This year also saw three members of JPD YSC resign their posts early. Three members were elected by JPD YSC to replace them, but it was a harsh reality check. We finally got our own web page on our district’s web site, but have not had our URL returned. We are considering a lawsuit. We had a lovely bridging ceremony at our Spring Conference and also organized several workshops at the District conference. Several youth attended General Assembly and Star Island. We have not had any Conference Affairs Committees.

This year also saw the first campaign to diselect members of YSC for no applicable reasons. While this crusade was inconsequential, it caused much stress for the targeted members. The YSC as a whole wrote a set of goals for the upcoming year, as well as mission statement. We hope we meet them.

Hello.  I'm so glad people keep me informed, especially because I'm supposed to, like, be this thing's mommy and I only just realized it was here.  I love everyone!

Lene O.~

The following a re-print of an article written for the Spring 2005 Synapse, the official magazine of YRUU. To read to entire magazine, please follow this link: http://www.uua.org/YRUU/synapse/2005-1/index.html.

is it really because i'm a bitch?

by Wynters Leigh Geimer