On FUUSE, Erin Riffle suggested removing the At Large positions entirely, and having a 4 person CPC: 1 Facilitator from each conference, and 1 Chair, and "be limited to the scope of conference planning and writing policies that support conference work."

The discussion that followed suggested that other work the CPC may be doing currently, or may be suggested as appropriate by My above resolution, through the positions of the At LArge members, would be more appropriately done by the C*UUYAN Projects Committee.

I replied to this idea with:
"The CPC Chair is elected by vote of all the conferences governed by the CPC (currently that would be Opus, GA young Adult Caucus, but it's good to write it as open as possible to prevent housekeeping changes later).

Anyone wishing to run for CPC Chair would need have their application in by, say, May 1st. Then, each candidate would have whatever they'd like published via the GA YA Caucus newsletter, and information posted at conCentric and Opus.

At each conference, during the elections that may take place anyways, votes are taken. Of course, over the course of the election, a list must be kept of who votes, so I can't vote for someone at GA and ConCentric.

It's doable, and in fact not too different from the UUA elections. Petitions are required for those by February 1st, and elections are at GA itself, and includes absentee ballots."

~Donald

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I'm now lost as to what changes are still being suggested and how they differ from the current process.

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well, now there are 2 different ideas on the table, but right now, it works like this:

GA elects one person to the CPC
Opus Elects one person to the CPC
ConCentric elects 2 people to the CPC
The Steering Committee appoints 2 people to the CPC
(6 person committee)

My original proposal would have made:
GA elect 2 to the CPC
Opus Elect 2 to the CPC
ConCentric Elect 2 to the CPC
The SC appoint 1 to the CPC
(7 Person committee)

As I suggest after Erin's suggestion:

GA Elect 1 to the CPC
Opus Elect 1 to the CPC
ConCecentric Elect 1 to the CPC
The CPC Chair be elected thru a process involving ALL the conferences
(4 person Committee)

Erin's suggestion also intentionally limits the CPC to focusing solely on planning and operation of the conferences themselves, and leaving other C*UUYAN work to the Projects Committee. As an example (this is what comes to My mind at least): If there is to be efforts made to design workshops and training for our C*UUYAN leaders, instead of having At LArge members of the CPC do that, the Projects Committee would do it.

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I see. Thanks for the clarification!

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your statement of how it works now is correct, but i think needs clarification -

* GA elects a CPC representative (in odd numbered years - not 100% sure about this, correct me if i'm wrong)
* Opus elects a CPC representative (odd years)
* Concentric elects a CPC representative and the chair of the committee (even years)
* and the SC appoints 2 at-large members, at or right after Concentric (1 in even years, 1 in odd years)

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so this is making a little more sense to me, in light of the project committee taking on certain responsibilities, but what's the current status of the project committee?

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Non-existant. However, the SC (and others) hope to remedy that at ConCentric this year.

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This proposed structure is very Opus/ConCentric/GA-centric. These are not the only places in which CUUYAN exists in conferences. CUUYAN exists also in district conferences, Campus ministry conferences, Regional trainings, etc. How does the proposed CPC structure reflect this? I say this from a conversation I had with Nancy last night in which she mentioned the ides of having two at-larges which would assist with other conferences around the continent, as well as doing the normal CPC at-large tasks such as planning the day in-between Opus and ConCentric, for example.

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I think that's a good point, but I have to disagree. Part of the point of the resolution was to specifically limit the CPC to the operation of the conferences it is specifically given to oversee, and preventing it from overstepping its bounds into the realm of vision and projects (the purviews of the other 2 committees)

C*UUYAN doesn't exist in most of those places. The C is in our name for a reason, and our beliefs in polity would say that the CPC has less than zero input on a conference the Heartland district is putting on. The local leadership may be including content, business, or ideas relating to the continental organisation, but that doesn't mean the Continental organisation has any control in such a situation.

As for Campus ministry conferences... you'd have to show Me one. I have no idea what you might be referring to.

As for regional trainings... if we consider Radius from last year, My conversations with others recently brought this to mind:

Radius is a project... we don't understand what the continental organisation needs from them, or what the local/regional groups need from them.

Thus, for both the above, I'd say the Project Committee should be leading up that until those conferences are established and we decide what the needs are, and how they should be structured. We should not assume that a structure that mirrors what we've already had is appropriate for each plan we have.

If and when a project becomes an established conference, as decided by edict of the SC or resolution of the ConCentric body, then it would be appropriate to add a person overseeing that conference to the CPC.

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I see your points, although I do think that it would help if the CPC at least offered help to local/district groups looking for conference planning resources. Perhaps programming-type resources? ...The local/district groups certainly wouldn't have to accept the help if they didn't feel they needed it.

As far as a Campus Ministry conference goes, I'm pretty sure MUUYACM (Madison, WI CM group) has regular retreats, which could just as easily be called conferences, I think.

And why the hell are you capitalizing your personal pronouns all of a sudden?

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For the last question, you can email Me personally if you so desire.

But the question still stands: How are those MUUYACM retreats Continental in any way, shape, or form? The CPC has no authority over them, and as such there should be no position on the CPC that suggests otherwise.

If the CPC, through the course of its planning and operation of the events it is responsible for, manages to put together additional programming, collections of material that can be useful to other groups, that can and should be turned over to the portion of the C*UUYAN structures that is responsible for the distribution of such materials.

Any person in leadership in any portion of our Association should be available to others for information, advice, insight, as those leaders are assumedly skilled in what they do. If those members aren't available for that, there's a problem, but it has nothing to do with what positions are on the committee.

That doesn't mean we add extra positions to committees, "Just because" or "Just in case", or to do things that said committee isn't actually responsible for.

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MUUYACM retreats are in the purview of C*UUYAN because they involve young adults and are held in the North American continent.

C*UUYAN was formed as a loose network of small young adult groups and gatherings as a way to share resources and connect with one another. it's not the big central office, like the UUA. even though the UUA is an association of congregations it is way more of an authority figure over its member congregations than C*UUYAN.
C*UUYAN has changed a lot in form as it has grown, but i think that it would be great if we went back to our grass roots.

i was not an original proponent of the "regional concentrics" model, now called radius, but i see it as an attempt to make C*UUYAN more relevant to those small scattered young adult groups. and because of that i am more into the potential of the radius conferences. For the CPC to become exclusively concerned with the big, inaccessible, often clique-y conferences of Opus, Concentric and GA YA caucus would be just another step in what i see as the wrong direction. in thinking about my initial negative reaction to the idea of regional concentrics i realize that it was a gut-level response to the idea of not seeing all my concentric buddies every year.

i do like the idea of a lot of the CPC at-large members' duties being taken on by the project committee, i just think that the project committee should be up and running and taking the load off of the CPC & SC's hands for at least a year before any other changes get made. i think the dynamic should be changed a bit at a time: step 1, get the project committee populated, step 2, let the project committee do its thing for a while, working closely with the CPC and SC, step 3, look at the structure and effectiveness of all committees and the jobs they're doing, step 4, decide if things need to be changed.

right now if we're going to put effort into changing how many and what kind of volunteer committee members we have, i believe we should be putting that effort into the population of the project committee.

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i originally wasn't a fan of regional concentrics either, but the more i step back and look, the less important opus/concentric/GA YA Caucus *THE WAY THEY CURRENTLY EXIST* seem.

i'm actually more for a structure that ISN'T conference oriented, one that encompasses the following:

"Opus" becomes a spirituality development conference, held on alternating years with "ConCentric", which becomes a more intentional C*UUYAN Sponsored YA Networking Summit: we invite a representative of several organizations affiliated with the UUA and CUC, and learn about how to build relationships with them across the continent that become intentionally intergenerational, instead of with a token young adult member.

GA Young Adult Caucus becomes a place where young adults learn how to integrate themselves into the overall GA experience, better understanding of the roles of delegates, and helps support the visibility of CYF, since it is a young adult specific ministry that already has delegates coming to GA.

So yeah, we have facilitators for each of those events, but we also have someone as a point person to coordinate regional events 'Radii', that encompass the current trainings offered by the YACM Office, so we actually work in better conjunction, instead of being so separate, when we're trying to reach the same constituents.

And finally, we put someone on one of these committees as an appointed historian so we don't keep inventing the wheel every year!

And although I sincerely appreciate the proposals Donald has submitted, and I hear clearly about the scope of the CPC being limited, i don't think we should discount regional events, and try more intentionally to really support district and regional YA AND Campus Ministry groups to be sustainable.

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