Blogs
Jan 9th, 2008 - 11:59:37 | ilyes
feedHello everyone,
I decided to post this blog to introduce myself to CLCers and TIG members.
Actually, I am part of the Creating Local Connections team where I serve as the Quebec Online Community Connector. Thus, I am a representative of my youth community, aimed at strengthening and supporting the CLC reach through online outreach initiatives.
My roles with CLC are as follows:
1) To strengthen the canadian content on the TIG site:
- to add/claim organizational profiles
- to promote events
- to suggest professional opportunities
- to write blogs on my TIG blog
2) Awareness-building and accessibility to information and resources:
- to promote monthly live chats far and wide
- to facilitate/moderate live chats
- to organize 1 regional contest
- to promote all national contests
3) Capacity-building:
- to lead 2 monthly webinars
- to promote all webinars far and wide
4) Collaborations/ Network-building:
- to connect with TIG members from my region (on the site)
- to promote and prepare monthly e-newsletters via the regional Making Connections mailing lists highlighting upcoming youth-related events, opportunities, research, organizations, etc that are locally relevant.
Best,
ILYES
Dec 22nd, 2007 - 15:45:20 | Pauline
Young Decision Makers' Meeting
I attended the first Student's Commission/Centre of Excellence Young Decision Makers meeting last month from Nov. 30 - Dec.1 in Deerhurst. I've uploaded the full report from the meeting onto the Ontario documents page and I thought I'd summarize some of my notes/perspectives.
I will use the Student's Commission's model to describe how the goal of a National youth council will be achieved. TakingITGlobal has also produced a report about National Youth Councils that highlights the importance of collaborations. First, there are initiators (how to attract youth), then sustainers (keep 'em), and impacts (results). For each there is self, social, and system areas to explore.
For initiators regarding the self,
- problem solving/sharing ideas
- youth empowerment
For initiators regarding social benefits,
- National voice and space for youth collaboration
- linking groups
- inform youth of youth rights
- raise awareness of youth issues
- link w/media
For system changing initiators,
- platform for youth and people in power
- create direct link to politicians/gov't - both ways communication
- obtain funding for youth initiatives
For sustainers and the self,
- inspire, inform and involve youth
youth voice and input
For social sustainers,
- paid positions/youth consultants
- research
- resources - capacity building for youth
- adult leader/mentors - voted in
- communication system - website
- groups/individual organizations
- forum/conferences/newsletters/campaigns
- coalition - link/connect with agencies/key partners
- action-oriented
For system sustainers,
- structure/budget
- legislated formal process/policies
Impacts on the self,
- linking individuals with already existing organizations - connect youth with groups is the ultimate goal
Impacts on the social,
- head, heart, feet passionate
Impacts on the system
- diverse National Youth Council
There are also challenges, barriers, and negative outcomes, but we kept it pretty positive. One was a lack of time and resources, but with communication tools such as TIG, this could be made easier. Another challenge was engaging a diverse group of people. The question is how do we reach out? We could go to where the people are and use outreach through the media.
The 18 and under group listed the following things in order as most important in designing the council:
Inclusivity
Youth-led
Participator
Young-Adult Support
Adult Partnerships
Representative
Informal Structure
The 18 and up groups werre similar:
Inclusivity
Youth-led
Participatory
Representative
Adult Partnerships
Young-adults support
Informal Structure
The model that was suggested was having a provincial section and City Council section for each area, and then involving organizations, community centres and schools. The adult ally would be elected in every level.
Also, there will be collaborations with the Student's Commission as they put together their new website. In his workshop, he asked why online? easy direct access, archives, the power of anonymity. The Student's Commission will build the mailing list and committee. TIG can have connectios. The important thing is to not compete, but combine with cross-eye traffic, cross eye posting and moderators would be helpful for theirs but they currently haven't discussed it.
The things that I learned!
Dec 20th, 2007 - 12:25:13 | Nikki
To say that my first networking meeting was a disaster might be a bit of an understatement. A total and complete failure might be a more accurate description. The long (and the short of it) was that I finally got the room situation sorted, I got myself there (though I had to go by cab becuase of our current weather conditions in the nation's capital and the inaccessibility of the library beleive it or not) and I had even baked cookies the night before for the people that would be coming. I got there early this morning set the room up and started to wait. and I waited and waited but nobody came. Not even a single person. Even though I had some RSVPs for the last scheduled time and place they never responded to my emails (from my TIG and personal accounts hoping my personal accounts would ring some bells). So even by showing up I was being hopeful that someone would come. It honestly felt like my 4th grade birthday party again when I tried to make new friends by inviting all of the girls in my class and they said that thdy would come but in the end no one came (I wasn't a total loner... if I had invited boys the attendance would have been higher I'm sure).
However in this dissapointment I used the opportunity to reflect and have a networking meeting with myself. This failure taught me a lot of lessons about planning events and becuase I had never planned a bigger social event all by myself befroe they were very hard lessons to accept but I am glad that I learned them now. I think that these lessons will benefit the whole CLC team and therefore I will share. After all every group needs a crash test dummy and who better than an eternal optimist. So the following are lessons that I learned today that definitly apply to networking meetings and in many cases apply to events in general.
1)Check to make sure that your event does not fall on any major religious holidays - Dec. 20th was Eid-Al-Adha for Muslims this year
2) Get any room agreement signed! NEVER let anything be ust verbal becuase it holds no wieght and the room can be pulled out from under you at any point before you actually pay for it.
3) Don't plan anything for the week before or the week after Christmas - many people ar off work and the ones who aren't really wish they were and therefore have little motivation or interest in outside events.
4) Do not plan any events during university exams, especially at the very end of the exam period - most students are at home or resentfully studying for thier very very late exams and theyfore do not have the time or the motive to come out. It stands to reason that if many of the CLCers are students that other similar organizations have lots of students working for them in youth engagement roles as well.
5) Make sure that the location is accessible, as Pauline has been hammering home in the past meetings. It can't just be accessible by car but also by bus (or whatever mode of public transportation there is in your area - street car, subway, train, short bus. For example the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library is a 10 minute walk from the nearest bus stop for an able bodied person think about what it would be like for a person with a lower body disability to get there - in the snow, with the ice, through the slush. That is a big motivation for people with disabilities NOT to come out. We want CLC to be inclusive so that is really something we should be thinking about. If you have any questions about accessibility in general feel free to contact me.
6) Don't pick a narrow target group for your meeting, try to be as inclusive as possible. If you have a narrow target group there are fewer people invited and a greater likelihood that you will end up in a rather large meeting room all by yourself.
7) Remind the poeple that you are friendly with that you invited about the event incessintly. They may get frusterated, but at least they will know how important the event is to to you and even if they don't want to if they are friends they will come if they can. Remember a pity attendance is still an attendance and can be very productive nonetheless. And a pity attendance is certainly better than no attendance.
8) Don't ever rely on just email. A phone call may creep someone you do not know to well out but at least you will come across as a human being and you can also verbally verfy that they have been getting your emails. It is especially important to phone contacts that are on the list from your predeccessor so that they know that you are the last person's replacement. It is also a way to remind them about the CLC program. And I think it's important to remember that the contacts list we get from the last person could be up to a year old, so a phone call might be the only way that we can make sure that the person on the list even works there. If we have as high of a turnover rate as we do, I am sure other organizations do as well.
9) Perhaps we could all update the contacts database with contacts that we have from all over the country and put the contacts in the right region (that way the coordinator for that area can find them more easily) and put your name beside it so that when the coordinator for that regions calls and says "Hi, my name is _____ and I work with _____ at CLC Canada", they will know what to fill that second blank with and we can always use more contacts!
10) Bring a friend - socially aware or unaware doesn't matter. They will probably learn from what you are doing and you will have your own personal cheerleader that will soften the blow of a loss and build up a victory. Hey if the Charlotte Bobcats (my favourite basketball team and the worst in the league) can have a whole team of cheerleaders, I am sure that we can all find one person.
11) Make your RSVP deadline before the date before which you can get a refund on the room (if it cost you anthing). That way you can cancel for insufficient enrollment.
12) Never plan an event when Kimia, Mai and your contact at your host partner organization are all on vacation (not that that will robably ever happen again or that it could have been avoided - just bad luck). That way you don't end up scaring your poor mother when you call her the night before becuase oyu have no RSVPs and are in full on meltdown mode.
Those are all of the tips I have, I hope they serve you well.
Now as for me, where am I going to go from here? Starting January 3rd I am going to PHONE all of my contacts that I have made to touch base, talk to them about having a netowrking meeting and get the dates and times that would work for them. Then I am going to go through the list I got from Medin and call them and see if I can tlk to the contact if I haven't been able to do so already. When possible I will visit these organizatinos in person so that they can put a face to the voice. People are less likely to bail on faces right? I am gonig to make the rest of my events (except if the networking meeting gets off the ground more open so that I can increase the attendance and decreasing my chances of lonliness. I am also going to try to get room contracts now at a more accessible location so that I can make sure that I do not have to worry about changing rooms once invitations have been sent out.
So you are probably wondering what eneded up happening at my networking meeting for one. I wrote this, which is as you can tell, is very long. In fact I wrote this by hand on the back of my room renatl agreement so it will be arriving in Toronto with my monthly report. I also shared my cookies with the library staff that had been so helpful. Who doesn't love homemade cookies on a cold winter's day. I finished it off by getting an Ottawa Public Library card and taking out a book on event planning.
Take care and happe holidays,
Nikki
Dec 18th, 2007 - 17:05:00 | KM
Hi everyone,
Hope this finds you all doing well. I wanted to connect with all of the team members involved in the CLC project to keep you connected on east coast action prior to the holiday break.
We had a fabulous Climate Change workshop in St. John`s - hosted in conjunction with ACE Memorial. They are an award winning campus entrepreneurial club who were recently 2nd in the world! So of course we are simply thrilled to have had them as our partner and host.
They provided us with direct advertising to their members - 2 of whom are studying in Newfoundland from Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwae. It was terrific to have the international perspective provided at our dinner forum.
I`d love to know how all of you are faring with CLC projects...
Cheers,
Karen
Dec 13th, 2007 - 12:29:52 | Nikki
Human Rights Day
On Monday I went to the Amnesty International Head Office in Ottawa (where I am based out of anyways on Thursdays and Fridays) to celebrate International Human Rights Day. Human Rights Day for Amnesty folks is kinda like Christmas, New Years and Channukah all in one. It is a day we come together to celebrate the work that we love and to remember what we have accomplished over the last year. Most importantly we write letters, lots and lots of letters, on behalf of many different people all over the world as part of Amnesty International 's global Write-a-thon.
This was the first year since I became an Amnesty member that I missed the annual candlelight vigil put on on the Sunday closest to human rights day by Amnesty International local community group 112 based out of Niagara, so I was disappointed that I didn't get to celebrate with old friends, but it was very exciting to celebrate with new ones and to feed off of the energy at the national office which was jam packed. In Canada alone almost 10,000 Write-a-thon letters (and those are just the ones that have been reported) have been written and we had over 1000 registered groups and individuals participating.
Now that human rights day is over I am officially in the mood for Christmas!
Oh and if you are disappointed that you missed out on some letter writing fun, you can still write letters. There are lots of cases to choose from, including a disappeared student in Russia at:
http://www.amnesty.ca/writeathon/index.php
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