Adult Training Day

A day dedicated to training adults who work with youth in core concepts and guidelines. 

The goal of this training day is to insure that adults working with youth ministries are 
prepared to maintain the highest quality programs.  The training will review concepts 
underlying all youth ministries, plus cover the basic guidelines for diocesan youth events 
and leaders. 

The training is intended to cover two  groups of adult leaders: 

• This training is REQUIRED for anyone who works with any  diocesan youth event or 

                    program (Camps, Happening, Journeys, Bishop's Ball, Bishop's Overnight, etc). 

• It is designed to support and train adults working with youth in the congregational setting. 

There is no cost for the training. 

You should bring a lunch with you. 

Date : Saturday, December 7, 2013 

Time : 9 AM to 3 PM 

Location - Church of the Good Shepherd, 

96 Jewett Parkway, Buffalo 

Registration Required.  Download registration form HERE 

or register online HERE

Questions? 

E-mail - Eyouthwny@gmail.com 

Phone - (716)320-0733

EYE Deadline Reminder

The Episcopal Youth Event is a triennial (once every three years) event that draws together young people from all over The Episcopal Church.  That means all of the United States plus dioceses in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia plus military chaplaincies and other organizations from around the world.  I take a closer look at the event in THIS POST.

At the moment what we need to focus on is this:

There are 24 slots available for youth in our diocese.

That's all we get.  That's all ANYBODY gets.

24.

When those are gone, they're gone.

(There are a maximum of 6 adult slots.  The number of young people going

will decide how many adults we need.  Everything that follows applies to adults too)

In years past we were pretty relaxed about getting in applications and who was going and such stuff.

NOT THIS YEAR!

The HARD Deadline for applications is November 3, 2013.

A hard deadline means the application must be in my hands by that date.

Not in the mail.

Not waiting to be signed.

No excuses or explanations.

If we don't have it by 5 PM on November 3, 2013 you will not be considered for the trip.

Why are we being so mean?

It's really not about being mean.  The EYE trip is a big project.  Lots of transportation issues and preparation and fundraising issues.  The trip works best if the people traveling together have formed a community (because sometimes there are bumps in the road).  There is no other trip, event or program we do quite like EYE.  So we need to know that folks are committed to the trip and the goals of the trip.

We're getting the word out early.  We'll be reminding you again and again.  For most people this is a once in a lifetime trip.  Jump over that other blog post and look at the pictures.

Then fill out your application and send it in.

Youth Application

Adult Application

(Download link - right click and save)

Changes on Facebook for EYouthWNY

Youth Commission has spent a large part of the last year working on bringing our Guidelines for youth ministry up to date and in line with the best practices available.  We believe that the effort to keep our standards to best we can be is worthwhile and appropriate.

Well those standards are now complete (download a copy of them HERE) and now it's time to begin making sure that we live up to them.  That will include more opportunities for youth and adult leaders to prepare themselves plus clearer statements of who we are and what we're trying to do.

It also, inevitably, means that some things will need to change.

Beginning November 15 the current Facebook group will become a youth only page.  Parents who wish will have access.  Youth Commission has designated a four adult moderator team to insure that the community there is in line with our standards.  The initial team is Youth Missioner Jay Phillippi, Youth Commission Adult Chair Wendy Schumacher, E.J. Gryzwna and the Rev. Vicki Zust.  The team is chosen from established leaders in the overall diocesan youth ministry, balanced for gender and with a clergy representative.

A new public EYouthWNY Facebook page has now been launched which is open to everyone who is interested in keeping up with the news.  Our hope is that both pages will become active communities.  If you put the term "EYouthWNY" into the search box at the top of the Facebook page you will get results for a "group" and a "community".  The group is the original page, the community is the new one.  We invite everyone to "Like" the new page as soon as possible.

In order to insure that we create the appropriate safe area for our young people this means that adults, young adults, and "graduated youth"  need to leave the original group.  This can be done easily by using the gear shaped icon next to the word "Notifications" on the upper right hand corner just below the pictures on that page.  Click on it and you'll get a drop down menu.  On that menu is the option to "Leave Group".  Please click that option.

Our hope and intention for this is to create a space where our youth can safely interact with one another.  A space that is THEIRS and safe.  The best practices standards we examined made it clear that such a space needs to be limited to only those youth in that age group.  For our 'graduated youth' in college or in their 20s-30s I would note that there are Facebook pages already waiting for you to join.

 WNY Episcopal Campus Ministry  and WNY Episcopal 20s & 30s

If you have any questions or concerns please contact 

Jay Phillippi

Youth Missioner

eyouthwny@gmail.com

Looking for a challenge in 2012?

We're headed into the New Year and there is something very special that you might be able to do in 2012.  General Convention (GC) is the "business meeting" of the entire Episcopal church.  It's an amazing and important event.  And every time it meets (every three years) there is a group of youth there to be the voice of the younger generation to the church.  That group is called the General Convention Official Youth Presence (GCOYP).  It's made up of 2 high school aged young people (age 16 or older) from each Province.  Province 2 (that's our province) is searching for the young people to represent us at GC.  Please consider applying.  You can apply online  HERE through January 15 (scroll down to the paragraph that starts "Each applicant must complete...").  You must be able to commit to all the days of a 4 day training session April 12-15 and General Convention July 5-12.  ALL EXPENSES ARE COVERED FOR BOTH THE TRAINING AND THE CONVENTION.  And that means ALL of your expenses, travel, food, room, fees and materials.  Please read through the information and think about applying.  If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

A Brand New Look

Check out our web page www.EYouthWNY.org!  We've got a brand new look for 2011.  More details on what's new coming up in the new year, plus more dates for upcoming events, photos of the new Diocesan Ministry Center and more!

Have a happy New Year!

Peace
Jay

We Need Your Opinion!

Youth Commission is always looking to help people join us. A question has come up about the TIME when we meet. Please follow the link below and take the very short (3 questions!) survey to help us discover the answer to that question.

Youth Commission Meeting Time Survey
Click here to take survey

Journeys is here!

We've been talking about the new Junior High/Middle school aged program that has been under discussion. Well the program has been worked out, the official word is spreading and here are the forms needed!

Journeys is a retreat weekend similar in spirit to Happening but totally homegrown. It's a time for fun and laughter and some holy time with friends.

The application for middle school aged youth to attend the first weekend is HERE

The application for a youth to be on team is HERE

The application for an adult to be on team is HERE

These files are in pdf format so you will need a pdf reader on your computer. There are lots of great free readers including Adobe Reader and PDF-Exchange Viewer (this is the software on my computer)

If you have any trouble with the downloading of the documents please contact me immediately at EYouthWNY(at)gmail.com

We will eventually have a dedicated page for Journeys and online application ability at EYouthWNY.org