The YAAY Committee is hosting a weekend training, recruitment and bonding event. While this event will be targeted to youth and young adults of “leadership age” (grade 9+), we are pairing it with events for a wider audience. These events will give participants a chance to practice leadership skills. Friday evening will be a bowling event for youth grades 6 and up which will allow kids to connect, or reconnect in a relaxed setting while allowing seasoned leaders to demonstrate leadership skills for incoming leaders. The Recruitment Event portion of the weekend (grade 9+) will include mixers, worship and basic leadership exercises. We will get into the nitty-gritty of what a YAAY Meeting looks like, with opportunities to observe and participate in mock reports and decision making (consensus model), and brainstorming what regional youth ministry could look like going forward. We will explore a new role to the YAAY Committee, “Liaisons to Regional Council committees,” which will allow interested youth to sit (as a YAAY member) on a committee that interests them without having to take on separate YAAY responsibilities. This could keep the YAAY Committee updated on the life and work of the wider church. Saturday night, we will join an “Old Fashioned Dance,” planned and hosted by a member of the YAAY Committee, where youth can role-model eager participation to make it fun for children, adults and other youth in attendance. In cooperation with the minister of the host church, youth will prepare to lead parts of Sunday morning worship.
After years in a pandemic, the youth and young adults of Prairie to Pine Region have been lacking in new personal connections and a sense of community. We hope this event will create new connections, and strengthen existing ones in our youth community
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