Worus

The board meeting last night was wonderful and horrible all at once. I walked in to an entire room full of people sitting in rows of chairs in a different room than normal. At the front of the room there was a small white table with the president and the vice president waiting for me to join them. Since we had so many people last night we had officers sit in front and try to facilitate a discussion as well as face the audience to hopefully provide answers to the audience in a more directed manner. Normally there are six to seven people at a board meeting.

A lady from the Iowa Civil Right comission spoke. After that, insanity ensued. First up was a man who almost seemed to be trying to make us look bad. He kept asking for things that we did not have. Our volunteers are few and far between. Organizational development has taken a back seat for far too long. We realized this and had to ask some of our volunteers to get background checks and other things as soon as we could get the information to them. This upset the volunteers to an extent, and rightfully so. The idea was that we can’t keep endangering the youth we are serving. It was stressful. As a result, we are having a meeting to flesh out the differences between a volunteer and a facilitator. We promised to have everything that is needed to get them back on their feet within ten days.

Then the youth started to speak. It seems as if the youth want opposite things. The youth feel that the organization is beginning to feel too beaurocratic, yet they want us to come and talk about what the adults do. They also talk about how it’s hard to approach the board because we aren’t prevalent enough when they have been invited to every board meeting for an eternity. Some youth just don’t want to make the commitment, and that was acknowledged. How can we explain how things work and not come off as somewhat boring? It’s a boring topic, and I bet anyone that’s being criticized for being too beaurocratic would agree that the topic sucks.

The youth want Youth Alliance to be for youth, by youth. There is nothing more that the board would like. There are not enough people to make this work and we are spread too thin as is. We are just now finally getting volunteers started. At the same time, we have made calls to youth for representation on the board. There is a position that can only be occupied by a youth. Yet the youth say that youth don’t like to commit to things. Well, if they are going to be running the organization (a good thing in everyone’s eyes), shouldn’t they at least represent?

I told them flat out that, even though I may only be twenty-one, I only do my best to represent the needs of the youth like anyone else on the board. I let them know that I have no idea how things are going from their perspective, because I don’t attend Safe Space or other events that we promote unless I’m volunteering. I am in no way “in the know” like an actual youth can be. I have an idea, but there’s a missing element: our programming is received by them as a service, not be me. I will always try to represent who is being served as best as I can to my ability, but that missing perspective is crucial for me to keep a good understanding of exactly who I’m representing. It must come from the represented.

Things are going to be stressful for the next month with regards to Youth Alliance. We have a meeting to get things set in stone for our volunteers and an open forum to take place on June 30th. I hope that things go well. The process changes that are going to ensue will be difficult for everyone. Feel will be stepped on and feelings may be hurt.

After our guests left, we held the rest of the board meeting. All in all, we were in a board meeting for three-and-a-half hours last night. I desperately want things to go well.

Algorithms homework sucked today so bad that my hair is still not cut, and that is all I have to say about that. The college adventure continues.

Last night, even though I should have stayed home and worked on an English memo, I went out with Lewis. He is leaving the twenty-fourth for China for a year to teach English as a Second Language so I felt like if I didn’t see him last night that I may accidentally not end up seeing him at all. After missing him in December, I would have felt like an absolutely awful person. We got Vietnamese food from A-Dong; it was delicious. We also had a chance to catch up a lot, which was great.

I get more an more tired each day. It’s not that I’m working particularly hard and it’s not that I’m not sleeping. I think I must be behind on some aspects of sleep, but I think that I should be in the swing of things by next Friday. Next Friday may sound like a long time away, but the idea is that I will be completely in the swing of things by then. I very well may be closer to such a point earlier. The college adventure continues.

Beth and I worked on algorithms homework today. It sucked. However, we have made progress on approximately half of the assignment. I was quite excited, myself, because the question that we were told would be the hardest was on the binary search algorithm, which we did in high school. I just hope that I remembered it well. The college adventure continues.

My hair is still not cut due to algorithms homework and a board meeting for Youth Alliance tonight and this semester is shaping up to be more work than I ever intended. I will survive, though. The plan is to do all English homework the day that it is assigned so that I can spend the rest of my time worrying about algorithms.

I have a board meeting for Youth Alliance tonight. After that, it’s time for an annoying English memo!