I was elected onto the Youth Executive Committee at Youth Forum 2000. After the State Program Advisor’s term ended in December 2001, it was decided that the Youth Executive would run under the control of a Youth Chairperson. The Youth Chairperson would be in charge of chairing the meetings, liaising with appropriate State and National Advisors, correspondence between members and the smooth running of both the committee and the annual Youth Forum.
During my term as inaugural Youth Chair, I ran the Youth Executive meetings. This involved:
-collating information
-creating agendas
-chairing the meetings
-ensuring that members stay on track
-delegating tasks
It was very challenging, as I have been so used to being just a member of the committee. I now had to take charge of both the youth and the adults. It was interesting to attempt to be both fun and official at the same time! I think the other girls found it a bit strange at first, as even though they were used to me taking a leading role in the committee, they weren’t used to a youth member being in charge. A lot of the time it was very hard to think about what new ideas I could come up with for the committee to talk about. It was also difficult to help the new advisor understand just what youth exec was all about.
One of the major tasks I did over my term was the organizing of the Youth Forum. At the previous forum, participants had voted that 2002 the forum would be residential. This meant a lot more effort on the behalf of the committee. We had to coordinate donations of food and other items, organise activities, forum sessions, discussion groups and much more. The forms were an absolute nightmare to get out, as I had to work out which units had 13-18 year olds in them and get mail outs to them! There were several mail outs. Flyers which we had made, nomination forms, an application form which I had made. I came up with the topics we would be discussing. I made the agenda, and created various forms such as donation lists, what tasks people would do over the weekend, what things people were in charge of bringing etc. I also helped plan the formal dinner. After many many tears and months worth of hard work, I was devastated when I had to call the camp off. There were just enough people applied to run it, but I did not feel it would be worthwhile or do justice to the idea of the forum.
After this set back the only thing to do was to carry on as Chairperson. Although my term on youth exec should have been over, I agreed to stay on as chairperson until after the forum actually happened. I organised another forum, this time a one day format, at Guide Centre. I took the plans I had already made for the residential forum and modified them so they would suit the new format. On the day I chaired the whole forum and made sure that people had fun and stayed on track. Tasks I had to do on this day were also delegating reports and tasks, bringing textas, sticky labels, paper etc. This day was made a lot harder when the committee were unhappy with the actions of the Advisor in regards to the new committee. It is very difficult and very stressful to run a forum when your committee are mutinying and all planning on stepping down. Despite this, the forum was a great success!
As youth chair I tried to come up with new and interesting concepts for the Youth Executive to tackle. One of these was the idea to create an evaluation form for the peak achievement awards. I had noticed that the new system did not come with ongoing evaluations like the Awards Pack had. I hope that these will be helpful to girls of all ages challenging themselves. These forms will hopefully be made by the 2002-2003 committee
I enjoyed my time on Youth Executive immensely, making great friends and furthering my leadership abilities. I particularly enjoyed the last year as Youth Chairperson. There is something very rewarding about being in charge of a committee, and seeing that committee achieve what it set out to achieve. It was great to see all the girls become more confident and to learn from the fantastic leaders. Although no one was really quite sure just what the role of Youth Chair would entail as it was a newly created position, it was a fantastic experience. Even though at times I thought I’d never be able to see things through and that I didn’t have nearly enough time to devote to my studies because I was doing to much Youth Exec and Forum organizing, I learnt an awful lot. If nothing else, my term as Youth Chairperson taught me to carry on in the face of difficulty and that with a lot of tears and even more hard work, you can do anything!
