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YAC ATTACK! 2004 top teambuilders bask in praise from speaker Randy Frazier (R) of MoreThanMotivation.com During the overnight conference in Hot Springs, Frazier helped YACers conceptualize the power of positive involvement in their communities. Scroll down for more photos. |
YACers from around the state invaded Hot Springs National Park on July 9 and 10 at the second annual Youth Advisory Council summer congress—YAC ATTACK!2004. “Attacking” the challenges of making great grants, developing Kellogg Foundation matching funds, learning to speak in public about YAC, and perpetuating strong membership, fifty youth, supported by numerous interested adults, met for an overnight retreat at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts.
The ATTACK began on Friday with a pizza party, games, making new friends, and renewing old acquaintances. Then a walk down Central Avenue, Hot Springs, led to the Maxwell Blade Theatre of Magic—a show complete with scary stories of ghosts in the basement, a giant snake, disappearing people, and escapes from several locked boxes. Following the show Max talked about the importance of giving back to the community. Late night activities included bridge building with marshmallows and spaghetti, an exercise in teamwork and communications, and an ice cream social. After a very few hours of sleep, the YACers were alert and ready to hear Randy Frazier of “More than Motivation.com” deliver an energizing and interactive presentation all about rewiring your brain to reach farther and higher. Randy taught the YACers to juggle and talked about the importance of teamwork and attitude in achieving worthwhile goals. All participants learned terrific lessons to help them spread the word about the value and excitement of membership in a youth grantmaking organization.
Saturday afternoon’s highly participative youth-led workshop sessions addressed the challenges of thoughtful grantmaking (where grantmakers from each Affiliate shared “great grant” ideas) and membership development and retention, during which members stressed the importance of truly representing the diversity of each county or service area. Youth leaders made powerful statements about the benefits—indeed the necessity--of all youth voices coming together at the YAC grantmaking table.
The afternoon events concluded as YACers talked about the building permanent YAC endowments in their Affiliates by “telling the YAC story” to individuals, corporations, small businesses and civic clubs. ARCF YAC Coordinator Cecilia Patterson presented the idea of a statewide project “Making YAC Tracks,” a “walk (or YAC)-a-thon” that each group could implement in the local Affiliate community.
Perhaps the true highlight of the jam-packed 24 hour meeting was the fact that it was all captured on film! Youth filmmakers working with adults from the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute recorded events and conducted interviews in preparation for the making of a YAC-umentary film capturing the essence of youth philanthropy and its importance to building ARCF’s Affiliate communities.
YACers left the event exhausted but excited about the possibilities of growing youth philanthropy even bigger and better in their hometowns.
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Making the YAC-umentary:
Bridge building in progress while video tape runs.
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We told you there was a giant snake! |
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The team that ultimately would win the Bridge/Team Building prize begins to plan their structure.
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Newest YAC Affiliate - Cross County - poses
enroute to The Magic Show.
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Some structures were more elegant than others,
but all teams got prizes for effort. |
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Gladys Ugbade, YAC Senior Advisor, interviews her father Festus, a member of the Hot Springs Area Community Foundation Board, for the
YAC-umentary. |
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