Welcome to the Townships Youth Link!

The Townships Youth Link e-newsletter now available!

2008-07-07T14:10:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that a new and exciting e-newsletter is NOW available at Townshippers: the Townships Youth Link e-newsletter.

Published every two weeks, "The Link" has all the latest news on job offers, career opportunities and fun activities right here in the Eastern Townships. It's aimed at youth 14-25. Contact me today to sign up for it if you don't already receive it...and tell your friends!

Also, if you have something you'd like to share with us and other young Townshippers (like information about an activity you are organizing, a contest you've heard about, etc.), just send your info to me today @ ml@townshippers.qc.ca or mich.ta@hotmail.com.

You can also submit your creative writing, opinion pieces, poetry, drawings, etc... We'd be happy to include your work in our newsletter!

Please feel free to get in touch with me at any time... and, for all you "facebookers", be on the lookout for Townships Youth Link on facebook!

Bye for now,
Michelle

Safari Loowak Trip -- October 20, 2007

2007-10-29T14:48:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone!
I hope you all enjoyed your day at Safari Loowak... I thought I would post a few pictures here to remind you all of that day!

If you would like to help organize another activity for our group (or for anyone else!), please share your ideas here in the comments section! Or, you can contact me by email: mich.ta@hotmail.com ... I'll be waiting for your ideas!!!!

Have a great week!
Michelle

2007-09-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!
I have confirmed the reservations for our trip to Safari Loowak on OCTOBER 20th.

Here is the information that I have so far:

Each centre or group can bring up to 10 participants (not including animators). If you are having trouble finding 10 participants, PLEASE let me know in ADVANCE. We need a minimum of 30 people to be able to attend so I need to know ASAP if we don't have enough... Thanks!

We decided that each participant would pay 10$ for this activity. If this cost is a problem, please let me know as we don't want to turn away youth who are really interested in the activity because they simply can't afford to pay.

All participants must wear shoes that are "closed" (i.e.: no sandals!)... I take it this is important because the person I spoke to mentioned it!

We will discuss any other details at our next meeting on October 9th. There is a possibility that we could have a BBQ or something similar after the activities are finished...

Bye for now,
Michelle

P.S. About our retreat weekend:

For our YC Personnel retreat weekend, I would like to know 2 things:
1. Who thinks that they will be able to attend the retreat (it will take place in November, either the 2nd weekend or the last weekend of the month)
2. Would you prefer to have the retreat take place during the week or on the weekend? Mable and I have decided that we will go with whatever is best for the majority so please let us know as soon as possible.

The cost per participant for this activity is estimated at approximately 40$... this includes the cost of your room for one night (each room includes 2 double beds, a full bathroom and TV), 1 breakfast, 2 lunches and 1 dinner.

Thanks guys...have a great weekend!

2007-08-20T10:01:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

I suggest that we hold our next TYL meeting (to plan our first fall activity -- the youth activity weekend) on Monday, September 10th at 5:30 p.m. My only question now is: where should we hold this meeting? Please let me know if this date suits you... and don't forget that any (and all!) of your youth who want to participate in this activity are invited to our meeting. It would be great if they could help us plan it!

I hope that many of you will be able to attend Townshippers' Day this year! Lots of activities are being planned for youth, including:
A Talent Competition
A Storytelling Competition
Presentations by local storytellers
A youth tent with a DJ, a few kiosks (you are all invited to have a table if you'd like) and kiosks for some of the Champlain and Bishop's sports teams
Sports activities, clinics and competitions that will be led by Champlain and Bishop's athletes!
A TYL table with information and pictures...
and lots more!

If anyone happens to be interested in helping out at this year's Townshippers' Day, please contact me through hotmail...I hope to see you there!

P.S. There are also a couple of fundraising opportunities available...let me know if you are interested.

2007-07-03T11:03:00.000-04:00

Good (Monday) Morning everyone!
Did everyone receive my email last week concerning our "fun day" this summer? Would you be interested in going to Safari Loowak? or would you prefer to go to a water park instead?

I will be updating this blog with an agenda (for our next meeting) later this week, so if you have any ideas or things that you would like me to add to it, please let me know... Thanks!

Also, I received some information this morning about the emerging young leaders committee, part of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network and I wanted to share it with you. I will be forwarding the information about this to you as well, but in case anyone is interested in checking it out, you can find all of the information that you need on the CCEDNet sites:

http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca/en/pages/emergingleaders.asp
http://www.el-nl.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you in Mansonville on July 12th!
Michelle

2007-06-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone... how are you all enjoying this lovely rainy day?

I just wanted to update the blog with some information I received from Paula about skill swap sessions. Here is what she told me:

A Skill Swap is essentially a fun opportunity for people to quickly and efficiently exchange some skills in a way that celebrates that everyone has something to offer. This can happen in many different ways, depending on the size of the group, the timeline, if it's meant as an introduction to skill swapping or longer sessions...

It has become a staple here at HeartWood and we do everything from one-minute skill swaps, where everyone gets a partner, then one person teaches the other one thing and then they switch after a minute. Or this could be 5 minutes each, or whichever you choose.

Or, everyone can think of one thing they could teach, write these up on a mini-workshop schedule, and then over a series of sessions, the groups would divide and choose something they'd like to learn, attend that session, then all switch to another. This can be done in one or two rounds, or more rounds spread out over time. For example, in a 3 day program, we may schedule 3 opportunities for skill swaps and also schedule them depending on what different people want to offer. For example, if someone wants to offer a warm-up game, then we might put this on the schedule in the morning with the whole group. Or if someone wanted to teach a dance move, we might slot this in at a time when it would seem good to do an energizer or an example of sharing leadership skills.

The skills can be ANYTHING at all! Headstands, tongue-twisters, trivia, basketball move, yoga pose, words from another language, hairstyles, magic tricks, math equations, plant identification, recipes... you name it!

It is often good to do the one-minute skill swap before longer sessions so that people have fun with it and aren't so afraid or stuck on "what will I teach??!"... everyone has something, and with encouragement, everyone can think of at least one thing they could teach one other person. After this introduction, people are usually quite inspired to do more.

When partnering people for a skill-swap, it's also really fun to then combine 2 partners with another 2 partners, and they share the skills they just learned so that now 4 people have 4 new skills. In this case, too, the person who just learned the skill can be the teacher or at least can help demonstrate.

That is the main idea, and it's great to adapt this to whatever suits the group.

So there you go... what are your thoughts on skill swaps? How would you prefer we organize our skill swap sessions for the camping trip: 1 minute swaps, with partners, groups, etc...?

Stay tuned for some pictures!

TYL Team Meeting -- June 7, 2007

2007-05-31T09:23:00.000-04:00

Hi!

Here is the agenda for our next TYL meeting, as well as the tentative camping trip schedule. Please post any comments, suggestions or questions you might have! Thanks everyone...

AGENDA:

TYL Team Meeting
June 7, 2007
Lac-Brome Youth Centre
6:30 p.m.

1. Camping Trip
a. August 13 – August 16, 2007, Aux Berges Dominique Savio in Hatley – will you be able to make it?
b. Schedule: Please see attached schedule…do you have any comments? questions? suggestions?
c. Based on the tentative schedule, the TYL will be responsible for: one (or more) ice-breaker game(s), planning and cooking 2 lunches for the group, one skill swap session (each youth centre or group will present one skill), organizing 1 set of evening activities (campfire songs, stories, etc.) and planning and cooking supper for the entire group one night. These tasks can easily be split up between the different youth centres, groups, etc.… Does this sound ok to you? What would you be interested in taking on (other than your ice-breaker game and skill swap activity)?
d. Activity day (FUN day) on August 15: Since the TYL team is hosting this event, where would you like the group to go?
e. What kinds of workshops are you interested in participating in: team building, workshops on youth engagement, etc.?
f. Would you like to do something on August 16th (P.E.I. will probably either be gone or leaving early…): a project? a workshop? Another activity? Or should we end the trip on the morning of August 16th?
g. Money: Since travel will be a huge expense for P.E.I., I suggest that we all help out to cover the costs of the supplies we will need for our trip and the entrance fees for our activity day. My suggestion would be for each youth centre or group to raise 100-200$ (or more if you’d like!) through some sort of fundraiser. Is this something that you are able to do? Would individual fundraisers (organized by each youth centre) or one or two larger fundraisers (organized by the TYL team) work better for you?
h. Other comments, suggestions, questions, etc. about camping trip

2. Entrepreneurial Approach Workshop
a. June 12 or 14th, 2007, with CEDEC and Elizabeth Kater: Will you be able to attend?

3. Other Workshops
a. Fundraising workshop: When would you prefer to have this – during the summer, in the fall? What time would be best for you: morning, afternoon, evening…?

4. Other suggestions, things you want to talk about…

5. Next Meeting?

TENTATIVE CAMPING TRIP SCHEDULE:

August 13 – 16, 2007
(Aux Berges Dominique Savio in Hatley)
August 13 :

10:00: Welcome
Icebreaker activities (TYL team, P.E.I. teams, Qc 4-H each prepare one icebreaker activity – we would probably have to split the group into two or three smaller groups)

12:00: Lunch (prepared by TYL group – maybe half of the group?)

13:00: Skill Swap Session 1 : P.E.I. (1 group); TYL (2 youth centres); Qc 4-H (1 group)

15:00: Building Partnerships Workshop (with the Quebec 4-H BOP team if they are interested?)

18:00: Supper (organized and prepared by Qc 4-H group)

19:30: Various outdoor activities: sports, swimming, hiking, etc.

20:30: Evening activities (campfire stories, songs, etc. – organized by P.E.I. groups)

August 14:

9:00: Breakfast

10:00: ‘What is youth engagement? How can I be engaged?’ motivational workshop (with additional facilitation by heartwood staff?)

13:00: Lunch (prepared by TYL group – maybe half of the group?)

14:00: Skill Swap Session 2: P.E.I. (1 group); TYL (2 youth centres, FYI); Qc 4-H (1 group)

17:00: Various outdoor activities: sports, swimming, hiking, etc.

18:00: Supper (Organized and prepared by P.E.I. groups)

19:30: Various outdoor activities: sports, swimming, hiking, etc.

20:30: Evening activities (sports, campfire stories, songs, etc.) – organized by TYL team

August 15:

9:00: Breakfast

10:00: Final day trip planned by the TYL team (activity day: arbre en arbre in Sutton, Water park, etc.).

18:00: Supper (organized and prepared by the TYL group)

19:30: Various outdoor activities: sports, swimming, hiking, etc.

20:30: Evening activities (sports, campfire stories, songs, etc.) – organized by Qc 4-H

August 16:

9:00: Breakfast

What kinds of workshops are you interested in? Since we (the TYL) are hosting the fun day, where would you like to go?

Thanks everyone! Hope to see you next week!!!

2007-04-30T14:30:00.001-04:00

Happy Monday everyone!!!

I am just posting to let you all know that we now have a blog set up just for our camping trip:

Camping Trip Blog

You should have received invitations from youth@townshippers.qc.ca to post on that blog... Let me know if you have any problems or questions.

Please feel free to introduce yourselves to PEI and Quebec 4-H, and also add pictures, stories, ideas for fundraisers, etc. The blog is going to be a great place for us all to start getting to know each other before this summer. Have fun with it!

2007-04-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

Hi!
Here are a couple of the ideas that came out of yesterday's meeting:

It was suggested by Dann that we hold some 'theme' meetings (for example: a meeting dedicated to fundraising, with a guest speaker). Fundraising seems to be a popular topic, so I am going to look into organizing a fundraising meeting/workshop for the TYL. In the meantime, what other kinds of themes would you like to cover? Please post your suggestions here!

Unless something happens, our camping trip is scheduled for the beginning of August. Where would you like to go for this event? What sorts of activities would you like the weekend to include? Gwen suggested a site in St-Étienne-de-Bolton (please correct me if I'm wrong Gwen!) and she will give us information on that soon. If anyone has any other suggestions, please post them on the blog (or email them to me!) as soon as possible because I will have to look into booking a site for us. Each youth centre will be able to bring approximately 10 youth (this may change but if it does I'll let you know...).

Also, I am looking into inviting some other groups (such as the groups from P.E.I., Labrador and also the Quebec 4-H groups). If you have any ideas about other groups you think might be interested in attending, please let me know!

That's all for now... I'll be (anxiously!) waiting for your ideas!!!
Michelle

TYL Team Meeting -- April 17, 2007

2007-04-04T14:19:00.001-04:00

TYL Team Meeting
April 17, 2007
Lennoxville Youth Centre
6:30 p.m.

1. What do you think my (Michelle’s) role is (or should be)? How can I help you?
2. These meetings came about because the Youth Centres recognized that they weren’t connected and wanted to be. Is this still our goal? Or have we already achieved that goal? Do we want to continue with our regular meetings? What is the best format for our group (regular meetings, occasional meetings, etc)?
3. What is YOUR goal or hope for this project? What do you want to come from this? Where do we want to go from here?
4. What kinds of support could Townshippers’ Association provide for you to help you reach those goals?
5. Youth Forum and Camping Trip: Should we have two different events or put these together? What are your ideas? Who is interested in taking the next step with one or both of these ideas? What are you willing to take on?
6. Other suggestions, things you want to talk about…

Townships Leaders of Tomorrow Awards

2007-04-02T15:03:00.000-04:00

Hi!

Yesterday was the Townships Leaders of Tomorrow Awards ceremony and I thought that you might like to know who the winners were (some of the winners were actually part of our team!)

Here they are:

Congratulations Sheila!!!

Congratulations John!!!

Congratulations Mitchell!!!

Congratulations to the Former Youth Involvement Group of Mansonville!!!

One more time!!!

Congratulations also to Jérémie, Nancy, Andrea, Caroline and Devanand!

I was really impressed by all of the winners... you guys have all done such wonderful things. You certainly deserve all of the credit and recognition that you will be getting over the next few weeks!

If any of you would like a copy of a picture, let me know. Also, if anyone has other pictures, feel free to post them here (or send them to me and I will post them for you!)

Next Youth Centre Coordinators's Meeting

2007-03-26T21:25:00.000-04:00

Hi!

Just a quick update to let everyone know that our next meeting will take place on April 17th! I'm sorry I haven't been in touch with you much lately but I've been super busy with the Wellness/Career fair at Galt last week and the Townships Leaders of Tomorrow Awards this week. I will be in touch with you next week, though, just to make sure everyone knows about the meeting and you will be able to attend... I also want to send everyone an agenda before the meeting so that you will know ahead of time what we will be talking about, that way you'll be able to think about everything a little beforehand...

There are two major things that I want to discuss at our next meeting. They are:

1. What do YOU think my role is (or should be)?
2. Where do we want to go from here... (Do you like the idea of a camping trip? Is there something else you would prefer to do? What do you think about the possibility of holding a youth forum?)

Do any of you have things you would like to discuss? Suggestions for activities? Let me know if you do!

Thanks!
Michelle

P.S. If any of you know of other young centres, groups, or even individuals who might be interested in attending our meetings, please let me know so that I can invite them. Thanks guys!

Meeting (06-03-07) POSTPONED

2007-03-06T14:58:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone!

Just a short note to remind everyone that tonight's (Tuesday March 6, 2007) meeting has been postponed. We will have our next meeting later in March or early in April. Does anyone have a suggestion for when they would like to meet?

Some of the ideas that came out of our first activity day are:
Camping Trip
Laser Tag
Arbre en Arbre
Body Tic-Tac-Toe
Rock Climbing
Swimming
Sailing

One of the most popular suggestions that came out of our first activity day was a camping trip. Who would be interested in helping to organize a camping trip for the TYL this summer? You guys will help choose the place, the date and some of the activities. Do you have any ideas for this? Part of our next meeting will be to brainstorm ideas for this trip.

If you have any ideas(for a camping trip or even another activity day!), post them here or email them to me: mich.ta@hotmail.com

Have a great day!
Michelle

2007-02-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

Val-Estrie

Activity Day Photos...

2007-02-20T09:24:00.000-05:00

Here you go guys!

Val-Estrie

BBQ

BBQ

Mansonville

North Hatley

Sutton

La Tyrolienne

Talking with Cibou

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

La Tyrolienne

In the Snow

Tubing

Tubing

Tubing

Boarding

Boarding

Tubing

Heading Back

Group

Group

Getting Tied Together

Getting Tied Together

Directions

Boarding

Back at the Top

At the Bottom

Tubing

Tubing

Tubing

Ready for More

On the Way Down

Walking Back Up

If you want a copy of any of these pictures, email me at mich.ta@hotmail.com and I will send you the original file. Please leave comments about Saturday or suggestions for other activities here!

Also, if anyone has pictures they want to post, go for it! I have opened a flickr account for pics so you can email me to get the info if you want...

Have a great day!!!

What you will need...

2007-02-15T16:33:00.000-05:00

Here is the list of things you need to bring on Saturday:

Warm winter clothes (coat, snowpants, hat, 2 pairs of mittens, scarf, etc)
Two pairs of pants (one extra)
One pair of running shoes
3-4 pairs of socks
An extra shirt

and don't forget your icebreaker game!

Hi everyone!

2007-02-14T16:27:00.000-05:00

I definitely think we should have enough snow for Saturday now!!! Hope that everyone plans on joining us...

Is everyone still planning an icebreaker game for the morning? I know we will have a few at least...I can't wait to find out what they are!

I sent a couple of people (the ones who requested it) directions for how to get to Camp Val-Estrie. I am going to post them here... if anyone else has better directions, feel free to let us know. I'm not always so good at giving directions... but I always find mapquest.com can be a helpful place to look if you need help.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments!

Michelle

Here are some directions to get to Val-Estrie.

Do you know how to get to Belvidere from the Townshippers' Association office? If not, follow Queen to the lights at the centre of town and turn right (up the hill).Continue on this road until you get to the lights (there is a used car dealership to your left). Turn left onto chemin Macdonald. Follow chemin Macdonald (you will have to make one turn but the road name is still chemin Macdonald). Turn right onto route Gilbert Hyatt (you will see automobiles Chartier to your right, you have to pass this) and continue 7-10 kilometres until you reach chemin Gosselin. Turn left onto chemin Gosselin and continue on for about one kilometre until you reach chemin Val-Estrie.

The Townships Youth Link

2007-02-06T13:22:00.000-05:00

OK so here we go...... Get blogging guys!!!!

Current Events:

Activity Day @ Camp Val Estrie Feb 17th http://www.camp-val-estrie.com/
11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
5 youth, 2 animators

Activities

Tubing
Skiing
‘La Tyrolienne’
Treasure Hunt
Snowfight
Silly Olympics
BBQ (for lunch!)

Please let us know the following:

Do you need help with transportation ?
Would you like us to meet you somewhere?
How many veggies will you be bringing?
Ice Breaker Games

Bring

Winter clothes (snowpants, warm coat, mittens, scarf, hat, etc.)
LOTS OF ENERGY!!!!