Youth Services Beltaine 2007 Report
I would like to thank all of my staff and volunteers who worked with Youth Services at this festival. With so many of my staff being in their positions for the first time and this being my first festival as Managing Director of Youth Services, I think we did an adequate job, but in subsequent meetings and discussions, we have decide that the children of CMA deserve more than just adequate. For those of you who do not know any of our Youth, I have to say that you are missing one of the absolute treasures of CMA. These children are pure magick
With that in mind, we have been hard at work planning for Samhain 2007 and beyond. We started our fundraising efforts at Beltaine and were able to raise $225 which will be going toward new play equipment for Faerie Mound, but we do not plan to stop there. The Youth Services Committee would like to see the day when we are self-supporting and able to have all the equipment and supplies that we need to run a top rate youth program that will be a draw for more families to attend CMA events. I would like to at this point address the issue of the children taking the buckets around from camp to camp. That was purely their idea. They knew that they would not be directly benefiting from it since it was the Tweens who were doing this and the fundraiser was for Faerie Mound. They did this because they want to be part of the community. They wanted to help make life better for others. No one suggested it to them, but we didn’t stop these innovative and energetic children from doing this neither. If anyone was offended by this, I apologize, but I feel that it is wrong to discourage children when they want to do something for their community and others. We will be doing several different fundraisers at Samhain and we hope to get the support of the whole of CMA.
I have to also address the staffing problems that have occurred in the past. We now have a full staff of either Leads or Coordinators for each of the 3 areas of Youth Services. In Faerie Mound we have our permanent 3 good faeries – Rebecca, Sarah and Ariadne and we have added a new Lead – Thierry, who has worked with Faerie Mound as a volunteer for the last few festival and the children just love him. We have coaxed our wonderful, Keira back as Tween Coordinator, and Ben will be Teen Coordinator with Mary as the Teen Camp Chaperone. So, we have to plan and prepare but we can not do this alone. We have always run Faerie Mound as a Parent Co-op. We will be running all of Youth Services the same way. If your child is participating in the Youth Services Program, you will be required to donate 2 hours to Youth Services. This could be working in Faerie Mound, running a workshop for the Tweens or Teens, or even working with one of our Youth Services fundraisers. These 2 hours do not count towards your Community Service. I know that there are probably some of you out there who think this is unfair and it may keep you from bringing your children to festival. I understand, but at Beltaine we had over 30 children participating and only Faerie Mound actually was staffed with volunteers. We, at that time, had no Tween Coordinator and the Teen Coordinators had just come on board about 2 weeks before, so there was not much for us to do with the children. We have the staff now, but it is not their job to spend the entire festival tied to one spot because no one wants to help them out. I will say that if this plan doesn’t work, we will be looking at reworking the whole of Youth Services, and it will most likely mean, a reduction in the services that are available. Two hours out of 3 days is not much to ask, especially when there is such a wide variety of things to do and such wonderful children to work with at CMA.
We will be having trick or treating at Samhain and some other great surprises for the kids and adults alike. So, we are all looking forward to the event. My staff is currently working hard to put together a full schedule of activities and workshops, so if you are interested in presenting either to any of the age groups, please contact me at rachelyouthservices@gmail.com. Also, we have some projects on the land that we need to get done over the summer so if you would be interested in helping with those or want more information, please contact me as well. Well, that is the report out of the Faerie Realm (Youth Services). Look for us at Samhain – we will be the ones with our wings showing.
Brightest Blessings from all of the Faeire Court (Youth Services Committee)
Rachel Allen
Managing Director
Of Youth Services