YAAS: Inaugural Meeting

The first-ever meeting of this program I've been planning for six months and talking up to anyone who will listen is FINALLY HERE!!! I am so excited, and so proud of myself for all the work I've done to make this program a reality. I was honestly surprised by how many people showed up. I would have considered six or seven participants a success, but we had a total of TWENTY-ONE! If you've ever sat in a room with cold pizza and a single volunteer, you know that number is basically unheard of for a teen program. Not only were participant numbers through the roof, about half of them were kids I've never met before. They weren't past or current volunteers, nor did I recognize them as library regulars. That means all the flyers I've been passing out and all the word-of-mouth advertising I've been doing WORKED!

If you'd like detailed info about what YAAS! is all about, you can refer to the What is YAAS? entry. It will hopefully answer most of your questions. If it doesn't, feel free to email me. My work email is all over the city on hundreds of flyers now, including the flyers on this blog, so it should be pretty easy to track down.

ANYWAY.

If you click this link, you can view my First Meeting PowerPoint in full. There are a few epic animated transitions that don't translate to that website, but all the info is still there. Here are screenshots of the more interesting slides in case you're not feeling up to opening a new tab and flipping through 12 slides right now.

Up as youth are walking in and getting oriented.
The intro and icebreaker questions are also listed for easy reference.

Important to explain what this group is
and why they should be excited about it.

Explanation of the four main programs we'll be exploring monthly.

Getting the youth involved in making the rules of the group
gives them a sense of ownership of the group. They'll keep coming back
if they were one of the original members and made these norms.

Is it even one of my programs if there's not a Broadway reference?

I feel it's important to give the youth ownership of their space.
If they make the rules, they're more likely to follow them.

Important to add that as group members change, the norms might also be amended.

Bribery always works

Since the above is basically an overview of our meeting, I'd like to share some pictures from the first meeting that show the plan in action!

The angle on the presentation photos is weird because I took them from a tiny, squishy chair very close to the ground.

The youth came up with a great list of group norms. Almost every person thought of one to contribute. While they took a break, my adult volunteer Sebastian and I went through the list and picked what we thought were the six most important ones to assign to the groups. Here's the list in full (norms they presented in blue):

• Write the book you're currently reading on your name tag each week
• Everyone tries to read weekly
• Communication among YAAS members - "don't yuck my yum"
• Actively participate
• Respect each other
• Have fun
• No swearing
• Always be respectful of other cultures
• Come to YAAS with a chill mindset
• Don't bring unnecessary drama to group
• Be on time
• Don't use your phone during YAAS
• Don't touch things that don't belong to you
• Okay to step outside if you need to
• Give a compliment to someone each week
• No throwing shade, and keep inside jokes to a minimum

After reading this list, how can anyone not love teens and young adults like I do?? They are so thoughtful and smart, and covered everything necessary to create a fun, safe, worry-free space every Tuesday evening. I couldn't have come up with a better list of norms myself.

If you viewed the full PowerPoint, you might have noticed there was a "Who Am I" activity listed. I was planning to do that activity, but we ran out of time just as the norm presentations were wrapping up. It was a bummer because it's a fun getting-to-know-you activity, but it might also make a good icebreaker to begin next week's meeting.

YAAS is off to a great start! I hope these participants continue to come, and that word spreads until we have a huge group of enthusiastic library youth!