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Jen's Journal
Jen's Journal


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my month so far...
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

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Monday March 4
**************

- phone call with Andrea Felix / Program Coordinator / Youth Service America about an upcoming conference / http://www.ysa.org/ydm/forum.html - initially, she was hoping that someone from TIG could present at the conference but things are too last-minute.

- phone call to Phil Hedges about having a booth at an upcoming Guidance in Motion conference!

- phone call with Christine who is organizing an E2E Entrepreneurship Conference - they want me to speak at it

- brief discussion with Dumi about YES progress:
PROJECTS
********
1 - modify the projects tool to Nick's fields - make it appear as part of member profile on the site - have ability to categorize it as a TIG project / YES project etc.

Meeting with the Ontario Young People's Alliance
OYPA TODO - due Monday March 11th
*********
- header & footer design for website
- draft send-back e-mail to members that are signed up (mike will send you an example)
- paragraph that explains what defines OYPA membership
- what are the 6 regions?
- map (in colour) of the 6 regions
- list of orgs part of oypa so we can continue data entry
- categories of projects
- give TIG a list of e-mail aliases that you want us to redirect and what address do you want to have an e-mail account?
TIG TODO - due April 1st
********
- send sample letter response for orgs/individuals
- send FTP info. to OYPA so that website can be uploaded
- OYPA Admin (ability to delete and modify information)
- e-mail address set up
- notifications of new members sent to oypa after each sign-up
- need tool for OYPA to add individual members
- search capabilitiy for projects database (title and content)
- ability for orgs to add themselves as members of OYPA
- form for orgs to add themselves with approval
- mail merge to envelopes capability
- e-newsletter capabilities

- meeting with susheela & vanessa about the Volunteer Program

- letter for africanus written (so he can come to canada and volunteer for TIG)

- meeting with derek, andy and vanessa about fundraising (e-mail sent out to team in order to get budgets)

- attended Share Our Wealth advisors meeting (run by Greg Dobson)...his book 'Tools for Fulfillment' is published...i got a copy and listened to his presentation on tape. We will be doing follow-up workshops to presentations that he makes in schools.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday March 5
***************

- chat with jarra (currently in slovakia) about workshop relating to architecture - printed out materials

- meeting with Professor David Wheeler at York university about TIG (he read about me in the school paper)...he wants to help out as an advisor. He connected me to someone involved with the UN Sustainable Development conference who I had a chat with last week.

- attempted to contact architecture department

- applied for TIG to have a booth at York's Volunteer Fair

- meeting with cynthia about intl. development postponed

- follow-up e-mails to ezekiel and alex about the proposals they are working on

- long chat with Naiomi from China about how she can get involved as a potential youth rep and start a project in China that fosters a sense of cross-cultural understanding / appreciation

- finalized details for Vicki Gaberau show (CTV) interview in vancouver march 15

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Wednesday March 6
*****************

- meeting with Dwight (from Canadian Student Society) about ticket design and involvement in fundraiser

- meeting with Karis' co-op teacher Ann Dwornik to finalize details about her placement

- lunch with amanda, sush, karis, martin & mike about Cultivating Peace Project website development

- jen attends marketing lecture at York!! (discussion about logistics management...quite interesting)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday March 7
****************

- inverview with Scandinavia Exchanges Selection Committee at York (takes way longer than expected)

- follow-up with TEN contacts

- Celebration of the Toronto Aboriginal Community at the Royal Bank Towers

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Friday March 8
****************

- Ambassador for Africa / personal advisor to Jean Cretien - speaks at York about Africa & preparing for the G8

- meeting with Ron from Compaq about the digital divide in Canada - how can TIG help to address it?

- meeting with TAD from Youth for Environmental Sanity

- long discussion with Nick from AU

1. Update on TIG from Jen and Mike.

a) The Careeredge internships are coming to an end, Jen will be talking to Royal Bank to see whether they will continue to provide funding. Also approaching HRDC (Human Resources something Canada) to get staff funding (which would be more flexible).

b) The Zine is under development: "I3" - it's a new way of looking at TIG articles. Nick emphasised need to see this as one of many ways of viewing TIG articles, perhaps aimed at western audience.. Online zine could be translated into paper magazine in the future.

c) Mike and Jen met with Compaq Canada today. They were very supportive, although in transition due to merger with HP. In short term, probably support Canadian stuff, including computer lab at Toronto office.In longer term will connect with global people, could provide about $75,000 worth of computer stuff to different projects we reccommend.

2. Nick thanked Jen and Mike for sending $$

3. Youth Rep Pack and Structure (inc. Melbourne)

a) Jennifer is presently producing a summary of TIG that will help clarify things.

b) Nick will redraft the structure stuff that Derek had produced, inc. mission and so on.

c) We will refine the concept of TIG Teams and TIG Youth Reps. Youth Reps in each country will be given clearly defined and standardised job descriptions that align with the too-be concrete TIG Business Activities (ie. community, tech enabler, education etc). We may have more than one Youth Rep per country, but there will be a more comprehensive selection process. TIG Teams will be replaced by Action Groups that form around projects or issues of interest to those specific members (and this might not just be in a geographic locale, but virtual teams around the world). TIG Youth Reps will be there to play a facilitatory role, according to their defined mission. Nick to expand and clarify.

Talked about Melbourne Team and the problem there being that the team formed and then wondered what they had to do, and the Youth Rep had difficult role of helping a disperate group of people (who were already active in a variety of ways) come to a consensus about group activity: better that we can just develop their own projects and bring them together where we can... Jen is writing response to Michelle.

4. Partnerships

a) African Network - we will promote the Parliament to our members once the contract is signed with AYP. We also also pursue other events and orgs to be part of the network. Jen said the Canadians hosting the G8 Summit in June are launching a big Africa initiative: she will pursue that for funding possibilities.

b) Model UN - suggested that Camilla from the UK or someone else associated with THIMUN might be interested in playing a project management style role with this project; wanting to hear back from Jarra.

c) IYPS - Nick noted they will give us a brief and $3000 to develop their website (basically co-branded events database) which we are already hosting in temp format.

d) AIDS.TIG - agreed that AIDS.TIG is perhaps not the best name, also agreed that we would not use the name of an existing org/partner in the project to ensure neutrality.

5. Projects feature

We are on the same page about the need to create a Projects area of the TIG site, indeed part is already created under My Profile. Nick forwaded Mike specific field blueprint. Jen identified need to categorize projects too.

6. Future Projects

a) International Youth Foundation / Youth Action Net
Ben reports that YouthActionNet are getting very few visitors (YAN called and asked to compare stats and were surprised how many visitors we get). Mike and Jen agreed with thrust of Nick's powerpoint, and we will line up a 3-way telephone meeting with Rick Little, Jen and Nick to present the powerpoint to them. Nick to also send Jen and Mike his university schedule.

b) 4H Council / At the Table
Mike to have tele-meeting with them Monday. Nick suggests key framework for partnership includes us developing their technology, powering their databases etc. We could manage or further develop their site. It is generally frustrating that they duplicate our effort. Not too much can be done.

c) UNEP Sustainable Consumption website Project
UNEP to get back to us on this project worth about $30,000. Nick to followup again to make sure they respond ASAP.

d) Global Kids 1-year post Sept 11th partnership project.
Nick discussing with Barry from GlobalKids idea to create online discussion around September 11th with an international focus; potentially involving a video conferencing project. Nick to develop summary and push along...

Jen brought up potential to synergize with our Classroom Connections project -- TIG is developing a project with funding from Canadian Dept of Citizenship and Immigration, to create online community for peace education in classroom....

e) Noise Canada - major ~$2m project to highlight youth culture through the media, under the auspices of the Canada Council for the Arts. Modelled on Australian example. We could get big outsourced component with technolgy/backend etc. Nick wrote to them and cc'd Jen. Nick to forward e-mail again.

f) AEISEC - connection with large student organization. they approached us to collaborate. nick to respond to e-mail and outlines ways we could work together, particularly technology development.

7. Promoting our tech capabilities to Youth Orgs

AIESEC is an example of a group that has funding but didn't know TIG was around so took their tech business elsewhere. Need to ensure this doesn't happen in the future. We will create a brochure that describes our capabilities and mission and send to people responsible for Tech at all major youth orgs in the world

8. TIG Global Structures

Discussion surrounding charitable vs non-charitable. presently using the YMCA as a charitable fiscal agent for some stuff in canada. Longer term we should create another charitable org in Canada to support our non-profit inc one.

Skadden Arps need to get back to Nick re: memorandum of understanding for Nation1 Foundation Inc/TIG-USA Inc. Jen and Mike need to send Skadden all their contracts/financials etc.

9. World Summit on the Information Society

This is a major UN summit happening in Geneva in December (12-16th) 2003 and in Tunis in 2005 exploring digital divide and the 'human face of technology'.

We will strongly work on coordinating youth involvement in this conference. We could host a WSIS Youth Summit to go along with the Geneva event in 2003, that could incorporate or leverage a TIG Summit (of Youth Reps). Nick has written to International Telecommunications Union who are the hosts to explore options. We should explore going to the Preparatory meeting 1-5th of July 2002 in Geneva.

[Note: Nick also set up WSISyouth@yahoogroups.com this afternoon to act as a mailing list for discussion amongst young people interested in being part of the process]

Some discussion about the broad concept of bringing 20 young active members/Youth Reps of TIG together in Toronto/another city for training etc.

10. United World Colleges Summit. Resolved that it would be good if Ezekiel and Camilla were our representatives, plus Nick if he wanted to go. Nick will also make recommendation to Jen and Mike as to whether we should nominate them. Must do this quite quickly.

11. Global Catalyst Foundation - have said they do not want to fund our proposal as it is too similar to other things they are doing. (A tad frustrating). We will keep in contact with them and suggest other particular projects to them or indeed some of our programs (like Africa etc).

12. Discussed Nick coming to Toronto in June, staying in Mike's townhouse. Also discussed possibility of Emily Kumpel coming to work with TIG, that would be good and we should explore it. Nick to ask her needs. Jen to followup too.

13. Discussion around creating a cultural/country specific information service contributed to by users on TIG site. Jen will writes some ideas -- we will go full into this when Nick gets to Toronto.

Also how this could link to a Youth Exchange and Travel resource and Educational and all sorts of other things! :)

14. Annual Report - will hold off doing this for now until the accounting period has been set.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday March 9
****************

- UofT's National Business and Technology conference (we ran a workshop which was a total success!) here are the notes from the break-out group sessions we had:

What Opportunities and Threats do the following trends offer for businesses, governments, civil society, NGO's??

GOVERNANCE:
“regulations – the governance of the web”
Civil society is being brought together to be informed
Business
Opportunities: they can be as aggressive as they want to be
Threats: hackers putting “all sorts of craziness” on your site. People talking trash. Cybersquatting; domain name IP thieves.
Government
Threats: security, hackers doing damage. Parental pressure – with no governance, they expect to look to someone to protect children from negative materials. Terrorists using the web to communicate and collaborate.
Opportunities – taxation, public policy awareness (open mike), communication

ACCESS TO CONTENT:
Business
Enables them to reach a larger market (globalization), lowering marketing costs
Privacy threat, initial costs to get into this are high, overcoming consumer mentality of security
Civil Society
Less restricted information flow, increasing knowledge
Privacy, Regulation problems, Ease of misuse of information, expectation of costless. Not wanting to pay for things.
Government
Lower costs of governance, allowing people to better understand government, government utilizing resources more efficiently to reach people
Mentality of people, censorship, privacy, information access too easy – opening up for attacks.

COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMUNITY:
Opportunities
Location doesn’t prevent exchange
Increased collaboration
Greater likelihood of making friends (IM, E-mail)
Constant information accessibility
Reaching and understanding other languages (access to multilingual content and technology)
Threats
Too much dependence on the Internet
Loose control of content
Preference of traditional ways of accessing information (online forms not good?)

VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES:
Civil Society
Opportunities
Internet communication removes traditional boundaries for communication
Ability to experience a simulated environment or gender!
Helping people “come out of their shell” in they are traditionally shy or less communicative in person
Global access and context
Threats
Replacing strong physical ties with weaker global ties
Loss of knowledge of interaction

- surprise visit to karis' (pick up for party)

- party at amanda's!! Sleepover!!

Sush & Jen come up with Toronto Xcursions idea:
March
******
- Ontario Science Centre
April
******
- AGO
- Bus Tour
May
******
- Black Creek pioneer Village
- ROM
- Go-Carting
June
******
- Centre Island / Ontario Place
- Strawberry picking
July
******
- McMichael Art Gallery
- Kortright Centre for Conservatio
August
******
- RETREAT!!
- Canada's Wonderland


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday March 11
****************

- Breslin comes to Toronto (after having a midnight msn chat with jen ;)

- chat with jesse about marketing surveys (provide feedback for summary report)

- jen sends response to michelle's letter of resignation (which took a while to write)

- jen e-mails rick from the intl. youth foundation with nick's slides (still no response)

- TakingITGlobal Staff Meeting!! (I'm not sure if anyone took NOTES!! I may have taken a few - but I think that it is important to have a designated note-taker at each meeting from this point forward!! Here was the agenda:

1 - Check-In
2 - Jesse presents TIG Marketing survey responses
Group discusses what key next steps need to be taken
3 - Jen presents TIG Country Sites strategy (see attached)
4 - Discussion about the role of youth reps
5 - Fundraising Project Plan update (how is everyone doing?)
6 - Susheela presents TIG TORONTO XCURSIONS!

- TIG @ YORK meeting:

ATTENDEES:
Dan Tshin
Huss Banai
Michelle Bird
Jennifer Corriero
Yohaan Dattoobhai
Siham Kadri
Vittoria La Neve
Breslin Martin
Steve Sedfawi
Nicole Toivonen

What are people interested in??
-------------------------------
§ Social geography
o NGO’s and their roles
o Thesis: Community Development: how do we understand community, new forms of community.
§ The arts
o drama
§ Anti-racism
o using-media
§ Zine (International perspectives)
§ Independent Society: student academic think tank
o magazine, board
o online journal
o promote academic activities
o Int’l affairs, relations
o politics
o research
o Middle-East
§ Volunteerism
o Lectures at Hospital
o Toronto homeless through humanist perspectives
o Fundraising
o Biology
§ Being informed about the world
o homeless, poverty, social justice
o leadership
o music

What sort of things might people be interested in doing?
----------------------------------------------------------
Forum
§ to meet new people
§ to make meaningful connections
§ to gain new perspectives.
History, background information at York U
§ There are 160 clubs at York U. To form a club, a minimum of 15 people is required.
§ Clubs have a historic sustainability problem.
Questions, issues for us to address:
§ How can we enhance what is already being done?
§ How do we make it relevant for commuters?
Possible solutions/answers:
§ We can involve the faculty and/or administration. It is pointed out that they love to help (example: Independent Society www.yorku.ca/indep, see Huss Banai).
§ BUT: What is missing? What is the gap?
§ We need to seize the audience that we want. We need to focus marketing efforts instead of contributing to advertising noise, which is prevalent around school.



Discussions about the York Experience
--------------------------------------
School spirit is very low. So what can TIG do to get people involved?
- Hold a forum for students to learn from each other.
- Present to all students, the opportunities at York for personal growth and involvement in the York community.
- Present the different clubs available for students to get involved in

We should have a focus group to understand the students needs, and what would make life easier for the students.
Commuters often feel left out because they’re not a part of any club, and non-commuters only stick to their friends on campus.

Ideas to bridge communication between TIG and commuters:
- Randomly initiating conversations
- Brief classroom presentations

Some problems we must get past or work around:
- People enrol with the attitude that all York has to offer is courses
- Some individuals only do things for resume builders.

Possible solutions:
- With faculty and admin support we can encourage community involvement through the classroom presentations
- We can also send pamphlets out as part admission packages or distribute to them to interested students.

Other ideas:
- Running a workshop on how to run a successful club.
- Finding out how much students are willing to work on projects. i.e. splitting up large projects to many smaller projects so as to not discourage members, or take up too much of their time.

- Get people from different disciplines to speak about how getting involved can help in their discipline
Focus: Basic Idea of TIG@York

To inspire, inform and involve York students to the opportunities that are available @ York
To engage those "out of the loop"
To provide a common forum, easily accessible and visible to the entire York population, serving as an umbrella under which all opportunities at York are listed
To provide information on how to get involved - how to start your own club, etc.
To create a heightened sense of community, belonging, identity, and school spirit
Implemented perhaps in one way through "Classroom Crusaders" who (at least?) once a semester enter a lecture and provide an interesting 5 minute presentation to inform faculty and students to TIG@York; the presentation would be characterized by personal experience stories, and also tailored to the area of that specific course.
Other functions of TIG@York would be the online portion, providing comprehensive access to club information, event info, a York Global Gallery, discussions, and other relevant resources.

Personal Goals & Next Steps:
STEVE
- motivate people who are involved
- get word out about what we do and what we can do
- First Year Students
- Try to interest lazy friends
YOHAAN
- the missing link! Maybe it's just communication
- Research - what's going on around campus
- How can we add value and bridge the gap?
DAN
- How to start a club - resources
- get students plugged in and motivated
- What is the student demographic
- Where do students stand
- tell other clubs about this
NICOLE
- If getting info together is obstacle - research
- Talk to supervisor (tech.) - York site
- How we can get support from York tech
BRESLIN
- get colleges and high schools involved
- work on projects in Petrolia
SIHAM
- Ask *people* what they want out of joining a club like this
- What would people want to join
- BOARD of clubs
MICHELLE
- It's the TIG people//This is the manifestation of the TIG vision
- help people and sense of belonging
- What do we need?
- What elements encompass it?
VITTORIA
- Need a rep from each club
- first impression was not as welcoming
- pamphlet when you are at York
- Advisor
HUSS
- list serve for clubs (clubs@yorku.ca)
- Senate - YORK SPIRIT - huge concern - sustainability of school
- (Contact with President's office)
- Faculty of Arts Student Council
- get feedback on idea
- champions/mentors

NEXT STEPS:
- Write a plan
- Vision
- Goal
- Strategy

- Next Meeting- Monday March 18th from 5:30 - 7:30pm

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Tuesday March 12
****************

- jen catches up on e-mails and phone calls....get's her in-box close to 0!!!

- jen starts to integrate responses from youth reps into the TIG action guide!

- jen downloads 30 fonts from the www.1001fonts.com site (AMAZING SITE!!)

- meeting with mike about YES progress - her's what's left TODO
PROJECTS
1 - modify the projects tool to Nick's fields - make it appear as part of member profile on the site - have ability to categorize it as a TIG project / YES project etc.
YES COUNTRY PAGES
2 - YES country pages
3 - check box for I am a country coordintor
GLOBAL ALLIANCE
4 - Form for org's to add themselves
5 - Import organizations
6 - Allow Maria to put individual contact names
7 - Viewing tool for all GA members

- meeting with Mike and Mandy about the zine - here's what's left TODO:
MIKE
1 - Admin tool for: Editorial (title / description / image (300x350max) / body) 2 - Admin tool for: POLL (ability to add questions / tie into TIG member system) 3 - Admin tool for: INSIDE ISSUE (has to pull from monthly issue / max 5 articles / view more) 4 - Pages Added feature (when people add articles)
5 - Articles need to work
6 - Errors with content need to be fixed
7 - ALL / GLOBAL - needs to display articles that are in the all/global category 8 - articles categorized as all/global need NOT to appear in individual region sections 9 - thumbnail picture beside the listing of articles (to help promote the article) 10 - related link / related content --> underneath the nav bar 11 - implement customized header (ability for authors and admin peeps to add header) 12 - create HELP tool for adding pictures within text 13 - ensure that text is wrapped around the image
MANDY
- header 'melody of opinions'
- view more button for modules
- nav header for 'meet the authors'
- design 'pages added' box
- thumbnail size for listing of articles
- customized header size for content

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Wednesday March 13
******************

- 'A call for submissions' e-mail to youth reps asking for input to action guide

- meeting with Sean from St. Stephens (about mike's hours and issues around flexibility)

- meeting with Virginia (for her global survey about leadership)

- meeting with melinda (from YES) about fundraising for conferences

- meeting with law firm about getting help with by-laws and other legal matters

- personal follow-up e-mails to all those who attended my workshop about workshops (included notes about the topic ideas people came up with)

Community Involvement & Social Action
• Define ‘involvement’
• Volunteering is important
• Everyone should participate
• Adding value to the world
• Grassroots recruiting
• Non-violent action
• Negotiating strategies
• Getting media attention
• Corporate partnerships
• Spreading ideas (conferences; email; public school announcements…)
• Need FOCUS
• Prove relevance of cause
• PASSION
• COMMITMENT
• Engaging people
• Having influence

Technology & Society
• How technology can help society
• How governments can encourage good technology
• How to use technology to make life easier
• Digital technology
• How to best introduce technology to newbies
• Divide between technology and humanity
• When is it too much?
• Technology policies of government for public accessibility
• Privacy issues (Big Brother)
• Defining technology
• History of technology

Journalism (Print)
• Components of print journalism
• Idea generation
• Elements of a good article
• Getting published
• Selling
• Agents
• Advertisements
• How NOT to be a starving writer
• Getting started
• Networking
• Assembling & managing an editorial staff

Safety & Security
• False sense of security
• The government will take care of you
• Wannabe cops
• Lack of training
• Simple, comprehensive, common sense things
• Different kinds; personal safety/street wise, corporate, P.P.I., national
• Extremists/Cults
• Everybody does their part

Leadership From Within
• Motivation
• Making a plan
• Understanding your strengths and weaknesses
• Setting goals
• Developing an action plan based on skills
• Possible pitfalls
• In a small group
• Supportive environment

Starting your own business
• Business plan
• Look for experts – treat them to lunch
• Where do you get; government grants, books

Quasi-Jazz
• Ameteurs
• Experts to help facilitate
• Guitars
• Diverse instruments
• Present song to group
• Make your own instruments
• Teaching
• Not boring

Music Therapy
• How to play together/create music
• How music effects people
• Co-operation
• How to initiate
• What tools should you use for music therapy? (CDs, etc.)
• History/origin of music therapy
• How to apply music for meaningful purposes
• How to listen
• Use of instruments and vocals

Software As Art
• Artistic emotion
• Brainstorm what is art with group
• How does that apply to software?
• Show examples of extensions of software art
• Enable hands on
• Provide magazines and ask people to pick out art in their eyes and describe why and what

Job Searching
• Skills assessment
• Where to work
• Compensation
• Through email/networking/WWW/recruitment agencies
• Informaton
• Lotto 649
• Volunteering
• Groups and associations

How to get into Universities
• Impartial ranking
• Financing your education
• Scholarships
• Bending requirements

Sculpture
• Getting an instructor
• Many kinds (abstract; human body; etc.)
• Have different materials (clay, fimo, whittling, natural sculpture, rocks)
• Famous sculptors discussed


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday March 14
*****************

- meeting with Career Edge. A proposal needs to be developed around:

- chat with adriana who is doing work for the OSC - talked about the innovation project

- flight to Vancouver (jen reads case studies on the flight from marketing text)

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Friday March 15
*****************

- Interview with Vicki Gabereau (CTV)

- jen studies for the rest of the day

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday March 16
*****************

- jen study's HARDCORE for her marketing test this week

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday March 17
***************

- jen studies her marketing text.

- jen works on new site innovations with mike (over the phone):
* OYPA org tool (for maria to use when adding org's)
* Projects tool functionailty (based on nick's recent recommendations)
* featured member (tab appears on member profile)
* member profile lists whether or not the person is a volunteer & has conducted a workshop
* link to survey respones from member profile
* tool to make it easy to link back to the youth reps page from youth rep profile

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday March 18
***************

- study...not much of it though

- jen goes to funeral for a friend of the family

- TIG @ York Meeting (notes below)

Purpose / Goals:
• Add value to student life
• Getting students plugged in and motivated
• Engaging the York community
• Be a central point of information on what York offers
• Disseminating information
• Cultivating a sense of belonging and identity
• Improving academic standards by inspiring students about their field
• Increasing conversations about academics
• Helping to connect interesting students
• Fostering a sense of inspiration among students

Strategy:
• Leverage existing TIG site
• Leverage and work with current York Student initiatives (clubs, students affairs, academic initiatives, speaking forums, York Intl., Career etc.)
• Consult with administration
• Explore and examine all the different social and academic aspects of campus life
• Talk to students who feel disconnected and disengaged

Policies:
Who are the members of this organization / initiative?
How are people involved in TIG @ York - the end goal is to get people involved in things happening at York.
• Promoting
• Gathering information
• Adding to infrastructure
• Informing clubs
• Holding events??
• Work with faculty / work with reps from different clubs?

Tactics / Recommendations to School:
• Showcase success stories in classrooms - inspired students (how can we make a presentation that’s 5 minutes explain what’s in it for them
• YorkU.TakingITGlobal.org à online resource & community
• Excal edition / Profiles magazine – feature ‘inspired members’
• Work with Campus magazines
• Holding an event that promotes student involvement – bring in influential guest speakers (business people / politicians etc.)

Marketing Strategies
Letter in faculty boxes
Listserves
Clubs
What are our assumptions?
Diversity @ York – we are one of the most multicultural communities
Level of student engagement
Commuter culture
People are not engaged
Disconnect between information and it getting to people?
Clubs are not sustaining and are not doing very much
Limited cross-communication between different faculties and between students of different faculties
People are not very inspired
No central place of information about different activities at York
If we do this, we would be the central source of information?
Do students feel frustrated about the York experience?
What kind of people are students interested in hearing from?
Students are apathetic and indifferent

NEED: Report on the state of the University. How can we help to implement the recommendations?!

• What are the demographics of York Students?
• What information is collected about students at York?
• What are the demographics of students?


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* jen receives from the Selection Committee for the York/Scandinavian Academic Exchange program...she has been nominated to participate in the Stockholm University, Sweden exchange for Winter 2002 academic term (this is pending acceptance from Stockholm University.

* jen can't sleep.

Spends the night writing this massive progress report...

Jen feels overwhelmed. Mind is spinning with ideas...and hopes...and a few fears

What's next she wonders...

What's next?

My mom made a comment to me this evening...she said 'jen doesn't live in the moment - she lives in the next moment'? I'm not sure if this is true...and if it is, I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing...but I think that it is definitely an interesting comment...

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