Tyler Sommers' Blog

Good Morning everyone!

It's been quite some time since my last entry and since you've heard much about the CYA I'm sure. The reason for this is that I've been incredibly busy with a variety of things. I became the new Coordinator for Democracy Watch about a year ago and in September of last year I started at Carleton's new Political Management program. Needless to say that this has kept me busy. I'm also helping with a paper that will be published in the summer - I'll be sure to let you know when that is (we're looking at motivations for voting, volunteering, and generally community engagement among youth).

As I have been the main pusher of people at the CYA my lack of involvement meant that things sort of stagnated a bit (if you're interested in taking a key role like mine in the CYA, email me! sommerst[at]cya-ajc.ca (replace centre with '@').

That said, in the past little while there's been movement here at the CYA. I've been able to meet a lot of fantastic people through the Master program and we've secured some firm commitments for speakers when we make this happen. This includes a former politicians, political insiders, community enthusiasts, academics, and more.

I also had the pleasure of meeting James Baxter of iPolitics last night - I'll be sending him an email soon and hopefully getting together for coffee. They're planning some fantastic things and I'm looking forward to meeting him and figuring out how we can work together.

What I'm going to be doing is blogging about the people I meet and the experiences I have through my involvement with the CYA and perhaps some other things I think you'll find interesting. No political commentary, rest assured - we do seek to be neutral in our roles at the CYA.

That's it! Now you know what I've been up to, why there's been a bit of a lull and what's happening next.

PS. Our forum is in maintenance mode because it was flooded with spammers. I'll be bringing it back up, but password protecting it or something so everyone can see posts, but not make them until I can figure out how to stop the spam.

Talk to you soon,

Tyler Sommers

Okay, so I thought there was some sort of a problem with our blogs, but fortunately I had just forgotten my login information!

Well the election is underway and everyone is super busy! The CYA has launched a new project - Bridge the Gap - where we get questions from you to ask community leaders.

Our first participant is Fair Vote Canada! So, if you'd like to ask them a question (think of them as experts on electoral reform) please email me at sommerst(a t)cya-ajc.ca.

We're always looking for new volunteers, so if you have an interest please email me! I'll start blogging here more often now that I remember my information

Tyler

Hey everyone, long time to write. How are you? Enjoying the winter weather? Have plans for the holidays? Well Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone out there! I, and everyone at the CYA, wish all the best to you and yours.

I wanted to give you a couple of updates regarding the CYA. Things seems slow don’t they? Well, that’s not true and we’re moving along with our projects at a decent pace (it’s slower than it has been because I’m working and volunteering in other areas, and our senior volunteers are all caught up with school, which is good).

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this to you before, but we have a policy with our volunteers: School always takes precedence. When the workload at school is higher or you want to focus on school, you are encouraged (and sometimes forced through our removing responsibilities from you) to do so. School is important and we want you to succeed in your education. This goes for all of you participants as well. School is a priority over the CYA and we like when people tell us they’re busy with school and will need to take on a lighter load.

So, what’s going on with the CYA you ask?

As part of the strategic review and change process that we’re going through, we’ve revamped our volunteer system. People no longer volunteer in vague and blurry ways; this was too catered to people with lots of time and effort to put into volunteering. We still have the option of taking leadership roles, but everything is now done on a project-by-project basis.

So, if you want to volunteer you’re sent a list of we have underway and you take a look to see where you want to volunteer. Each project has a list of things you could help with and we start from there.

I’m going to get the project list on the website soon, but I’ve been busy. Aside from this rather extensive internal change, there are also some important changes that will take place directly related to you, the participant.

The CYA will, in time (maybe years, so don’t hold your breath), be splitting our focus. We’ll have the CYA Model Parliament (and other similar activities) on the one hand, and on the other we’ll have everything else (roundtables, conferences, etc). The reasons are plentiful and I’ll write more about them soon, but it boils down to there being two types of youth showing interest in our organization:

Group A – Those who want to participate in mock/model type events because they believe in the current systems and want to eventually be a part of them.

Group B – Those who don’t support the current systems and therefore see mock and model as a silly way to go about things (in their minds it’s like imitating a broken system) and who therefore want to participate in other ways.

Now those lists were in no particular order and that was a really broad description, so don’t worry, I know it’s far more intricate and thought out than that.

We’re not going to function in a way that’s only going to attract half of our target audience. Our goal is to incorporate everyone into the fold and to do so we need to ensure we’re not just operating one sort of thing. So, we’re going to slowly be separating responsibilities, etc.

This will require some changes to documents, guidelines, the website, forum, etc, but we will maintain our current purpose and structure. That means that if responsibilities or roles are removed from one document, they’ll be added to another of equal importance. Basically we’ll have a set of documents that applies to the organization and specifically the Model Parliament side, and another that applies to the organization and specifically the other side (of course we’ll have central documents for the oversight of everything as well). In time we’re hoping to incorporate two organizations (one with charitable status), but as I mentioned, it could be years before this happens.

We’ll be sure to keep everyone in the loop.

I want to assure you that we’re maintaining our bottom-up, grassroots structure. However there will be changes because we need to streamline some things and we’ve realized a lot over the past few years (especially regarding the roles our members are interested in playing in the CYA).

We’ll be the same old CYA, but things will be far easier to understand and follow, making it easier for us to grow and become much more than what we currently are.

I’ll write again soon!

Respectfully,

Tyler Sommers
Executive Director – Canadian Youth Assembly

So the Canadian Youth Assembly has been going through a rather interesting and sweeping change as of late. After our elections we realized the role we'd envisioned for the members simply didn't work, heck, it didn't even make any sense. So, we've had to change quite a few things and those changes will ensure that the CYA develops rather quickly into a heck of a lot more than we've been in the past. Mind you, we've all learned a lot and the experiences I've had with the CYA have been nothing short of life altering; I guess that's really an incredible benefit from doing things yourself... you may take a lot longer getting wherever you're going, but you learn more than you'd ever thought you would.

Going through the process of a failed organization, the discussions whether to continue (at first I was not a fan of doing anything like the CYA ever again), and learning that the passion and drive of the people you'd been working with was so phenomenal and so inspiring, changes you. If I had to relive that whole situation, I know I would take that same path.

But I'm digressing from the original purpose of my entry today. I'm writing today to spread the word about a couple of websites I was forwarded which are absolutely amazing.

The first paragraph of this site says it all (http://www.samaracanada.com/Best_Political_Writing). It's important that we read about and understand the political landscape in which we live. Knowledge is power, and while it may be cliche to say things like this, it's honestly true. You'll avoid the mistakes made in the past, you'll learn things you may not learn otherwise, and if nothing else you'll learn a lot about the system that operates around you (and includes you!). You will learn, trust me, because no one knows everything (though people seldom hate to admit this) and we're all uninformed and ignorant about a great deal of things.

Check out the site which includes a list of some of the most interesting and informative political writing about Canada: http://www.samaracanada.com/Best_Political_Writing. You'll be glad you did.

Oh, and they run a contest! You guess who said the quote they post and you could win a selection from their list! The next quote will be put up on August 30th! Neat contest and great reward. It's also worth checking out at http://www.samaracanada.com/Guess_Who_Contest

Till next time,

Tyler Sommers

I’m going to begin a series entitled “What I’ve learned from the CYA” and in order for things to make sense to all you readers, I’m going to have to outline some of the history of the CYA. This is going to be fairly brief (relative to how much depth and length I am able to provide) and will at very least ensure you understand what I’m talking about in future entries in this series. Here goes!

The Canadian Youth Assembly has had a very unique history, one that is experimental and has been an amazing learning experience for so many young Canadians. I have been honoured to be a part of it and look forward to making more history with my peers in the years to come!

Pre-dating the CYA was an attempt to establish a new Canadian model parliament. This venture attracted hundreds of youth throughout Canada and began with much interest and enthusiasm. I signed up as a volunteer, knowing that many organizations of this nature experience a shortage of volunteers and I wanted to be where I could best serve Canadian youth; eventually I became the Elections Coordinator and was heading up the process for national elections.

Unfortunately this venture met its end at the hands of a problem that plagues youth involvement the world over: the taste of and need for power. The de facto head of the organization simply didn’t operate in the fashion that the membership wanted (this being a model parliament there was a heightened expectation of democratic organizational building). The unilateral decision making of the de facto head and the passion for democracy among the members led to a power struggle that ended with virtually all members leaving the organization and those who remained being locked out of the public forum (which served as the main communicative method for the membership and volunteers). The model parliament never recovered from this and continued to face the same power struggle with each renewed attempt.

At this point many of the former participants resolved never to become involved in a venture of this type for fear of having their time and work amount to nothing more than a ridiculous power struggle. As I was in the middle of the entire problem I had made such a conclusion, but was soon moved by the passion and commitment the former members held for developing something they could influence, build, and that could bring young people into community involvement.

The CYA was born out of a devotion to represent youth, to ensure that the membership made decisions and with the promise that the power struggles which tore apart the model parliament would no longer be an issue (to this day we have maintained these promises without fail!). The first step in creating the CYA was for approximately 30 youth to come together to write the bylaws and governing documents for the organization. While this took much longer than other methods, we felt that it was absolutely necessary for our membership to know that they created the basic foundation upon which the entire CYA would operate and that this would ensure that they maintained a piece of the CYA for as long as it exists. These youth were from various walks of life, lived across Canada, were of various religious beliefs, ethnicities, and political tilts, but learned to put aside all of these differences in order to work toward a common goal.

Drafting the bylaws was no small feat and while there was plenty of debate, there was also a great deal of understanding and compromise. The bylaws section of our forum has been archived so that everyone is able to view and understand the process. Drafting these bylaws has been and will remain a high point for the organization and a tangible proof of what youth are capable of accomplishing!

From there the CYA become a place of debate and discussion while the volunteers worked diligently to incorporate the organization as a national non-profit. This process (from the initial bylaw discussion to incorporation) took approximately a year and in that time the interest of many members faded. Waiting for a year to incorporate seemed to be a little long for many members, especially those with high hopes and aspirations for their role in the CYA and the CYA itself.

The CYA spent a considerable amount of time building relationships with youth, politicians and other leaders, and other youth organizations. Many members were unaware of the complexity involved in building and maintaining relationships and our membership itself. This led to some inquiries and criticism regarding the length of time we had to wait before the first official elections would take place. Needless to say, we built the organization slowly and on the advice of the membership, which meant a great deal of discussion (and time) before many decisions were made.

It soon became apparent that the amount of time we were taking to prepare for the election was costing us a great deal of activity and members and so we set a date for the first election (one week at the end of February 2010). Setting this date got the various CYA parties more involved than they had previously been and it soon became apparent that the Liberal Youth Party (LYPC) was the clear frontrunner. The main competition (in regard to activity) was the Assembly of New Democratic Youth (ANDY), which maintained activity among several members. The Conservative Youth Party (CYPC) had faced a plethora of leadership issues (similar to those that broke down the model parliament) which led to many young conservatives leaving the organization.

As the election neared many members began to question why there wasn’t more media coverage (there was some) and why thousands of youth hadn’t signed up to participate in the election as voters. There are a couple of answers here: There was little media attention because any media that had learned about the CYA had done so through their own research and investigation, or had been contacted by one of our members, rather than a volunteer. Why, you ask? Well this was the first election the CYA had ever held or been a part of (the model parliament never made it close to having a real election) and with an electoral system being developed in house (a special thanks to Steven Heidel for that) there was no knowing what would happen and having an epic failure as our first image with many people would obviously be detrimental.

Tangent: youth-run organizations face an incredible amount of hurdles in that people assume that they are run by immature and unprofessional individuals and therefore cannot stand against youth-serving organizations run by experience veterans. This image has been one the CYA has worked to shake off with every public appearance we make: I strongly suggest that youth attending public events and meetings who represent any organization should dress as professional as they can muster and behave as professional as they can as well (being far too professional and serious is much better than being even slightly unprofessional).

Now the reason we didn’t have thousands of voters registered ties into the lack of media attention. We relied heavily on the candidates to spread the word and gather votes for themselves and only a handful seemed to make any real effort to accomplish this task (it’s not easy to convince people to register, so I’m not faulting everyone). Also, the CYA wasn’t a well-established and highly recognized organization; getting people to register for things is difficult enough when they know of the organization, but convincing them to become involved in an organization they’d never heard of before? Well that’s a whole other level of difficulty.

The election period came (it was a week) and votes began to be casted, so many at various points our server couldn’t handle the traffic (which was unfortunate but outside of our control). There was only one major hiccup when the registration information stopped being sent to voters as there was a limit on the amount of emails our server would send (anti-spam measures), luckily Steven fixed this rather promptly and things continued rolling.

We ended up registering 466 people, with 224 turning out to vote (some candidates didn’t even vote for themselves, unfortunately) and while some had expected much more than this (in turnout and media) and therefore deemed it a miserable failure, for the CYA it was a phenomenal success. Not many organizations can state that they’ve held public elections that went off without any major issues on their first attempt and we learned a great deal about registration, voting, candidates, and elections themselves (you’ll read about that in future submissions to this series). We elected 46 Youth Representatives (YRs) and from there we hoped they would take the helm and begin to shape the CYA as they felt would best represent their peers.

Unfortunately this would not be the reality, as only a small handful of YRs got involved after the election period and we were required to refocus. This was a very shocking and abrupt reality check for me and I’ll talk about it in my next entry.