Vermont Coalition of Teen Centers

Quarterly Meeting

Northern: The Living Room, St. Johnsbury, 6/6/06

Southern: Bennington Youth Center (cancelled), 6/7/06

Attendance

Northern

Basement Teen Center: Jen Wells, Nikki Kromphardt, Rachel Grendel

Plainfield Teen Center: Natasha Haugen, Ethan Bogor

King Street Youth Center: Zach Schwartz

The Living Room, St. Johnsbury: Derek Murphy

B&GC of White River Valley, Hartford Unit: Josh Roman

B&GC of Vergennes: Mike Reiderer

Cabot Teen Center: Bob Miller

VCTC: Trevor Tait

Southern (cancelled)

Bennington Youth Center: Lucas Moulton

Ludlow Teen Center: Jerry Tucker

Rutland 4-H: Rita Charlton

VCTC: Trevor Tait

(Jerry and Rita didn’t know the meeting was cancelled and met with Lucas at the proposed meeting time. I met with Lucas in the afternoon as part of a site visit)

Teen Center Tours

Northern: The Living Room

Derek Murphy (“Murph”) gave a tour of the center which is housed in one section of a rambling building that is also home to Northeast Kingdom Youth Services (NEKYS). The center includes: commons area with lounge, pool, and foosball; quite room; computer room; kitchen; office; and music room.

Southern: Bennington Youth Center

Lucas Moulton gave me a tour of the center located in the upper floors of a Church. The center includes and office, computer room, art room, lounge/game room, and access to a pool room and multipurpose room with kitchen in the basement.

General Announcements and Updates

Teen Center Check-in

• Summer programs, events, and/or CBI activities.
• The Basement Teen Center is taking 6 teens to Washington DC for 6 days with a visit to congress and the Smithsonian! They went to NYC last year and it was the first trip out of VT for many of the kids and they had a blast.
• Plainfield Teen Center is collaborating with the Maple Hill Farm to provide recreational space, gardens, and outdoor opportunities to teens.
• Boys & Girls Club of Vergennes is hosting a ”Rosie’s Girls” summer camp presented by the New England Tradeswomen Association. And it’s full with a waiting list!
• Boys & Girls Club of White River Valley: Hartford Unit is get ready to open up in a new space in White River Jct.
• King Street Youth Center is gearing up for a busy summer with their teen run Lemonade Stand on Church Street, which continues to be a steady income stream to the Teen Center.
• The St. Johnsbury Living Room is making up for lost ground in their life skills effort by combining it with fun recreational activities, namely Wiffle Ball!

CBI Grant process

• Second Quarterly Financial and Programmatic Reports due 7/15/06. Report Forms will be sent my email, snail mail and are posted on the web site.

Funding update

• Legislature: A slight complication for the VCTC’s appropriation from the legislature. I was made aware from the Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) last week that the Budget Bill signed by the Governor was changed in conference committee. The change that affects us is that the VCTC was moved from the “One Time List” (guaranteed funding for this year only) to the “Waterfall” (items in on the waterfall list get funded with surplus revenue in the order that they appear on the list). After my initial shock that the VCTC might not get any money if there was not a surplus this year, the JFO stated that there already was a 31 million dollar surplus and that the entire waterfall list adds up to only 28 million (The VCTC is 17 million dollars down on the list). So, unless in the next two weeks (the state fiscal year ends June 30) the state’s surplus plunges 13 million dollars the VCTC has funding for next year and will be able to continue to provide capacity building grants, other resources and support to teen centers.
• Congressman Saunders: Jenny Nelson from Bernie Saunders’ office was in attendance and let us know that the congressman put in our request for an earmark for 2007-2008. She relayed that things are tight as usual on the federal level, so we shouldn’t get our hopes up but keep our fingers crossed.
• Looking ahead: Between now and October I hope to have some success augmenting the legislature’s appropriation with some fundraising or grants. In the longer term, my goal is to secure an appropriation for the Coalition in the state general fund for next year. That would mean a steady, yearly funding stream for the Coalition and a base upon which to add monies from grants and fundraising. I would like to see the Coalition consistently give out $2,000 to $5,000 in capacity building grants.

Discussion Topics (Northern meeting)

• Engaging disinterested youth.
• Some of the ideas discussed included: hands-on demonstrations during drop-in time, planned activities during drop-in time similar to larger activity for recruitment, maintaining a youth driven process for deciding on activities and getting them invested.
• Coping with disruptive/needy youth.
• Some ideas discussed included: removing youth from situation, using the situation as a “teaching moment” to collect the youth in the center as a group to discuss how one youth’s behavior affects the center and what youth might do to manage the situation. Assessing the motivations behind the behavior and addressing that need. Tapping into other/outside resources/assistance in working with that youth.

Next VCTC Meeting

• The next VCTC quarterly meetings will be held in mid September. Dates, places and time to be announced.
• I would like to keep to the regional meeting format. Although this quarter’s southern meeting was cancelled due to lack of RSVPs, had it been earlier in the spring, and communication been better, it would have been successful. It’s benefits are still that a wider cross section of centers can attend. One of the quarterly meetings (December) will be a statewide annual meeting for most of a day and included training, workshop, and resource opportunities.