Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 1:11 PM

Subject: Spring Bulletin #2 - What better reason to spend a weekend in Corcoran

DEPOSIT PROCEDURE

Response to Spring Conference has been great. Nearly 20 YMCAs indicate that they will participate, with several other YMCAs expressing interest. We hope to have over 300 delegates. There is still time to get involved but you have got to act now. Spring Conference is a great recruiting tool. It is an easy and fun way to get freshman involved in the program.

The timeframe for the Spring Conference is very condensed; therefore it is imperative that you mail your deposits on time.  Mail your Space Reservation Form (in Bulletin #1) with a check or check request by Friday, March 21^st, or fax the form and check request to us at (650) 522-9626. Due to time constraints we cannot guarantee spaces to delegations that turn in late registration forms.

REGISTRATION

Enclosed is the official Spring Conference Registration Form.  Email templates will be sent to all returning delegations within 3 days of receipt of deposit form and deposits.  This form must be completed and returned to the ML/C office postmarked no later than April 11^th, 2008.  Please submit this promptly on the due date because it is less than two weeks until the program. Please make sure the form is complete and the information is either typed or printed legibly. We suggest that you make a copy of this form and fill out a rough copy first. A registration fee will be charged for every name appearing on the Registration Form. Please make sure that a check or check request for the fees is attached with the Financial Recap Form.

Reminder that Spring Conference is open to 9^th – 11^th grade students. 8^th grade students are not eligible to participate in Spring Conference. 12^th grade students may only participate as interns.

QUESTIONS? - PLEASE CALL ROLF AT (650) 522-9622 OR EMAIL AT rolf@calymca.org

STARTING TIME

Spring Conference will start promptly at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, April 25^th.  Delegations should plan to eat dinner en route or bring a sack dinner. All candidates must be present at the opening session in order to run for office. Any candidate not in the auditorium at the beginning of the Joint Session will be automatically disqualified. Do not sign Nomination Forms or Leadership Application Forms unless you are going to arrive on time. Y's traveling through Los Angeles should plan for Friday traffic and allow extra travel time. Generally speaking, unless you are from a Y that is north of Hollywood you will need to leave prior to 2:00 p.m. This means it would be best for delegates to leave school at lunchtime (attending 4 periods allows the school to receive ADA for the day) and get on the road by 1:00 p.m. Northern California delegations should plan on 5 hours from the Bay Area. Considering the quake, flood, and fire disasters of recent years everyone should allow ample traveling time.  Leaving after school just does not work unless you are in Hanford.  Please do not arrive late..... It really fouls everything up.

INTERNS

Please remind seniors who would be an asset to the program (please be selective in whom you recommend) to get their Intern Applications mailed by March 21^st. If you do not think he or she is ready to supervise a group of 16-20 sophomores, please do not sign the form.  Every year we have Interns who are simply not effective (nice guys but just that!).  Selected seniors will be notified by March 31^st, 2008. Intern fees for the year are $200 of which, an $80 deposit is due at Spring Conference. 

LEADERSHIP NOMINATION FORMS AND ELECTIONS

Nomination Forms for Officers and Committee Chairs are due to be postmarked on March 21^rd, 2008.  Candidate Biographies will be mailed to participating YMCAs at a later date.  Committee and Commission Chairs will be selected by ML/C staff based solely on their application forms. The list of selected Committee Chairs will be included in Bulletin #3.

Houses and NIC will elect their officers on Saturday morning by secret ballot.  At that time, candidates for those offices will have the opportunity to introduce themselves and say a few words.  This year will require all officer candidates to campaign in business casual dress. We will also expect that elected officers will remain in business casual for the duration of sessions. Please make sure that your candidates bring the appropriate attire with them.

For clarification, business casual means shirts with collars (shirts must be tucked in), slacks, skirts, or dress shorts. Candidates and officers must also wear shoes; tennis shoes are acceptable as long as they are clean and presentable. Candidates and officers may not wear sandals while in session.

Also new for this year, freshman who have attended a previous ML/C may run for any office that is open to sophomore delegates.

ELECTIONEERING

It is imperative that we are careful with the facilities of the Corcoran YMCA and Corcoran High School.  With this in mind, the staff has established that no signs are to be posted on any walls. Each candidate may bring 2 size 2' X 3' hand held signs. No flyers, balloons, confetti or sticky-backed campaign material is allowed.

PARLIAMENTARY/HOUSE/PROCEDURES

All delegates will be given training in parliamentary procedure at Spring Conference.  However, we suggest that you familiarize all delegates with the most common points of parliamentary procedure. Delegates should also be familiar with committee and house procedures. We suggest that delegations take one or two bills from this year's Daily File and use the Committee Procedure that is printed in the Sacramento Program Schedule for a mock committee meeting.

COMMITTEE PROCEDURE

Spring Conference committees use a slightly condensed version of our normal committee procedure. You will need to have one sponsor to present your bill in committee and one person to speak for it in each of the Houses. These can be two or three different delegates. You will need to know your Committee Sponsor when you submit your Registration Form.

ROLE INFORMATION

The Spring Distribution Formula is enclosed with this bulletin. Delegates may be Senators, Assemblymembers, Commissioners, or Pages (with voting/speaking privileges). Please divide your returning delegates between both houses in order to give the new delegates plenty of interaction with experienced people.  Pages will work as Committee Clerks and House Clerks, and will also be able to speak both in Committee and on the floor.  All Advisors will be expected to "help" in some way at the conference, either in program areas or in some kind of safety patrol.

Governor Blumenfeld may select an interim Chief of Staff and 1 or 2 delegates to act as his staff (cabinet). He will also be getting to know delegates in preparation for selecting his Chief of Staff and his cabinet for the 61^st ML/C.

LEGISLATIVE BILLS & NIC PROPOSALS

 Bills and proposals will be submitted via the same websites as were used during the ML/C. Each delegation is responsible for submitting two bills via our website. The websites will be set up to receive your Bills and NIC Proposals beginning Friday March 21^st.  You will then be able to log on and enter your bill onto a template. The website for submitting bills is http://bills.calymca.org.

NIC proposals should be submitted via http://nic.calymca.org.  Delegates who submitted their NIC proposal during the ML/C will be familiar with the system. We will not be editing bills or proposals; they will be reproduced as you submit them, so be sure that they are corrected. All submissions must be in by March 28^th. If you have technical issues which prevent you from utilizing this format please contact Rolf (650) 522-9622.

Please refer to your advisor’s manual for instructions on how to write a Bill or NIC proposal. To submit your bill or proposal log on to the appropriate webpage and follow the online instructions.

If you have a delegation of more than 30, please submit a third bill and we will assign a house of origin.  Smaller delegations may submit a third bill if they want to do so. In all cases you will then need sponsors to speak for your bills in committee. If staff feels that there are not enough bills we will include additional bills and proposals and assign sponsors from YMCAs.  Please do not submit “silly” bills, they are not good learning tools.

If you need to research the current status of a bill, the best place to start is http://leginfo.ca.gov. If you know the Code and Section you want to change and want to verify the current status of that law, you may call Rolf or Pam at (650) 522-9622 and ask for assistance. We will not do all of your research for you, but we can pull the current code if you give us definitive information. We have also included a sample list of NIC topics to get you started.

If you are having trouble coming up with a bill, or just don’t want to, please let Rolf know as soon as possible. We have plenty of good bills in the archives and would be happy to give you one to use. The earlier you get your request in, the better the selection of available bills will be.

DRESS CODE

As representatives of Youth & Government all participants are requested to wear "nice" school clothing to the Spring Conference. Specific items not allowed are ragged holey jeans, cut-offs, short-shorts, Lycra-spandex shorts and t-shirts with inappropriate lettering.  Walking shorts and culottes are allowed. No "dressy" clothes are needed with the exception of officer candidates (see above)

Since we are all sleeping together on a gym floor or outside, suitable sleeping apparel is essential.  Be sure to bring at least one sweatshirt for the early mornings. 

Swimming will be available and was very popular last year.  If you are planning on swimming bring at least two towels! 

Participants are not allowed to bring any radios, CD or MP3 players (other than those with headphones) or boom boxes. All cell phones and pagers must be turned off during sessions or risk being confiscated.

BRING A TENT

Most delegations bring tents.  The Y is surrounded by a large grassy area which generally makes a great tent/sleeping bag location. Remember, the gym mats will not be allowed outside of the building. If your group is planning on sleeping outside, please bring a ground cloth and bed rolls (foam pad for under the sleeping bag). Males and females may not share the same tent.  Start praying now for good weather!

JUST WHERE IS CORCORAN?

For those of you not familiar with the garden spot known as Corcoran, It's not really "near" anywhere, but it is off the 99 roughly in the middle of the state.  Those of you who have been to Visalia with the Model UN are familiar with the area.

You can get detailed directions by using one of the "map" websites such as mapquest.com or http://maps.yahoo.com.   If you want to eat dinner in Corcoran, you have the choice of 3 pizza parlors, at least one Chinese restaurant, one McDonalds, and a Taco Bell. 

TRANSPORTATION TO CORCORAN?

Kip Sturgeon is the point person for Spring Conference transportation.  He has updated his travel site http://ymcatravel.org. Please check there for information about bus charters, train schedules, and ridesharing. If this site doesn’t have what you need, you can contact Kip at kip@eastvalley.org. He isn’t a miracle worker, but he is a great resource for your travel related questions.

Rolf Davidson

Associate Executive Director

California YMCA Youth & Government

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"Democracy Must Be Learned By Each Generation"