ACT MONTHLY MEETING – May 4, 2018
VDH Community Room | 324 Main St, 8:00-10:00 am
Minutes
In attendance: Kayla Becker (Catamount Connections & United Way), Michelle Marrocco (BCRC & ACT), Zirwat Chowdhury (Town of Bennington), Keith Carey (Gamer’s Grotto), _____
Regrets: Liz Fenwick (Lions)
Intros
Minutes approval & Bylaws – waiting due to not having enough people in attendance
Fiscal Sponsor
- transferring to TPC; Dan Fletcher sounds supportive
- ends Sept 30, up to 4 month transition
- have one grant to help cover the time
Mental Health Training
- Keith attended
- Shared notes
- Not much re: substance
- Good for very new-to-info people (basic)
CRJ Programs for Teens
- A lot available, not just for people enrolled in “programs”
- Make community aware
Sticker Shock
- Prom is coming up May 18 Jr. Prom; June 2 Senior Ball
- CRJ & Teens4Change to help
- Window clings and table tents
MayFest
- ACT will be outside Gamer’s Grotto
- Raffle basket idea?
- Marijuana/drunk goggles – may be a good idea, may be a hard location/event
- Mayfest: May 26
- Dare will send out signups for shifts
Following notes were taken by Michelle Marrocco after Kayla left early.
Stark Street (cont.)
- Zirwat: Mural on basketball court (youth & students), bike lanes & crosswalks, seating, dog park area, 6 acres
- Melissa: Local trucking companies will donate tires
Catamount: Ready but insurance. Opening soon! May is soft opening to set up calendar and try stuff
Bridges Out of Poverty: June 22, location TBA
Youth Summit: Yolanda
- @ UCS, call for speakers ends today (contact Yoland if you’re interested and haven’t submitted yet)
- Monday: Call for volunteers
- Annual Youth Supporter and Leader awards, coming to your inbox soon
- In schools weekly doing registration during lunch
- Indoor and outdoor
- Saturday, June 9
- Morning and afternoon sessions, 1 hour each
- Opportunities to connect directly with youth (also to other vendors and speakers)
- Group lunches with youth
- Aiming for more interaction this year
- Zirwat: Going forward, let’s discuss ways to better integrate into community in future (Stark Street)
- Maryann: We have 20×40 tent if needed (Zirwat: so does TOB)
- Beth: Katelyn Harrington from DCF interested in workshop around navigating DMV
- June 4, Orientation (tentative)
Youth Appreciation Day: TJ
- Yard signs out (kept a few to lead up to park)
- Final email to activities today with map and where to park
- Table & chairs, bring your own tent
- MM: We need someone will a truck/large vehicle today at 3:30 and following YAD at 3 to move tables/chairs
- Ken will bring 2 ice cream scoops
- Beth has 2 stop watches
- Dare, Shira & (Zirwat) Movie night volunteers
Ninja Trail: Zirwat
- Bike/ped path that links North Bennington and downtown Bennington
- June 2: lead a walk through
Maryann: June 2 trail running event (turned this into a fundraiser, Collaborative did a bunch of work on trails)
Ken: Went to HS yesterday and got into all 4 health classes
- TPC’s youth/young talked about how they got here starting freshman year of HS & and tactics of how to “pause”
- Pros/Con list of goals: need to teach kids to weigh consequences and consider options
- Lots of engagement from students
- Invited back for next year
- Having young people that some of the students know and teachers remember is the key, students can relate to someone closer to their age
Maryann: LGBTQ education last week
- Not much of a turnout, but those that did engaged
- Learning curve & huge need in Bennington: learned a lot
- Beth did a training around this recently that was very successful
- Note: When working with youth, splitting by gender really difficult for this community
- Ken: TPC has connection to this community too
- Zirwat: Conversations around name & preferred pronoun not commonplace outside of academia
- Maryann: Some in classrooms, Gender neutral bathrooms area of harassment, teachers still using former name of transitioning students; Working around how to handle bathrooms and classroom policies (names on rosters, etc)
- Melissa: Systematic issues of using legal names (when necessary); reaching out to camps about where kids sleep based on orientation and gender -> camps require education
- Beth: DCF has that issue with placements
- Maryann: Large issue of splitting children (and society) into genders for activities; GSA run by caring adults, but not often LGBTQ role models -> how to bring role models into schools for GSA and students at large
- Kim: Attended LGBTQ training for masters in Albany, they may have connections
- Yolanda: Has connections to Albany Pride
- Do we have an Alt Prom?
- Maryann: “Kings” and “Queen” alienating; Brattleboro has done an Alt Prom & monthly dance/get together for LGBTQ community
- Michelle: Look south towards Berkshires, similar issues
- Zirwat: Aurora dance party used to be out of warehouses with performers, very LGBTQ friendly, dreaming about bringing that back
- Yolanda: Has connections to Albany Pride
Prepared by Kayla Becker, ACT Secretary May 2018
