October 18 YIG Program Committee Meeting

On October 18, we had our first meeting as the YIG Program Committee (formerly YIG State Committee) at the Knowles YMCA Annex in Jefferson City. Video news directors and advisors worked closely with print press advisors and directors to prepare specific details for the Lewis and Clark Conventions.

Governor Candidates Debate

First on the agenda was discussing how the print press and video news was going to handle the governor candidates debate on Thursday night at the state convention.

Moderators:

The print press and video news programs are in charge of moderating the event. Two members from the print press and one member from the video news program will moderate. Katie Lynn of the Springfield Delegation will be the video news moderator for the Clark Convention. Hannah Pingelton will be the video news moderator for the Lewis Convention.

Room Setup:

The Governor Candidates Debate will be held in the Capitol and Truman Ballroom in the Capitol Plaza Hotel. Approximately four rows will be set up with moderators placed between each row in front of the stage for the candidates to see.

Candidate Questions:

Questions for each candidate may be submitted by YIG students through a submission box that will be located in the hotel lobby on Thursday. The question box will be retrieved by the moderators around 9:00 p.m. (the governor candidates debate begins at 9:30 p.m.). Moderators will have approximately 30 minutes to review questions from the submission box (all questions read at the debate will be supplied by YIG students, print press and video news program members).

Question/Answer Timing:

Each candidate will have three minutes (3:00) to answer each question with a one minute and thirty second (1:30) chance for a rebuttal. Delegated YIG students will hold three different color cards announcing to each candidate how much time he or she has left in their response — green cards = half of the allotted time is up, yellow cards = one minute (1:00) left, and red cards = fifteen seconds (:15) left.

Utilizing Channel 14 at the Hotel

Channel 14 is the channel the video news program uses to broadcast the nightly and morning newscasts, as well as the Secretary of State Show and candidate commercials. At the YIG Program Committee Meeting, we discussed using Channel 14 as a looping message board that will be broadcast over the hotel when the video news students are not airing their already-scheduled programming. The message board would include the schedule of events for each day as well as short preproduced segments over particular program events.

Special Project: YIG Testimonials for the Web

State Director Ken Hussey has a special project for the video news program this year. He would like students in the video news program to create short video testimonials for future and current YIG students. Each testimonial would be between :30 and :60 long, focusing on why students participate in YIG, what they love about their specific programs, etc. Ken would like to take these video testimonials and upload them on YouTube (the video testimonials will be edited into one concise 3-5 minute production). The video would also be embedded in the YCMA YIG website.

At the Program Committee Meeting, Katie Lynn, Chase Snider, and Amiria Harper-Rose got a jump start on the project by interviewing directors and advisors from various programs. There will be additional opportunities at each convention to interview students from different programs about their YIG experience.

According to Ken, these short testimonials could be great recruitment tools, as well as good videos to use with prospective donors to the YMCA YIG program.

Here is an example of what the YMCA of the USA did this past summer at the Youth Governors Conference in Washington, D.C. (The communications team at the YMCA of the USA put this production together.): http://www.youtube.com/user/ymca

Giving Back To The Community

At the YIG Program Committee Meeting, State Director Ken Hussey talked about having the Missouri YMCA YIG program give back to the community during their state conventions this year by donating nonperishable food items to the local food bank. As details are scheduled, more information will be posted on this particular issue.

Please note: This would be a great story idea for both state conventions!

Best Buy Community Relations

Thanks to the research of Chase Snider of the Springfield Delegation (Clark Convention), he found out that Best Buy donates equipment and technology to certain nonprofit organizations. At the meeting, State Director Ken Hussey was informed about this program and will be looking into applying for equipment for the 2009 state conventions.

http://www.bestbuyinc.com/community_relations/index.htm

From the Best Buy website:

"Giving back to our communities is central to the way we do business at Best Buy. Each year, Best Buy donates up to 1.5% of pretax earnings through the Best Buy Children's Foundation and Corporate giving programs to help strengthen our communities.

As a Company, and through our Foundation, we work with nonprofit organizations to support programs that provide opportunities for youth. Our goal is to provide positive experiences that will help them to excel in school, engage in their communities, and develop leadership skills. We also support national organizations that provide essential social services, such as the United Way and American Red Cross, to improve the vitality of the communities where our employees and customers live and work."

There Is Much Work To Be Done!

Video news directors — make sure to stay in contact with each other regarding work for your upcoming state conventions. This blog is just a way to keep the line of communication open for video news program members...however, it's up to you to make it all happen!