Opus and ConCentric Application

Position:
Opus Workshop Co-ordinator
ConCentric Workshop Co-Ordinator
Opus/ConCentric Transportation Coordinator
Opus/ConCentric Registrar and Outreach Coordinator

Other Committments
I currently work 30+ hours a week, and serve on the Heartland YA/CM Sustainability Corps and District Youth Steering Committee.

I generally allocate 8+ hours a week per committee/volunteer position I am working on, and most of the District duties are finished by the beginning of May, allowing for additional allocation as the needs of the Opus/ConCentric jobs dictate.

Skills
The following apply to all three jobs for which I am applying A) Donald works cooly under a timeline, while maintaining a high calibre of work product, even when people working with him may not always operate as well.

2) All three of the positions for which I apply can benefit from a high degree of logistic skill. The interplay of how one action or event can have a ripple affect through a conference, and the process of looking ahead to see the possible ripples one may cause, are affairs I am fascinated with and always working within.

and D) I have done the work of equivalent positions for previous conferences in the Michigan and Heartland districts, of events ranging in size from about 100-250 people.

StrengthsAndExperiences:
I've previously worked as Registrar and Outreach/Communications Co-ordinator for the Michigan districts youth ministry, dealing with the advertising and registrations for 3-7 cons annually, averaging over 100 people each.

Please see questions 3 and 7.

Vision
Opus and ConCentric Workshop Co-ordinators At the heart of any conference is the discourse between its attendees, and good workshops that run the gamut from deep soul searching to frivolity can keep the play between con goers sparking, even in the depths of summertime laziness and mid-conference funk.

I vision the workshop spread for Opus, as a spiritual retreat, to have just such a breadth, through working conjointly with the other vision holders of the conference. One of the key points would be working with the worship co-ordinators to include some workshops that serve in parallel with the worship progression, as a foreshadowing of the worship experience to come, or deeper immersion in the practice introduced before.

Similarly, working with the staff of the General Assembly Young Adult Caucus and ConCentric can provide methods for doing spiritual work and reflection in regards to the work we are doing as a portion of the Association, as well as providing insight into what workshops, ideas, and methods are particularly forefront in the minds of many of our membership, not just the most vocal.

ConCentric, being a place where we come to do the work of C*UUYAN, is a bit different. Workshops can be more focused on examples and discourse on how groups are doing similar work, or on how to tie in the work we do and the needs and desires we see in our congregations and districts into the work C*UUYAN is doing, in order to make it a relevant organisation. Pending the outcome of decisions from General Assembly, there can be workshops involving making Real those goals, and others that can help prepare business to send from C*UUYAN to the General Assembly the following year.

If possible, I'd like as complete an abstract of workshops presented at previous Opuses and ConCentric for the past 5+ years, from which to extract trends and tendencies.

Registrar/Outreach
To paraphrase Capt. Jack Sparrow: That's what a con is, you know. It's not just a camp and songs and worship and deans, that's what a con NEEDS but what a con IS... what Opus really is... is Community.

The first step of building community, is to gather people in the same space and time. The Registrar holds an interesting and key role in the process of community building and how the conference staff will work with the community. The logistics of getting the requisite information from the potential attendees to the support staff that needs it (kitchen, medics, chaplains, et al) can be simple, given a good working relationship. However, the ideal Registrar gets to see each and every person early on the first day of the conference, and can get a good feel for the state of the con at its inception, thus becoming the first line of offence against a cons all to easy descent into pain and soulful scarring. The watchful Registrar should be ready to speak to the chaplains and allies of those coming in who seem overly exhausted or troubled and may need someone to talk with. The cognisant Registrar is making note of each that passes by her smiling face, and makes it a point to say hello to each and every one of them, later in the conference.

The Outreach portion of this job requires the complementary skillset, in that the Outreach Co-ordinator can predispose the community to expectations, and thus shape the manifestation of the conferences collected Will. They are the spin doctors, minstrels, and town criers of Opus and ConCentric, and the greatest tool C*UUYAN and the Deans have to increase attendance, and bring in people ready to make Real the visions of the staff.

Working as the outreach Co-ordinator will require close work with the Workshop and Worship leaders, so as to have good teasers for advertising material. Joint work with the GA YA Caucus staff, Opus Workshop co-ordinators, and ConCentric staff can be used to link themes and activities, giving Opus a better grounding in the work of our Association and our congregations. I'd also like to see advertising for Opus/ConCentric at all of the 2007 Annual Meetings for the districts with spring meetings.

Transportation Co-ordinator.
Transportation is an ugly affair, and often thankless. The most excited attendee can have their initial days of the event ruined with exhaustion and grief, should the transportation be painful. One of the surest methods of ensuring happy attendees who aren't overly stressed by the portions of transportation that we provide, is in the arming of them with information well ahead of the event. If people are going to be waiting at the airport for 2 hours, due to their arrival time vs shuttle time, then they need to be well prepared for that, more than a few days ahead. Large capacity vehicles, whether bus or van, can also reduce the environmental impact of our event, and the stress on volunteers driving.

SuccessfulOrUnsuccessfulProject:
During GA 2006, I was serving as a member of the General Assembly Planning Committee, with the portfolio of Evening Entertainment. It was my task, along with a local committee member, to arrange for and produce a different event each of the 5 nights of General Assembly. Generally, I think the nightly affairs went well, but they did not have the attendance or appeal I had wished for them.

Two things jump to my mind when it come to this series of events. First, there was an idea pitched for the performance of an opera, by a group of UU musicians. This was not a plan that I was too keen to follow, as I didn't think the event would appeal widely enough, but the other person I was working with played his trump card, and the opera was a go. When GA came, I was proven wrong, as the opera was our most well attended night of entertainment. From this, I was reminded of the partnership with others I must work in often, and that no event belongs to a single dream.

Secondly, as I was starting the process of planning the events, I had said I wanted to make the evening events something that were truly appreciated, and wide ranging in flavour. However, my own unease at having just started my service on the Planning Committee, and finding that the way the hotels and conference centre operated their ball rooms and events planning were very different in St Louis than they are here in the Detroit region where I've done similar work, lead me to think twice of myself and I did not end up taking what I perceived as risks in truly changing the kinds of events we provided, to the detriment of not just my dream, but the potential for a firm change in the way GA entertainment is approached for the next several years. Greater risks can lead to greater reward.

UUInvolvement:
I've worked in various capacities in the Michigan and Heartland district since 1997 including duties as:
Registrar
Communications Committee
Web Design
Email list and database management
Chair of the Youth Ministry Re-visioning group (during the Michigan/OhioValley/Heartland merger)

From June 2005-Sept 2006, I served on the General Assembly Planning Committee, primarily dealing with Plenary Hall technology and Evening Entertainment, though I was involved in vision oversight for the entirety of the event.

I currently serve as an Adult At Large on the Heartland District Youth Steering Committee, and as Convenor for the Heartland UU District Young Adult & Campus Ministry Sustainability Corps (HUUD YA/CM SC)

AR/AOWork:
In 1994 and 1996 I traveled to The Peoples Republic of China and South Africa (respectively) with the People to People Student Ambassador Program. Both times, much of my time was spent with other students in middle and high school, learning of each others lives, philosophies, hopes and dreams. I've never had a more life changing experience since.

As part of the Planning Committee, I spent a goodly amount of time at meetings and between them, talking with people about how best to restructure the work we do to cease being oppressive (as it often is now), and create new systems and structures that are anti-oppressive themselves, and walk others through a process of learning to be anti-oppressive themselves.

The first UU anti-rascism programming I went through was after the General Assembly in Ft. Worth, June 2005, put on for those newly elected leaders.

In 1998-1999 I was part of a panel that dealt with issues of race relations in the Willow Run Community Schools District.

C*UUYAN:
Being a volunteer in C*UUYAN is another aspect of providing service to the congregations of the Association. I believe that by volunteering within C*UUYAN, and working within its systems and structures, I can affect change within it that will connect it to our congregations and the other structures and systems of the Association, which C*UUYAN has largely failed to do to its detriment as an organisation. By working within C*UUYAN, especially in those capacities that allow me greater access to use C*UUYAN's Voice, I believe I can bring to C*UUYAN people and ideas from our Congregations that otherwise would never be heard, thus making C*UUYAN approach a state of accountability. Further, I can take my knowledge of working in the committee structures of the Association where C*UUYAN has failed to be present, and help others learn to be more effective communicators of our message.

OtherInfo:
I keep a blog at http://www.donaldwilson.info , and am a penultimate geek that managed to steal social skills along the way.

I also play the Great Highland Bagpipe, and my "Wake Up Call" skills are at your disposal.

Additional Questions:
Opus & ConCentric Registration and Outreach Co-ordinator: Describe how you see the role of outreach as essential to the growth of our conferences and the greater C*UUYAN movement.

Opus & ConCentric Registration and Outreach Co-ordinator
This is partially dealt with in my vision for the position above. Any person whose focus is outreach, and has a goal of growth for the organisation, must be able to listen, as well as speak. A person doing good outreach will be engaging the groups that have historically been under-served or mis-served by the organisation, and looking inward at the organisation from their vantage, to best help inform the system of what needs change to become better, and grow further and faster.

Opus & ConCentric Transportation Co-ordinator
I thrive in a high stress environment. Immersing Myself in environments and projects, such as the GA Planning Committee, high attendance cons, etc is a form of self care in and of itself, which I engage in regularly but carefully. I also manage my general eating and caffeine consumption carefully, as I do suffer from chronic migraines.

ConCentric Workshop Co-ordinator:
One of the most successful workshops I attended was lead by a long time youth leader in my district, shortly after I joined the Michigan YAC. The workshop was a crash course in the UUA structures, including the processes of General Assembly Business, all the committees of the association and how they relate to one another, YRUU, UUYAN, and examples of both pastoral and programmatic models of congregational and district governance.

The presenter had a charisma, and such a complete understanding of the material himself, that his patter was easily understood, and he related everything clearly and concisely. I've often dreamed of being able to present the same, but have yet to live up to that particular presentation.