I love the idea of the youth convention. Medfield was able to fill it’s two delegate slots. I am curious about the actual number of kids. The area set aside for them looked a bit empty. Our kids chose to sit with us instead.
I also don’t know what happened in their session. It was graduation weekend in Medfield and both were seniors who had to book it for home, and didn’t stay.
My thoughts on improving on the idea:
1. Now that we know about this, going forward we are thinking about having a caucus to select the two kids. Maybe right after the regular caucus in February, or later in the spring. Give them a chance to campaign and see what a caucus is all about.
2. Run the youth area like a real mini-convention within the convention. Organize the seating in the area so kids from neighboring towns sit together. Let them actually vote, using the same process as us, with their own tellers. Encourage the candidates to campaign for their votes. Announce their results along with the “adult” results.
3. Work the Young Dems into this. Nice to see the Young Dems at the convention. Make the Young Dems the tellers, etc. in the youth area (see #2).
Make the afternoon part a Young Dems convention, let them vote on issues, town hall meeting in youth issues, etc. I don’t know how we define the “young” in Young Dems, but the high school kids are certainly Future Young Dems. Connecting the two seems like a win-win.
4. Encourage speakers to acknowledge the kids in their speeches.
These are kids that are politically interested and budding activists. The more we can teach them the process and acknowledge them the better off we are.
I think this is a great idea, and a very good start. I see a lot of potential in this. I applaud the Party, the state committee, and the convention organizers for doing this.
Your thoughts?
The Young Democrats of Massachusetts has a High School Caucus and we would love for all youth convention delegates to join us. Please sign up on our website and you will be added to our email list. We are also in the process of creating regional chapters so you can get involved locally.
Why not contact them? Have some sort of event, a Facebook page for them (everybody has one, why not?), etc. etc. You’ve got their contact information. Simple postcard might be all you need.
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p>I think this groups needs little more reaching out.
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p>This is a great idea!!!!!!
I agree with Medfieldbluebob in that wholeheartedly applaud the party for doing this. I guess this was the brainchild of Young Dem Libby DeVecchi, so kudos to her.
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p>Like any new venture, there were a few hiccups along the way and I hope these can be used as something to build off of.
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p>I think the notification needs to come a lot earlier- like MBB says above- give us a chance to incorporate this into the caucus process. It seems like most Town and Ward committees were scrambling to fill these slots and most did not. I called around to some local friends to see how they were doing it and some hadn’t even heard about the Youth Convention. Now that we have a year under our belt, I expect this will take care of itself.
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p>We also ought to revisit the submission process. Anyone could go on the MassDems website and submit any name(s) without a limit a password or any sort of verification. When I am entering our caucus results, I need to sign in with a password. This should be the same.
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p>During the convention itself, the Youth Delegates were supposed to sit in a designated section at the back of the arena and that’s where our students went during the balloting portion of the convention, but it was dead up there. It wasn’t real clear to many that that’s where they were supposed to be, so some sat with their districts and others milled around up top.
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p>My first preference would be to have the Youth sit with their actual district, but if we’re going to have a designated Youth Section, it ought to be more clearly marked, and also ought to be more involved- have a party official or a Congressman or someone high profile help explain to the students what is going on during all that “down time.” You don’t realize how much down time there is when you’re watching the attendance/votes unfold right in front of you in your district, but from the back of the room it was an hour of absolutely nothing.
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p>I kept making a point to go back and speak with our Youth Delegates and try to update them as to what was going on and what to expect, but there was no coordination. Some youth delegates and/or their chaperones were playing on their phones or even napping.
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p>I could only stay for a brief time for the part following the convention, but LG Tim Murray, Van Jones and State Senator Ben Downing each addressed the delegates and encouraged them to stay involved. I’m curious to hear from someone who was involved in that how that was received and what else was scheduled.
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p>Of our Youth delegates, one of them was absolutely enthused and will definitely be more involved going forward, but the other, not so much. The way I look at it, that’s one more energetic young person involved in the process who wasn’t a year ago and that’s a good thing.
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p>All in all, I loved the idea and I hope we can take it a step further next year.
Thanks to MedfieldBlueBob and the others who have commented here on ways to improve the youth convention aspect of the state party convention and more fully integrate young (and younger and younger) Dems into the state party.
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p>Quick recap … thanks in large part to Libby Devecchi, with whom I have the honor of serving as co-chair of the state party’s Youth Services Committee, Stacy Monahan, Gloribell Mota, John Walsh and a great group of volunteers, the youth convetion brought together roughly 150 high school age, and some older, Dems from all across the state.
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p>Along with watching the convetion, these Dems participated in a panel of young and active Dems from across the state (off the top of my head panelists included youth from Lowell, Acton, Pittsfield, Hyde Square (Boston), and a few other areas), listened to an inspiring speeches from Van Jones and Lt. Gov. Murray, and broke down into various workshops/seminars on town/ward committes, presidential politics, and other issues.
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p>Like any other first time event, there’s lots of room for improvement. I know John Walsh is looking at ways of coordinating the State party’s youth activities and branding them more cohesively. Additionally, we are all working to deepen ties with the Mass Democratic Future (Young Dems) and College Dems and involve them in the convention and other aspects of the party’s youth services.
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p>Most importantly, all of us who were involved in the youth convention are excited to hear ideas, feedback and thoughts about ways to create more meaningful opportunities for youht across the commonwealth to get involved in the state party and it’s activities. I, for one, like the idea of the youth delegates sitting with their delegations and finding a way for them to vote, in one way or another. So keep the good ideas coming and thanks again.