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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-03-19■ Dryden Youth Commission March 19, 2002 Minutes Present: Colleen Emerick- Daniluk, Walt Motyjas, Kristen Blackman, Penny Green- Brown, Kris Bennett, Nita Baldwin; Guests Diana Radford, Margaret Ryan Absent: Mary Bachner, Jean Simmons The meeting was called to order at 6:03 pm. Program Presentation: Village of Freeville Summer Camp /Jobs - Diana Radford has been the director but will not continue this summer. A search is underway. Camp costs $15 /week. They serve approximately 80 kids during the 6 weeks, up to 60 per day, in grades K -6. Hours are 9 -3. Four days a week they do arts and crafts, games; the fifth day they take a field trip, usually somewhere within the County (ScienCenter, PRI, Johnson Art Museum). Staff are mostly 16 + year old high school and college kids who also are role models for the campers. They get some money from Etna to bus Etna kids to camp; others provide their own transportation. They haven't used a formal evaluation form in the past. Program Presentation: Youth 8 Community, Dryden Police - Margaret Ryan spoke about: 1) Jr. Police Academy - runs from 9 - noon for one week in the summer at the Freeville Fire Hall. Dave Hall recruits the kids and also assists. She prefers kids to be 10 or older but younger ones have participated. Some kids repeat from one year to the next so she has to update the curriculum. She presents info on radar (and then kids get to ride along and see it in action.) Also shows kids the breathalyzer, canine unit, fingerprinting. She sets up a "crime scene" for the kids to evaluate with their new skills. There's a graduation ceremony at the end, complete with badges. 2) Dryden Elem. School Presentations - She visits each classroom in the fall and spring, topics vary by grade level. She also does assemblies on bike safety and summer safety. (Sertoma will be doing a bike rodeo this year; they're coordinating on this.) Freeville Elem, School Presentations - Similar to Dryden but this year just doing a schoolwide assembly. Since McLean school is not in the jurisdiction of the Dryden police, she doesn't do any regular, official programs there but occasionally presents at a school assembly. 3) Head Start - visits the programs, does activities. 4) Middle School Drug Awareness - Does a program at the school for staff and parents on drug awareness; also does an assembly for 81h graders. She uses an evaluation form for the Jr. Police Academy participants (kids only). Minutes were approved from February. Brooktondale Summer Camp - All had received the program and budget clarification with their agenda and minutes. Last month's concerns about the program being overpriced were relieved by learning that the program supported by DYC costs $15 /week, not $17 /day. Youth Conservation Corps - Kris met with Allen Green from IYB to clarify roles and responsibilities for this summer. She sent a write up of expectations to Allen and to Marie and Carissa from CCE who will do the recruiting, advertising and employment paperwork. Kris also spoke with Dianne McFall from T. Dryden about employment paperwork problems from last year and how to make things smooth this year. Allen wants to come next month to DYC; they need projects for the summer. Possibilities include Nature Conservancy, maintenance on play structures, V. Dryden ball fields (Penny will follow up) and Varna play structure. Annual Reports - Copies were distributed; commission members will take them to the various municipal officials and boards. Updates - After getting Mark Varvayanis' ok, Kris sent a press release re. T. Dryden Commission opening to the Ithaca Journal, Dryden Tidbits and Dryden Courier. (Not to the Shopper which charges a fee.) Kristen will follow up again with Jennifer. Kris sent info. to one potential person who inquired about the Youth Board but might also (or instead) be interested in the DYC. Kris passed out a revised working budget showing last month's additional allocations to Brooktondale and Freeville Camps and also the money available to V. Dryden camp. Copies were also passed out of CCE's budget through February. Nita said that Dianne can update our webpoge if we fax her a clean copy of what is wanted. Kris gave Nita a copy to give to Dionne. Kris passed out a revised DYC roster, showing Marie Vitucci as the new CCE assistant to Amanda. Marie will be coming to our meetings. Summer Plans - In addition to camps in Brooktondale, V. Dryden, V. Freeville, Dave will be offering weekly summer programming. (We were not clear if the location will move like last year; Kris will follow up. She'll also find out what Carisso's summer offerings will be.) CCE has a plan in place for coverage when he is out for the birth of his new baby, due Aug. 1. There will also be a camp run by Sue Rausch at Hammond Hill, Camp Earth Connection, for ages 6 -14, cost $175 - 225/wk. (This was run by the Cayuga Nature Center in the past but is now private.) There has been interest in McLean to start a summer program of some sort there, perhaps next summer. Kristen's church has been involved in looking at creating more options there for upper middle school aged kids. Nothing firm has been decided. Colleen said she feels there is a lack of offerings for kids of this age, roughly 12 -15 and hopes we can talk about addressing this more as well as how to encourage them to participate. We talked about inviting kids of this age range to a future meeting to talk about what they would like to do. Another option would be to make this a focus of a needs assessment. Kris will gather information from other Commissions about what they offer for this age range. Evaluations - Kris passed around the evaluations received to date. Only 3 have come in. If the volume doesn't increase the Commission will simply review them and decide if other steps are needed. We will ask the camps to use them this summer, surveying a minimum of one week's participants. We'll also ask YCC, Jr. Police Academy and Dave (CCE) to use evaluations. Next month - Meeting will be April 16 at 6:00. In addition to YCC and CCE coming, we will review the first quarter (budget, goals) and discuss youth participation, The meeting was adjourned at 8:00. Dryden Youth Commission Minutes Page Two March 19, 2002