NeXtGen Digest

Thanks to Stephanie O’Shaugnessey, the PCNRC intern, for compiling the notes. You will see much more detail here about the meeting:

• We toured the beautiful Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana building and ate many cookies
• We talked a lot about the future of NeXtgen and where we want it to go in the future.  The main topics discussed were a schedule for next year and possible changes to the structure of the group.
• Lettie showed a clip from Sierra Bravo’s Overnight Website Challenge (www.f1webchallenge.com) which garnered much excitement all around and a proposal to something similar here. Hilary A., Brent W., Andy H., and Leslie A. were all willing to help out (particularly the during the 24 hours).
• Brent W. talked about the Allen County Summit of Youth

• 2009 Schedule:
  • Andrew H. proposed going to 2 meetings a month, with a meeting in the evening along with our lunch meetings
  • Hilary A. offered to take on a more active role in planning/leading the meetings
  • Jennifer R. would like to try to do many different things with the group before we decide on any one focus

• Structure:
  • Jennifer R. likes the collaboration that occurs at the meetings and the ability to share resources (i.e. paper folder)
  • Andy and Rya M. asked the important question of “What are we trying to do?”  Each feel that large events or programs would be a hit or miss in terms of how many people show up
  • Jennifer R. Would like the group to work as a think tank to help solve an organization’s specific problem.  Discussion followed as to what exactly this might look like and Rya M. thought that helping with smaller programming or project issues would probably be best
  • It was suggested that NeXtgen either collaborate or umbrella with another organization such as Young Nonprofit Professional Network (YNPN) or Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana (YLNI)
  • Hilary A. prefers a collaboration rather than umbrella-ing underneath another organization in order to remain autonomous
  • Brent W. suggested that we need to start out with a core group of people with a common focus and then go from there.

• Mentorship:
  • Lettie asked about a possible mentorship program and wanted to know various traits or names of people that fellow members would be interested in as a mentor.  Brent W. suggested Joe Conrad.  We didn’t talk much about this, is anyone else interested?