8/29/08: What if they say NO?

Ok, so about two week ago Tracy, Kevin and I went to the family home of Board Members of a local family foundation to ask them for a donation for the future Teen Center. As we rode in Kevin’s car many thoughts were going through my mind like “What if they say no”. I mean, I had never done this before so I was a bit nervous. When we got there they greeted us at the door and we introduced ourselves. We had our meeting on their dining table, so it helped me relax and feel more comfortable. The whole family was nice and I could see in them that they were enthusiastic to hear what we had to say. Kevin started off talking about the Capital Campaign and answered questions about the money stuff. I followed to show them what the inside of the building looked as of then. I showed them how the first level will all be used by teens and the second level would house office staff from Metro. Tracy and Kevin were a great support because when I could not recall the names of organizations they reminded me. We then asked them if they had any questions and excitingly they did….for me too. They asked whether or not I thought teens would assist the Center and I confidently answered “YES”. I feel and know that teens at Berkeley High and the community need the educational and self empowering support. They also gave us some great feedback and brought many things to our attention like the possibility of having a gray water system, geothermal and radiant heating, as well as other things. Overall, I think I had nothing to worry about they were great people that helped create a comforting atmosphere that made our presentation a success.

Check back with us again soon – when we find out whether or not the foundation will fund the new Teen Center we’ll post it here!


See parts of the presentation to the family foundation. (click here)

8/14/08: The Least of Our Troubles

Concept Design Charrette: A meeting in which possibilities are discussed in regards to the design and structure of a particular building.

A phase of the design process that the Teen Task Force got to experience first hand in the offices of Noll & Tam. Coming together to brainstorm, we all sat around a rectangular wooden table. The architects soon began to introduce the exercise that we were to complete. We were given guidance as to what our boundaries were, what was acceptable, not acceptable, and certain measures that we were to take into consideration.

Following the excursion of guidance, being put into three groups were the least of our troubles. Our task: create a schematic of the YMCA Teen Task Force.

Schematic: a visual representation of the design and structure of a building.

Members of the Teen Task Force, complete with guidance and excitement were given all the physical supplies that would be needed to complete the task at hand. Included in this were: a poster board, pieces of what looked like scratch paper, but were actually pieces of paper that represented different things that would need to go in the teen center such as bathrooms, offices, elevators etc.

The supplies also included a complex 3D ruler with numbers engraved on each side which turned out to be a architectural ruler, and writing utensils in case we felt an urgent desire to write something on the poster board in which all of the scraps of papers had to be glued on within the timeframe: 45 minutes.

There sat members of the Teen Task Force in utter confusion. But with great hope to complete our first charrette for the YMCA Teen Center, we began our journey. Despite the confusion that hovered over us, we encouraged one another and shared thoughts in our efforts to complete the charrette before the time was up.

With great collaboration and creativity, the first schematics of the YMCA Teen Center were completed by none other than the Teen Task Force. Now, it was time to present each group's schematic to the rest of the groups and attendees of the meeting. The presentations were successful and the charrette expanded our visual ability to understand the possibilities of the design and structure of the YMCA Teen Center Building.

See the concept drawings that resulted from this process.

7/14/08: Remember, Teens Love Food

We held our first teen focus group for the programming phase of the future teen center. Each of the teen task force members were asked to bring a teen to attend the focus group. We gave the teens a tour of the building so they got a sense of what we were planning on talking about when we arrived at Noll and Tam’s office for the focus group.

Once we arrived at Noll and Tam’s office, Anthony Bernier, PhD. reviewed with the group the results from the previous community interviews. We then voted on the aspects we felt were of higher priority and put the ideas into two groups, A and B. For example lighting, ventilation, colors of walls and adding a green view were some of the community’s concerns. After a list of important and not-so-important criteria was compiled, we divided into two groups. Each group took one of the lists of priorities and was given the task of narrowing that list down by further discussing which items were really important or which weren’t. Another important piece to the hard work that we were doing was stuffing our faces with food a majority of the time. Remember; teens love food.

The end result was a list of approximately about ten important aspects to include in the future teen center and ten not-so-important aspects. That was our first teen focus group for the programming phase of creating the new YMCA Teen Center.

What were the top 10 important aspects of the future teen center? Click here to find out!