10/07/08: 50% Business, 50% Fun

A few weeks ago the Task Force gathered at the future Teen Center with local community members from various youth serving organizations throughout the city to brainstorm on what a successful Teen Center would look and feel like. Some of the teens would argue that 7:30 was way too early to be up and running the visioning session with thirty eager community leaders. However, delicious bagels, fruit, and coffee woke the group up very quickly. Nothing like good food to get people energized!
Each of us played a key role in running the visioning session, from doing small group ice breakers to giving a powerpoint, to running the actual session. For many of the Task Force members, this was our first time organizing and leading a presentation in front of a large group of adults. The visioning session made me feel like I was a mature and professional young adult. Towards the end, I led the group through a summary of all the ideas that we collaborated on.
Some main themes that came up:

The Teen Center needs to be a place where all groups of teens feel welcome. We should emphasize outreach to all teens, while not just focusing solely on low risk teens or high risk teens.

Coordination between other city agencies and organizations is key. Also, non-duplication of services is essential.

“50% business, 50% fun” is an idea that rose out of a focus group we held earlier this summer. This has become a new motto for how we are planning to shape the programming of the future Teen Center.

Ultimately, we will use the feedback and ideas gathered from the visioning session to formulate the vision statement for the future Teen Center.

9/30/08: The elephant in the room: MONEY

It seems like procrastination has always been a part of the human mind and is permanently put in there. In life, you are assigned to do some things ahead of time yet it never fails that you wait until the last minute. And of course as you’re trying to crunch time and finish the assignment, a thousand and one things either attempt or succeed in distracting you. So as I sit here trying to remember what exactly happened in our meeting from about three weeks ago with Noll & Tam I realize that once again procrastination has come back to bite me.

As we all sat at the table awaiting the new design concepts that Noll & Tam were going to present to us, you could see some of the anticipation in our eyes. This was not the first concept they had showed us, but still just the general excitement of seeing another design was there. Or maybe the energy was just coming from the delicious cupcakes they had served us for snacks. But anyway they presented us two options. Option 1 seemed to be the ultimate favorite which made Option 2 to be in no one’s favor. Doesn't it always seem like when you have to choose between two things one just pops out at you and the other just fades to the side? Well that's how it felt at the meeting. Option 1 was creative and allowed us to build even more great ideas into it, including the idea of having a cafe on the roof, which by the way I strongly support and stand up for whole heartily. Which put Option 2 even more in the back burner. But as we further discussed Option 1 it seemed to cause a great white elephant in the room amongst the adults. MONEY!! And of course the ever so faithful issue of the amount of spaces in the parking lot. But yes money seems to be the root of all evil at time doesn't it? The problem was that Option 1 was going to cost us an extreme amount of money. I mean, of course this whole project is expensive but Option 1 sounded way over our budget. And as the money discussion arose the Teen Task Force became quite. It was like when a child is shopping with their parent and the parent says to them, “no we cannot buy that, it is too expensive” and the child begins to think of ways to bargain with the parent. Well the teens were the children and the adults were the parents.

But no idea in this project is ever shutdown because of money. There are ways to work around it, especially when we come together and think of ways to do so. So once again we all depart from another meeting with these things pondering in our minds only to prepare to present our ideas at the next session.


Want to know more about the Teen Center construction budget?

9/25/08: Searching My Mind to Find the Answer

Our visioning training with Tracy Shear from the Berkeley Alliance was a tool-learning meeting so that we (the teen task force) would know how to run our very own visioning session at the community engagement breakfast. This class had many components and took sort of a long time, so while sitting there I made a mental note to not let ours drag on that long when we did it-but we were still only learning. I will admit the training got us all thinking, but for me, I had just a tad of a harder time searching my mind to find the answer to what a successful teen center would look like while trying to look ten years into the future. Later, I found it easier to come up with ideas with my group where I wasn’t the only one thinking. I wasn’t nervous about speaking in front of people and running this breakfast at all. I guess public speaking comes easy to me when I’m not looking for something to say. In the end the breakfast was a huge success and went pretty smoothly for the most part. I had fun, I got to miss school for crying out loud. Lolz. Click here to find out what Lolz means.

09/05/08: Another Lonely Night Without Teens

If you've ever been down at the station chatting it up with the Lieutenant, or skating in MLK park with the bros, you've probably noticed the big abandoned building on the corner of Center and MLK. This old cement box is going be transformed into the YMCA's new teen center come 2009-2010. This video will show you what the building looks like now, and it will give you a little preview of what we're planning to do with it. Hopefully, we'll look back on this short clip someday and laugh in triumph over what we have accomplished.

For now this lonely structure waits in anticipation of Extreme Makeover: Multi-Use Building Edition.

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!