Submitted by BeverlySmith on Thu, 2015-10-08 09:39 Conservation TU Teens TU Women's Discussion Trout Magazine Vote Up Down +12 + KidsFishing.jpg I’ve just returned from an early morning breakfast conversation on youth engagement at THE 2015 SHIFT FESTIVAL. I suppose I’m a morning person anyhow; however, this 7 a.m. start needed no coffee or cold mornings to wake me right up. I’ve never left any sort of windowless conference space as inspired as I feel this morning. For starters, I got to sit next to my colleague, Brett Prettyman, TU’s intermountain communications director, and we schemed over eggs about how we can work together to integrate our two departments better support TU YOUTH EDUCATION EFFORTS across the organization. Then, we were greeted by Juan Martinez, whose personal story from gang life to environmental advocate and outdoor enthusiast had me very close to tears. He cited his emotions when he saw his first free flowing river and followed it up with the realization that rivers don’t judge you for the size of your bank account, that willows doesn’t size you up by the time you spent in detention, and that mosquitoes most certainly show no bias! At the heart of Juan’s message was the importance of inspiring the next generation to step up as leaders in our work. He said that we’re not successful until we’ve worked ourselves out of a “job.” And he led by example, passing the mic to a young leader to facilitate the rest of the panel discussion. My mind churned with thoughts of how so many TU chapter and council volunteers still struggle to develop a deep bench of people, regardless of age, to pick up the torch after their term expires. How might we as coldwater conservationists and anglers better engage young people as leaders in our organization through our chapters and councils? I understand that in the West Virginia TU Council we have a college student that raised his hand to volunteer in a critical role the state level. His council provided the space and opportunity, and the student had the willingness and guts to jump right in. How do we provide more of those opportunities? How do we take the great youth education projects and programs chapters are already doing and ensure that those children grow with TU and come back as leaders within the organization? What is working for your chapter or council? What’s not working? What ideas are out there that we can capture at the national level and help to implement broadly across the TU universe. This is a critically important topic and one that no one person is going to resolve alone. Please comment here so that we might generate some ideas find actionable steps we can take together to move the needle on engaging that next generation in our mission. Please also remember that you're always invited to contact myself or Franklin Tate, TU's Director of the Headwaters Youth Education Program, on this topic at any point. And, to the TU leaders out there already making this a priority... thank you! Beverly Smith, TU Vice President for Volunteer Operations P.S. Teen Summit 15.jpg For your morning inspiration, this photo from 2013 of two dozen teenagers in Grand Teton National Park for TU's teen summit. The vast majority of these teens are still engaged with TU in one way or another, whether that's through a 5 Rivers college program, serving on TU's youth leadership council or coming back to serve as counselors at subsequent teen summits. As this demonstrates, we're already making this work at many levels... we just need to do more of it!