GYAC Summer Retreat

GYAC just got finished with one of its more interesting meetings. This was for many reasons, the most prevalent of them being; saying goodbye to 6 members, meeting with Governor Ricketts for the first time, and welcoming 5 new members into the fold.

The meeting was held in Crete Nebraska at Doane College. Being our summer meeting we focused largely on training, welcoming new members, and planning for our meeting with Governor Ricketts. At this meeting GYAC discussed different ways of involving our alumni as many of them have amazing things to offer, and some of them are now experts in their field. Eventually, after much debate, we came to the decision to hold an annual alumni barbeque at our summer meeting, so as to pick their brains. 

From there we went on to talk about education, something very important to us as we are largely high school students. When discussing education we covered everything from restructuring the ACT and other Standardized Tests, creating Charter Schools, and stopping cheating, to creating incentives for teachers to provide more high quality knowledge rather than often teaching only or largely to the test. When discussing much of this with Governor Ricketts the next day he was very open-minded. Governor Ricketts also mentioned that allowing charter schools in Nebraska is something he is going to be pushing very hard for. 

We then tried to tackle the enormous topic of Underage Drinking. For this topic we tried to narrow down the causes and contributors to it being such a big problem in the U.S., specifically in small communities. We discussed everything from mixed messages sent by the older generations to availability and distribution. Eventually, we decided to keep researching it, specifically in regards to educating parents and communities about its dangers and if it is going to be a problem, then how to do it responsibly.

The meeting with Governor Ricketts went very well. He was very receptive of us and our ideas, while also encouraging us to go deeper. He challenged us to do more research, reach out to other youth in our communities as well as other organizations, and to come up with specific solutions to help alleviate the problems in the education system and with underage drinking.

All of us, from new members to our most experienced left the summer meeting feeling empowered and motivated to go out and make a difference. With hard work and the help of fellow members to keep everyone accountable that will be an imminent surety.

~James Moseman