Guide To Putting On Retreats

As Unitarian Universalists, we believe that the world was not created by a far-away God a long time ago and left to humans to hang out on. We believe that human beings have the power to create the world each day. That divine power is tangible at a great UU retreat.

Putting on a retreat is like putting on a typical YAG calendar of events, except all events are combined into one weekend, with a huge number of people, many from outside of YAG and/or the Boston area. This page is specifically designed to assist planners of YAG sponsored retreats, with specific relevant information.

Another great resource, HIGHLY RECOMENDED: YRUU's "How To Be A Con Artist" conference planning guide, which gives more of a narrative feel for a UU youth or young adult conference for the unitiated. The guide below is more focused on quickly providing basic details and information to make planning efficient and effective.

Steps (they overlap):
Step 1: Find A Site & Pick A Date Step 2: Fill Positions Step 3: Choose A Theme Step 4: Plan	Step 5: Publicize Step 6: Run Conference! Step 7: Debrief

Step 1: Find A Site & Pick A Date

Don't start from scratch, check out the locations links on the retreat main page, presented in lovely hyperlinked form! Includes links to sites used by YAG in the past and more! Recomend making a decision on a date and site 2-3 months in advance to allow people to reserve the date and ensure site and desired facilities are available. You can glean some information on the sites that have been used before by reading the printed materials in the Past Retreats section. Make sure the date you pick doesn't conflict with a major First Parish event, UUYAN conference, GA, a major Boston event (such as Gay Pride weekend), a major holiday, etc. After the date is set, block out the space on the YAG calendar and advertise it on the list serve, website etc. so people will mark their calendars. Important: add the results of any new research to this page! Email youngadults@firstparishcambridge.org. This will save future YAGers (maybe you) HOURS of work!

Step 2: Fill positions

These are the most common positions/planning areas, and related roles/tips: Dean, Registrar/Treasurer, Activity Coordinator, Worship Coordinator, Family Group Coordinator, Service Project Coordinator, Memory Book Coordinator, Meals Coordinator, Ride Broker .These positions can be combined if appropriate, but beware of loading up any one person with alot of work. Divided up like this, they should take minimal (<5 hours for most) pre retreat planning time to do well, thus preventing burnout. If jobs are shared, make sure at least one person is on top of that area. Frequently, the a few people start out organizing the retreat (the deans), and volunteers are found for as many roles as posible as the date approaches. Dean(s) Overall responsibility Check up on organizers Look for volunteers to perform tasks that don't fit in current positions Make sure retreat officers are communicating between themselves, have the information they need and retreat goers know what is going on Make sure what is learned from conference is documented on cambrigeyag.org Discuss with other organizers if it will be a YAG retreat, a Boston metro area retreat, a district retreat, or wider (our district is very small). Inviting the whole district is usually best, with the most focus on advertising in areas within 2 hours of Boston. See publicity section below. Discuss with organizers the price. Be conservative. In addition, up front money is needed to run a conference, which requires extra money from the previous conference. Browse through past conference materials. Registrar/Treasurer Creates registration form with others. Don't start from scratch! Just tweak the file from the Branching Out Retreat, located here, or older registrations forms located here for what information should be on form. Coordinate with other organizers what should be on the form. The registration form should contain spots related to other areas discussed on this page: rides, meal restrictions, workshop leader volunteers, and also childcare volunteers. Childcare should be offered at least during parts of the weekend to give parents a chance to have a break and participate in a similiar manner as everyone else, and feel welcome to come to the retreat, which is for ages 18-35, roughly. Recommend charging more for registrations after a certain date. It is the only way to motivate people to register and not having an idea is difficult. Collects registrations and $ Deposit all fund with the church in the YAG retreat account, produce financial statements and attendance statistics for retreat and present to deans and wheel committee, collect expense reimbursement vouchers and receipts from organizers and forward to the church office for reimbursement. For major payments, such as paying the conference site, submit a voucher to the church to get a check ahead of time. Info on how the YAG and church budget process works. Read the registration and late arrivals debriefs from the from the Art & Spirit retreat. Compile all registrants info into one file and make available to all organizers, either electronically or via paper as is convenient. Note: using Excel is ideal, because it allows each organizer to sort the data according to what information they need to do their job (coordinate rides, count # of vegans, etc.) If a child is attending accompanied by someone who is not the child's parent or legal guardian, the parent or legal guardian must sign this waiver Activity Coordinator Puts together an activity schedule....this is pretty much the same job as putting together a typical YAG monthly calendar. There should be a spot on the registration form for people to volunteer to put on activities Schedule free time; even though people have the option of participating or not in any activity, there should be unstructured time. Generally there are 2 or 3 activities/workshops which occur at the same time. Do not load all of the same type of activity into one session. (ie if you have spiritual, fun, and business activities, don't put all the fun activities into just one time slot, spread them out). People can choose what they want each session, without missing out on an entire category of activities. Schedules from retreat to retreat generally follow a particular rhythm. Refer to the schudules from the Sounds & Silence, Art & Spirit (front, back), Building Ties in the Northeast, and Let It Be A Dance retreats for a general idea of what activities occur at what times. Read the workshop and activity debriefs from the Art & Spirit retreat. These introductory games could be useful: Worship Coordinator Facilitates a worship happening Start with tools, references, chalice, candles YAG already has before doing original work. Contact the current YAG worship coordinators for help in accessing these resources, or visit the YAG inventory list located in the library and mainained by the librarian. There is generally a worship service on Sunday morning which acts as a closing for the retreat, and perhaps an opening one on Friday. Read the worship debrief from the Art & Spirit retreat. Family Group Coordinator Family groups, (AKA touch groups), are groups of 5-10 retreate goers. Their formation promotes people making friends with new people, spending time outside of their home church young adult group or primary group of friends. They are also an excellent means druing the retreat to organize volunteers (eg each group takes meal shift) and disseminate information. They are widely used at YRUU conferences. They are more commonly known as touch groups, so this name will have more recognition but the term family group is also occasionally used and will not scare off newcomers who might misinterpret what "touch groups" are all about. Read a discussion on the pros and cons, and some tips from the Art & Spirit retreat planners. Tasks/Tips: Get copy of retreat participants from registrar Divide the list into groups of 5-10, providing for a mix of gender, age, city, young adult group affiliation, etc. Make sure the major retreat organizers, best friends, couples, personality conficts, exes are not in the same groups. Recruit touch group leaders and train them (their should be a spot on the registration form to volunteer for this. Touch group leaders can include people who are have another retreat job, but one that is not very demanding of time during the retreat. They should know what is going on during the retreat and be able to communicate that enthusiastically to the touch group members. Another idea is to place one retreat organizer in each group. It is fun to give touch groups fun names, or let the groups choose them. This promotes camaraderie! Decide how often the touch group should meet. They should meet once during the first night, and possibly at least once more on the second day. Schedule these blocks of time with the activity coordinator. Make sure the registration packet says who is in what touch group, and where each group's meetings will occur. A benefit of touch groups is that they are an excellent way to organize people to help with tasks (such as moving chairs, meal setup, etc.) Service Project Coordinator Typically, we should spend an hour or two doing something to improve or maintain the site we are using, which are always non profit sites. Talk with camp manager. Memory Book Coordinator The memory book AKA face book is a book with a page for each YAGer. At the beginning and during the retreat, YAGers decorate a page of paper with their names, contact info, drawings, quotes, or anything else that expresses themselves. These pages hang on the wall for people to enjoy, and at the end of the retreat, they make their way into a book, which is given to all, sometimes with photos attached. To put together the book before people leave, a copy center must be within driving distance. Design a cover for the book and make sure you have a strong stapler. Decide before the retreat what size paper will be used for each person: full page, half page, quarter page. Prepare a page for each person with their name, contact information (get from registrar) and space to decorate. Check out some samples from past retreats. Meals Coordinator Collect YAG dietary requests from the registrar (A spot for dietary requests requests should appear on the registration form) If we are using camp staff to cook, liason with the camp's kitchen on dietary requests. Make sure their are a few other snacks or encourage people to bring their own (at some retreats there is a box to donate money for snacks). Keep meals simple and cheap. Eg pancakes are probably easier than french toast. Spaghetti is cheap. Canned fruit (preferably in large cans found at Costco or Cash n Carry), not real fruit. Better for environment and retreat finances not to use disposables, instead borrow silverware/cups/plates from church, YAG organizers, or ask people to bring their own. You may want to use some of the food related supplies located in the YAG closet-see the inventory located in the library. For simplicity given the UU young adult population, make all meals vegetarian. It is alot easier to just count vegans and a few other types of needs in a UU group than count all the vegetarians. If we are cooking ourselves, try to find a YAGer with a Costco membership or use another "wholesale" store which does not require membership (eg Cash n Carry-there are many in the Boston area, often close to sites we've used, and it probably (need confirmation) doesn't require a membership card) Each family group should take a shift setting up and cleaning up after a meal, under the direction of the meals coordinator(s). Often a single person other than the meals coordinators) will take charge of cooking and planning the menu for a single meal, with meals coordinators still maintaining overall responsibility and support. Read the meals debrief from the Art & Spirit retreat planners. Rides Broker AKA Transportation Engineer Coordinates drivers/passengers that don't connect on their own. There should be a spot on the registration form where people can put down how many extra seats they have, and how many they can offer. The ride broker should get this ride information from the registrar. Answer questions on driving directions.

Step 3: Choose A Theme Generally, the worship service and registration form follow this theme. Whatever other cheesy tie ins people come up with are great! Consider using artwork from past retreat's Memory Books as inspiration for theme and registration materials.

Step 4: Plan And Meet Communicate early and often. If planning a retreat is taking up a significant amount of your free time, there is probably something you could do differently or something you could recruit a volunteer for.

Step 5: Publicize Publish and advertise the retreat! The more the merrier and having citywide and/or regional retreats promotes strong UU young adult groups in other geographical areas. If the retreat is for the Boston metro area, Mass Bay District, or a wider geographical area, additional advertising will be needed. Here are your main advertising sources: Young Adult List Serves/Organized Groups uuyan.org group finder BUUYAN (Boston Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network) list serve NORTHEAST-UUYAN (Boston Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network) list serve CUUYAN (Continental Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network) list serve other list serves Churches First read this guide before visiting area churches to promote the retreat. You'll need to divide up this work. For distant churches, phone calls and emails may have to suffice. list of of area churches produced at the Reaching In/Reaching Out retreat (let's update this) MASS Bay District congregation list Clara Barton District congregation list List of districts (pick out the NorthEast ones) Other NorthEast churches found on uua.org congregation finder Newsletters First Parish in Cambridge printed Meeting House News monthly magazine (not published in summer) and website. Submissions for both can be sent to church office at fphsq@aol.com. We also have a church website account which allows us to type up submissions that are approved and posted by the church office. Ferment continental young adult monthly newsletter District Link (Mass Bay District newsletter)

Step 6: Run Conference! When retreat goers arrive, each should receive a registration packet which includes: schedule site map which touch group they are in a page to be decorated for the memory book retreat & site rules, guidelines, tips In addition to food, you'll probably need manila envelopes or folders to store everyone's papers, nametags, mail bags, Have fun!

Step 7: Debrief Have a meeting, either in person or over email and talk about what went well and what didn't. See the minutes from the Art & Spirit retreat to see what they talked about during that meeting. Dean and others review the financial and retreat statistics statements prepared by registrar. Update the retreat planning guide on cambridgeyag.org so future YAGers will benefit from what you learned and be able to plan retreats in half the time! Upload retreat documents, not just scans, into the past retreats area so they can be just tweaked when planning the next retreat. Turn in all receipts and expense reimbursment vouchers to registrar.