I meant in the main sessions, not the drinking sessions

You must have been at the wrong table in the bar on Wednesday evening!

In terms of the comments, I am both heartened and at the same time concerned. Firstly it is good that such events provide a stimulus to take forward our concerns and issues. However it is clearly an error on my part not to have facilitated more deliberative discussion or to have put in place a mechanism for that to take place post conference.

I am looking forward to receiving a hundred and one comments once the opinion seeking evaluation goes out to all participants. Feedback, no matter how damning is positive if it is taken onboard and used accordingly.

Finally, a huge apology to Tom. I am guilty of exactly the very behavioural issues that I was attempting to overcome and do not want to either appear patronising or seemingly placing people in their societal box.

I’ve now caught up on my sleep from Budapest, but not my thoughts.
I have two over-riding themes left over from the event. Firstly was listening to Etienne Chouard speak about his experience as a blogger gathering support for his view of the Eur…

One of the discussions that should have occurred at the event is now happening on the blog of the lovely Antonia Bance. I met Antonia at the event. She is a Councillor in Oxford, new to the job and comes…

I’d like to make a couple of points about labeling.

Firstly: “shiny” is not meant to be derogatory but I suspect in this country it gets taken that way (I suspect in the US it would be quite a compliment - enthusiasm seems to be more acceptable there). If we didn’t have keen and enthusiastic people nothing would happen. The group we label “shiny” make things happen. We want MORE of them. But we need to recognise that not everyone falls into that category all of the time.

Second point: I was using the term “shiny” in the context of democratic engagement. Those MYP’s in the front row are probably “shinys” in that context but I would guess that in other context’s some may be be pretty unforthcoming. Other young people in other circumstances may well be the “shinys”.

Thirdly: Labels. Yes, everyone hates labels. They are inaccurate, self-fulfilling, patronising, and divisive. Everyone is different and evryone is an individual but to enable us (at least us marketers) to understand people better we need to create groupings and label them. Otherwise we just can’t handle it. I used three groups which is far too simplistic but at least it is better than two (or one)!

Finally: Young People. Awful label. But better than children, kids or youth. What would be better? Someone please let us know.

ABF: Antonia is right to make her comments here in here blog. And right to allow dissenting views in the comments. It is a chance for rational discussion of the matter and better for that discussion to occur here than in a few private meeting around the country. I shall link to this page from the Gallomanor blog. Would it be of interest to Blurb readers? Or MYP’s in general?

I do agree, though, that ‘Young people’ speeches all too often sound patronising and your word, “worthy” says it all. I feel that represent the UK Youth presentation particularly.

I admit I started out being cynical about Life Swap but think that may be one of the most interesting programmes that was mentioned there.

On Tom Gaskin, though, I felt his presentation was excellent starting, as it did, with a voting with your feet exercise that really woke up the attendees. Tom’s work is valued by all the Youth Parliament attendees and his work with Norfolk Blurb speaks for itself.

On the Youth Parliament as Andy Hamflett says, it would have been a good idea to hear from the MYPs especially as they were so eager to involve themselves in all aspects of the Symposium. One of the speakers at the conference would have, were I under 18, put me off involvement in the Youth Parliament…

I was definitely a “shiny” as a kid, and well, I probably am now too - I mean, councillor at 26?!

As a ‘younger person’ and ‘employee’, I regularly battle with being patronised and being labelled. I agree with Dylan on the fact that there is confusion over what the term ‘youth’ and ‘young person’ means. It seems there is such variety wherever you go. I know for a fact that within the Local Authority I work in, and I guess that there is a similar issue in other Local Authorities that once labelled by colleagues and organisations within the Local Authorities as a ‘young person’ you are treated in a certain way because of that label. In many cases this can work in your favour as many people feel that it is cutting edge to involve ‘young people’ (the fact that it has been happening for years is another story!) but it can also be a bad thing as many individuals and organisations are only happy to take onboard your comments on what is seen as ‘youth’ issues. It can also imply that you are somewhat different to the professionals that work within the organisations. My dilemma is that I see myself as being young but I am also an employee and therefore it is hard for me to establish myself as a professional when I am labelled as a ‘young person’. How long do you think it will be before I lose this label?

Maybe I should lead on a campaign to label those who do not see themselves as ‘young people’ and are not labelled as ‘young people’ constantly by their employers and colleagues?

What awful terms could I come up with that could label those not considered to be young? I believe that it is the case there is a missing set of labels for this group of people and is it up to me to suggest a set of labels and values that we should greet and treat these people with? Of course it isn’t. No one should have the power to suggest labels for individuals.

Why cant people just treat people as individuals and not feel the need to brand each other? Why cant people get to know individuals before they prejudge someone with the term ‘young person’. At the end of the day I believe it is because of the individuals own insecurities and prejudices and their need to categorise people. This is making society very difficult to live in and making the lives of those who categorise people difficult. If people didn’t have it in their heads that all people with hoodies on are dangerous and potential yobs or muggers than people would feel much safer and enjoy the walk home! These people need to talk to these people before they label them you never know you might actually find out that they share very similar traits.

I would be interested to hear your views on which of these categories you would label yourself as belonging to and why. Were you or are you still a ‘shiny’ a ‘grey’ or a ‘hard to reach?’ And what do you believe me to be?

As you also pointed out there is a difference between having young people there because of their jobs, and young people there as young people. I am employed to work with young people primarily aged 13 – 19 so I am in a similar position as you are within your young woman’s group. I work with an age range that I myself could fit into and I agree that it would be a copout to put me, as a staff member, on a panel to reflect the views of the young people for and with whom I work with BUT that wasn’t what I was there to do. I was there because of my job and the work that I had done. In my presentation I was able to present feedback received from young people and at no stage did I ever intend to represent young people. However it would appear than that I did not make this clear in my presentation… strange when you think I opened with that statement ‘As my role as a Youth Worker…’ There is obviously some confusion around this topic on all sides.

I do believe it is a shame that you are focussing just on the fact that young people were not involved in the presentations; it’s shadowing the good work that was done. I do share you views on young people being involved particularly within the UK Youth Parliament presentation. The fact that the UKYP’s were sitting in the front row but did not participate at all in that presentation still stuns me but you will have to quiz Kate as to why that was. I do believe there was a plan for some UKYP’s to talk about their experiences, however due to some speeches over running quite considerably (including the UKYP presentation) they were unable to do so. It’s strange again that they had to do it separately but there you go…

I am disappointed to find that you felt your only option to offer feedback was through the use of your Blog after the event had taken place. It would have been useful if you had voiced your concerns during the question time after the presentations or throughout the duration of the Symposium but for whatever reason you did not have the opportunity to do so. I must admit that the format of the workshop is not a format that I tend to chose, particularly when discussing issues such as ‘Engaging Young People’. Maybe at future events there could be more flexibility on how speakers could present and gain feedback from participants instead of having to use a standard format with a presentation and then question time at the end of all the presentations.

I did feel I was taking a risk in just asking participants to get off their seats and interact! The conference workshops had all been very formal throughout (with the exception of Ravi’s) and there was me asking participants to be honest about why they were there and whether they felt they had got out of it so far what they had hoped to get from the session. This was something I didn’t see much of in any of the other workshops. To me using different mechanisms to engage participants and gain feedback is just standard ‘Youth Work practice’ as is engaging ALL young people. I must admit I am sick to death with these hideous terms such as ‘shinys’ and ‘hard to reach’. Interesting when the term ‘shiny’ was borrowed from colleagues with the Active Citizenship team that I am based in. When I questioned my colleague they explained that the term and chart was created to battle the term ‘hard to reach’ and the idea that we should be focusing on reaching the ‘hard to reach’.