City of Sugar Hill Youth Council Session
Wednesday, October 25th, 2017 5:30 P.M.
The History Museum,
5039 West Broad Street
Sugar Hill, GA 30518
Members in Attendance: Spencer Grace Williams, Kaan Cubukcu, Ethan Shaw, Nida Merchant, Camryn Flores, Laura Ann Acker, Maya Chande, Camden Doker
Meeting called to order at 5:30 pm
Kaan motioned to approve the meeting minutes from 10/18, and Camryn seconded the motion.
Planning Director Kaipo visited the Youth Council and extended an invitation to participate in the LCI plans. They will take place
- November 1, 2017, 6pm-7:30pm
- December 21, 2017, 6pm-7:30pm
- January 24, 2017, 6pm-7:30pm
Kaan offered to attend these meetings and report back to the council. There is some overlap with Youth Council meetings, which he will miss.
Kaan motioned to approve the agenda as modified, and Maya seconded the motion.
Council Reports
- Camryn talked about how the band had a pumpkin carving party last night, and there were around 35 people in attendance. She hopes this event and events like these will bring awareness of the city to our peers.
- Nida talked about Sugar Rush and volunteering there over the weekend.
- Maya mentioned how the North Gwinnett Co-op is in serious need of volunteers, and hopes the council can reach out to our peers to help participate.
- Kaan brought up how Mock Trial season has started, the case has dropped, and invited the council to one of our scrimmages, which take place around January. 3 of the council members are on Lanier’s team.
- Ethan mentioned how the Lanier Band has unwittingly participated in a fundraiser for the North Gwinnett Co-op, raising several hundred dollars through Wombat Merchandise.
- Laura Ann has been reaching out to organizations on behalf of Makerfest. She also went on the graveyard tour, and highly recommends it. The tour is historical but also entertaining and informative.
- Varessa invited the council to the dress rehearsal of the Player’s Guild’s War of the Worlds performance, tomorrow night at 8pm.
- Spencer Grace is interested in the council participating a project on the history of Sugar Hill through the Bicentennial Project, by the Communications Department of Gwinnett.
Youth Ambassadors
Nida was a little disappointed by ambassador attendance at Sugar Rush, as there were times when she was there entirely by herself. There were people who signed up for shifts that didn’t show, but there were some real heroes like Kayla who helped the Ambassadors break even on the cookies. They ended up making $60 profit. Nida is now looking for more volunteer opportunities for the Ambassadors, both regular commitments and individual events.
Mike brought up his time-honored catchphrase, “Praise Publicly, Critique Privately”, and offered that it’s often best (especially for volunteers) to praise publicly those people who did good stuff and how much fun the event was because of them.
Spencer offered to make the next ambassador’s meeting the ‘Bring your friends’ day, to drum up more excitement and enthusiasm for the program.
Red Ribbon Week
The stickers have come in. North Gwinnett will distribute them this coming Monday. Lanier will distribute them tomorrow during lunch and during the academy time surrounding Friday’s Mr. Lanier contest. Nida debuted her introductory speech to the council, and we gave her feedback.
Spencer tabled the etiquette speech for next week.
Election Pitches by Council Members
Spencer
- Increase youth involvement in the community
- Young people will be growing up to be voters, & we want them to come back
- Youth are reached by social media, & wants to (in correspondence with the marketing department) involve the schools and students
- Poll and Engage the Youth
- Go Green
- Being a green city attracts young people
- We want young people to see Sugar Hill as a pioneer in clean and green facilities
- Through more disciplined recycling programs and education to citizens about these things, we can make a difference
- Family Safety & Streets
- We need a sophisticated sidewalk network to ensure walking pets and children playing are safe as they traverse around the roads
- We need to create an organization that advocates for properly sized sidewalks and bike lanes in the city
- SPLOST 2.0
- Will impose new taxes to raise the necessary funds for these endeavors, utilizing the motivating ideas of the SPLOST tax
Kaan motioned to end the meeting at 7:01, and Camden seconded the motion.
