Union of Youth

Congrats to the seniors on the Key board! Mackenzie, where did you go? Also not pictured, Dan the Man.

It occurred to me today, as I was creating a poster for an upcoming show at The Key, that we never really promote upcoming concerts on this website.  Whoops.  Anyway, first and foremost, there’s a show FRIDAY MAY 29th (tomorrow) at The Cave.   Which is at Carleton College.  But the event is sponsored by The Key, and features everyone’s favorite rappers from the Twin Cities:  Kanser, St. Paul Slim and Prof & Rahzwell.  Admission is $5 at the door, and doors open at 7:00 p.m.  Here is a snazzy poster for the event, designed by Prof himself (I believe.)

Prof and Slim are out promoting their new FREE album “Recession Music,” which is available to donwload on the world wide interweb.

Next week– SATURDAY JUNE 6TH– to be exact, The Key will welcome back Kristoff Krane for this third performance.  Krane is still riding high off of the release of his LP “This Will Work For Now,” which was released in the fall of 2008.  He’s a busy dude who plays a lot of shows in the Twin Cities, but genuinely seems to enjoy working with the youth in Northfield and playing at The Key.  This time out, he’s bringing with him Listener and Fienix.  If you have a free moment, check out some stuff by Listener– it’s like nothing I have ever heard before.

Admission for this show is $4, and the music starts at 7:00 p.m.  So the doors will probably open around 6:00 or 6:30.

Here is a slightly less snazzy poster that I designed earlier today.

Also, look forward to A Night in the Box at the Key, date currently undetermined, but shooting for sometime in late summer. It’s going to be a night filled with stomping, clapping, cheering, accompanied by Minneapolis rock/bluegrass.

anyway, we hope to see you at these shows.  thanks for reading this post.

The Key kids have been busy the past two days with a wide variety of service projects and activities in the community.  On Tuesday, after surveying the usage of seat belts at the high school, we headed over to the middle school and assisted with tree planting.  The trees were purchased with money from a State Farm grant, and the planting was the final event in the Semester of Service that the three Promise Fellows in town organized throughout the last six months.

The following day we helped at the PLUS program end of the year celebration.  As you can see from the pictures, face painting was a big hit.  There was also a tug-of-war, sack races, and quite a melee when the pinata was broken open.

The Northfield Union of Youth went on their annual winter/spring board retreat this past week. On a sunny day the youth board met at the Key, ate at Chipotle, gamed it up at Grandslam, swam at the Holiday Inn pool, and had a slumber party at that very same Holiday Inn. The group spent about 2 hours discussing a wide variety of topics including fundraising, current and future programming and the future of the organization. The retreat minutes are loosely as follows:

Carleton Garage Sale: stressed how important it will be do help out with this collaborative fundraiser sale. This is a lot of work. Prep begins June 9th.

New Board Recruits wanted!! Youth Board said they would recruit and work on a poster. June 3 are elections.

Smoking on Riverwalk: though we are not the youth police, we are still trying to curb this. Talked about power struggle between staff and youth smokers; how some kids listen but how some youth rebel and have even thrown rocks at staffers. Best preventative measures are:
GETTING THESE YOUTH INVOLVED. How? Hip Hop Night! Starting soon. Basketball hoop on back deck Parker?). Sports checkout (basketballs, soccer balls, football and flags, bikes, cones, bases, etc.). Thursday sports night (Nolan tackle w/ Rachel and Addy)? Could host giant meeting for non involved youth to see what they want from Key. Wednesday the 20th? 4:30pm back deck? Food? Also, Robbie is working on foosball.

Fundraising – Spaghetti Supper and award ceremony. Bagging at Cub – Tim. Beg letter by June. EC. May 29 hip hop show. Youth and adults door to door.

Programs – ART – Rachel and Audrey next year? More guest instructors via colleges. Tie dye, boat race, practical things to teach, glass beads, may day stuff for DJJD.
WW – ask Olivia to renew. Audrey, Maisie, Andi said they would do a review. Recruit.
Movie – plain white sheet needed. Options may help. Key netflix account.
College Prep – U of M, MKat, Gustavus, McNally, etc. More visits.

So earlier this year, we found out about a statewide contest sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.  They wanted youth from the state to create 30 second clips to raise awareness about how you should always wear your seat belt.  So Dan and I worked on this clip, and entered it into the contest.  It apparently was not good enough to make the final cut, however.  Which is too bad.  The videos that WERE good enough can be viewed on this website.

Anyway, just to show off how awesome we are, or at least how awesome we think we are, at making videos, I thought I’d post it on the site here.  I also want to draw attention to the fact that you should always wear your seat belt.  Seriously.  Every time.  Even if you’re just backing out of your driveway.  Just put the darn thing on.  It takes, like, 1 second to do.

I was attempting to embed the video in this post, but I am not computer savvy enough to do so.  How embarrassing.  So how about you click on THIS LINK, which will take you to everyone’s favorite website, You Tube, and you can check out the fun.

The Northfield Union of Youth (The Key) was selected as one of two recipients for the Waste Management Green Team Award for May-July (the other being Northfield Area Special Olympics). The Key will be responsible for periodically monitoring the recycling bin at Econofoods and encourages everyone to drop off their old newspapers, magazines, phone books, soft cover books, paper of all kinds, cereal boxes, corrugated cardboard, cardboard cartons, and a slew of other paper and paper-related products into the recycling bins at Econofoods and Cub Foods. For their efforts The Key will receive $15/ton of recycled paper. Get recycling!

Members of the Northfield Union of Youth attended the In the Heart of the Beast’s annual May Day celebration this past Sunday the 3rd of May. It was an extremely long but rewarding day with lots of cool people, puppets, and performances. Andi Sison was even in the parade for a bit (photo above). Check out more photos here.

On Saturday the 2nd, the Northfield Union of Youth participated in 5th Bridge’s 2nd annual “Goods for Good”. The NUY was one of 26 sties throughout the Northfield area hosting rummages sales of which proceeds went to a charity of their choice. Guess who the NUY picked as their charity? Youth were present from 7:30am until around 5:30pm working on the sale and the cleanup. A number of youth also went over to the ice arena to recycle books left over from the annual book sale. Why did the Key do this? Well they are the recipients (along with 4H) of the Waste Management Green Team Award for the months of May-July. For more classy photos please click here.