The Year in YSS - 2016

Time to look back at the year and the YSS board and member work. Hit the links for full information.

YSS Board Retreat - The board met at a retreat in January and came up with a values statement to guide our work:  YSS advocates for professional empowerment, collaboration, and innovative, inclusive, and intentional service. The values statement helped focus our work throughout the year.

Youth Services Shout-out blog – our blog is a strong voice for youth services in WI. Ably administered by Sarah Cournoyer, regular blog contributors include Aimee Schreiber, Dawn Wacek, Kelly Allen and Marge Loch-Wouters. The blog has over 200,000 views since it began over 8 years ago! 

YSS Powerhouse Presents webinars – We presented four great YSS member-panels: Beyond Storytime; All-in-the-Family Programming; Transforming Collections; Transitions and Transformations co-sponsored by various WI library Systems. 

WLA Conferences Youth Program Facilitating – We helped facilitate youth programming for both the WAPL and WLA conferences plus a great pre-conference on school-age services. Thanks to all our members and speakers who presented amazing programs!

Burr Worzalla Children’s Book Award - YSS coordinates this annual WLA award. Congratulations to John Coy, winner for his book, Game Changer and a huge thanks to the committee ably chaired by Karli Pederson. 

Early Literacy Calendar – Now in its 4^th year, the calendar gives YSS members a chance to develop a month of early literacy tips in each annual calendar. The calendar is free to download (2017 is coming soon!) 

What a Job! -  the board updated job tasks for individual board positions and committees to make being a YSS leader a snap!

Hello/Goodbye – Welcome to our new board members: Sarah Cournoyer (president elect), Sue Abrahamson (WLA board liaison) and Caitlin Schaffer and Elizabeth Timmins (directors at large). Continuing on the board with thanks are Terry Ehle (2017 chair), Leah Langby (2017 past chair), Emily Heideman and Susie Menk (directors at large), Julie Kinney (secretary) and Tessa Michaelson Schmidt (ex officio).  Leaving the board with thanks are Ashley Bieber (past-chair), Ashley Thiem- Menning and Katherine Elchert (directors-at-large) and Marge Loch-Wouters (WLA board liaison).