Hello avid SYP-ers (and avid SYP followers)!

Since I have last reported a couple months ago, I have managed to be extremely busy with my SYP work as both MCA and a member of Membership Committee. I will start with Membership, because it is always better to end with the climax.

Memberships direction this year was to do a number of small initiatives in the hopes that some of them would work out as opposed to putting all of our hypothetical eggs into a hypothetical basket. I have been involved with a couple of these projects, and I am happy to report that both of them were warmly received and a large amount of interest in SYP was shown. I attended the LIVE Expo Trade Show at the U of S with Mike, and there was considerable interest at our booth. I managed to get the handouts, brochures, and posters printed off for free, and our booth also featured an overabundance of SYP pens. Literally, an overabundance. I shipped some off to Regina for a tradeshow at the U of R and I used them again at SSLC, and I still have several hundred SYP pens in my apartment right now.

At SSLC (or the Saskatchewan Student Leadership Conference) I had a great reception. There was tons of interest in SYP, and this is most likely due to the snazzy poster that I made for it. Once again, the handouts and brochures were at no cost to the organization. At SSLC I was able to connect with both students and high school teachers, so I hope that the high school teachers keep us in mind in the future to recommend students to come out for an event. Also at the conference, I managed to talk to the people running it next year (in Watrous) and they were very enthusiastic about us having a booth next year. I also spoke to the president of the organization to which all provincial SRCs/SLCs belong, and I believe that this will be a very advantageous relationship for our organization. The summer months are kinda a slump for the position of MCA. When I went to Summer Camp (which was absolutely wonderful) I wasnt even allowed in the kitchen, so I basically just chillaxed at this event and bought some of the merch that Brittany designed. I was also forced to participate in the water fight due largely to extremely wet people giving me hugs and chasing me (thanks, guys). I was responsible for bringing some of the food, but thats only because my room currently has eleven boxes filled with SYPs food.

I began looking for a school for the Tri-Provincial Mini early September, and this is where my story starts to get interesting. I initially contacted a few schools in Saskatoon, but they were all busy for the weekend that I wanted it with school functions. Oskayak, the school that normally hosts us, had month-long renovations so they were unable to host us at anytime that worked for us. I then emailed more and more schools both in and outside of Saskatoon listing a variety of weekends that could work in the hopes that some school would be able to host our event. This is where I really have to thank my wonderful friends on Cabinet for helping me out when I really needed it. It was a stressful time for this MCA, and the support that they gave me is truly invaluable. Finally, after contacting almost thirty schools throughout the province I managed to get Landis School to host our event, thanks to a former teacher of mine.

This experience of mine has been extremely educational for myself, and (I hope) for SYP as a whole. It shows us that having such a strong reliance on one school in Saskatoon to continually host us year after year works well when the school is able to accommodate us, but can be quite detrimental when this school is unable to host us for reasons outside of our control. Now this is totally just the Poli Sci nerd in me talking, but I compared it to Canadas trade relationship with the USA. Depending on what estimates you follow, roughly 80% of our exports go to the USA. Its a great market to which to sell our raw resources, but such reliance can be terrible if protectionist measures were to be taken by the USA or trade barriers were put in place. With this being said, I dont think that SYPs relationship with Oskayak is severed; the principal was always very kind and considerate when talking to me. Also, I dont think that any of the other schools that I contacted that were willing to host us but just couldnt on a particular weekend will be out of the question for future years. Lastly, it could be argued that contacting these schools earlier could have avoided this problem. However, I would have to disagree. The school functions that were planned out in the schools (tournaments, for example) are planned out well in advance and a school function will always take precedence over an outside organization coming in to use the school’s facilities for the weekend. It may have prevented some of my hairs from turning grey, but this year I really believe that the timing was not correct for SYP. However, I have nothing but the highest of hopes for the upcoming Mini in Landis, so I really hope that people are willing to make the trek to come out for the event!

As a final note, this experience also underscores some of the problems that future MCAs could very well encounter. I hope that the work that I do this year helps out future MCAs and that positive relationships are maintained and strengthened with a variety of schools. Also, I have the greatest faith that future Cabinets will be able to deal with any and all problems that SYP could ever face; SYP has a proud and noble history and the organization is stronger than any one person.

Jordan Sherbino
Minister of Constituent Arrangements
Saskatchewan Youth Parliament
75th Session