NEWS UPDATE

1 July, 2000

Re-establishment of YACVic
Letter from the (Former) Chariperson

Dear members and friends,

As many of you will know, Victoria has been the only State in Australia without funding for its Youth Peak, since tenders were called for the role nearly twelve months ago by the former Kennett Government. This was the first time the Peak role and that of Ethnic Youth Issues Network had been put up to tender- a direction that raised major concerns for YACVic, the sector and other Peaks.

As we all know, the Victorian State election and Caretaker process occurred during the tender period and the Labour party was then successful in forming Government. Consequently the new Government was left with an incomplete tender process for the Peak although the Centre for Multicultural Youth Affairs, formerly EYIN, was confirmed as the successful Statewide Ethnic Youth Service body.

Funding for YACVic ran out in August 1999 and was not initially restored. Unfortunately we were left with no option but to close the office and limit service that we could offer to our members. At the time it looked like this might have been the end of YACVic. However, following a meeting of members at the end of last year, it was determined that YACVic would continue to operate unfunded, and establish a planning group based on the Executive and several additional members nominated by the meeting.

Until now YACVic has continued to maintain its membership base and resource materials and the Executive continued to meet very regularly to conduct the business of the organisation.

In February this year the new Office of Youth Affairs and Minister Madden indicated that the previous tender would be dropped and a new tender with some different directions was put in place. Although we continued to voice our concern that Peaks should not be put to tender, we took a decision at a General Members meeting in March to tender as we believed that we were in a position to provide the best Peak youth service for Victoria!

In early 1999 YACVic had initiated a Review and developed a strong vision and clear strategic framework for a more representative and consultative Peak, including a more effective structure for Governance, youth participation and service delivery to its members and government. The directions from the Review along with further consultations with members in 1999/2000, helped form the basis of the new tender. Julian Pocock was employed to assist in developing the tender and an overwhelming number of letters of support were provided by member agencies and other Peaks.

We would like to thank CWAV and CMYI (formally Ethnic Youth Issues network - EYIN) for their support during this very uncertain time and we will certainly seek to build on the relationships we have developed with them both through this difficult process.

And now to the good news! YACVic has been successful in winning the tender to provide services as Victoria's Youth peak organisation. Only last week we signed a funding agreement and have already begun the recruitment process of a new staff team and the search for a new home! Clearly there is much work to be done to simply get back to where we were twelve months ago but we are well on our way.

I am happy to announce that Minister for Youth Affairs, the Honourable Justin Madden, has agreed to re-launch YACVic at a function that will be held on Thursday 17th August at 3.00pm at the Melbourne Town Hall Reception Room (upstairs). I hope that you can make it to that event.

In a few months we will be holding our Annual General Meeting. Please consider now whether you would like to nominate someone to the new State Council and Executive Committee. This is a great opportunity to help establish a new organisation, while drawing on the expertise and collective wisdom of an organisation with 50 years experience in the Youth sector! We are certainly looking for new energy, talent and representation from new areas in youth work as well as the insight and expertise from agencies that have been working with young people for many years.

We hope that you will join us to celebrate the re establishment of YACVic by attending both of these functions. Membership forms are attached and we would strongly encourage you to complete these ASAP to establish your voting rights and access to services of the new organisation.

On behalf of the members of the Executive Committee and the Planning Committee I would like to thank you for the many messages and offers of support provided over the last 12 to 18 months in particular. We wish you all the best with your activities with young people and look forward to seeing you in the near future.

Regards

David Ellis
(Former) Chairperson
Youth affairs Council of Victoria, YACVic