Say Yes to No Upcoming Meeting and Coalition Book Read

Hi folks,

Below is an email from Ellie Nickeson regarding the Say Yes to No Book Read for our Coalition. In it she also raises some questions about items further than the initial book read. I've also had some questions raised, and want to start planning for the fall, so I think that it might be best to meet as a group. I hope you all can join me on Monday, June 23 at 10:00am, location TBA (I'll let you know soon - have some calls in). I want to talk about how we're going to launch a more public version of Say Yes to No this fall, and capitalize on the work you are already doing with book reads around the county. I will invite library representatives to join us as well.So! RSVP to me for the June 23 meeting and RSVP to Ellie for the June 19 Book Read!

Megan

Dear Say Yes to No Readers,

Last Thursday, June 5, a group of 7 met for an hour to begin a Say Yes to No book read for professionals. Here is a summary of the results of our discussion. 1 - We will hold 3 more sessions as follows: (this is based on the General Public Discussion Leader Guide from the Minnesota campaign)

* June 19 - chapters 1-5 (Meeting room 2 at the main branch of the ACPL)

* June 26 - chapters 6-9 (location not yet set)

* July 10 - chapters 10-14 (location not yet set)

Preparation for the 3 sessions includes reading the assigned chapters and coming ready to present/discuss your bulletpoints from these chapters. We hope to create a document to use, expecially with non-readers, from these bulletpoints.

2 - We would like to have details about the October 1 parent session with Dr. Walsh to use in our planning for groups that are able to begin prior to that date. We can imagine this session as a real draw to our reading groups.

3 - We are eager to have input from others on possible names for book reads with parents. We are concerned that we may turn off some potential participants if we focus on the reading the book as we publicize our reads. Many of us thought Parent University a nice option.

Megan Here: I would like to this part right now: I think I have to insist that we use the name Say Yes to No and not Parent University for this campaign. I also want to reserve Parent University for the present to its current use - which Say Yes to No is a part of, but the whole is bigger than just Say Yes to No. The library suggests the phrase "book reads" goes over much better than "book study" because it sounds less like work. Additionally, what I am finding and what the National Institute has found that a lot of success is based in not insisting parents read the book ahead of time. We should be familiar enough with the book to be able to talk about it to the group so parents who haven't read it can understand the basic concepts and then facilitate discussion. I'll bring some material I've been working on for Parent University to our next meeting that might be helpful here.

4 - We are looking to produce a list of suggested related books or DVD's that we can share with parents. So far we have 2 suggestions for the list: Mom, They're Teasing Me by Michael Thompson and Punish by Rewards by Alfie Kohn. Please invite any and all professionals to join us. The more the better as we start our initiative!!!

I hope to see you in a week.

Peace,

Ellie Nickeson