This January 5 students from across Sandhurst attended the YCS “transformers” conference in Brisbane. YCS, which stands for Young Christian Students, is a student-run organisation ran all over Australia and in over 80 countries around the world. YCS was started by Joseph Cardijn, it branched off YCW, Young Christian Workers, which was ‘officially’ started 1^st August 1925. At the moment there are around 400 members involved Australia wide, and the movement is growing! The conference was attended by over 50 students and 20 adults, and was totally student run. Young adult workers assisted students, and Adult Assistants were observers rather than participants.

The Sandhurst students were: Prue Gurnick, from Echuca, Kate Macgill, from Shepparton, Allison Taylor, from Wangaratta and Jess Doherty and Jacob Chacko from Benalla. Adults who accompanied them were Judi Robinson, a parish rep from Shepparton, and Karen Lunney, Diocesan Youth Ministry Co-ordinator for Sandhurst.

The aim of YCS is to empower us, the students, and let us make decisions that directly affect our age group. We have the power and by reviewing different aspects of our lives can help us to move forward with our faith. YCS uses the 3 truths, the truth of faith, which is what our faith leads us to want our world to be like, the truth of experience, which is what we actually live like and experience every day, and the truth of method, which is the method in which we are able to bring our truths of faith and experience closer in order to bridge the gap and create a more perfect world.

Our group from Sandhurst attended as observers to get a better understanding of YCS; we attended with the vision of starting YCS groups in our home towns. We are working on the idea of creating parish based groups with school support.

The conference was really informative, we have learnt about the ‘review of life’ which is based on “see, judge, act” and involves discussing a particular issue, personal or general, and understanding and comprehending it within the group. We, as students, are able to develop an action plan that could be taken in order to resolve/help the issue by reflecting on the Gospel and our beliefs/values.

The other dioceses which were present at the conference were Port Pirie (SA), Townsville, Rockhampton & Brisbane (QLD), Canberra/Goulburn & Parramatta (NSW), Perth (WA) as well as Melbourne and Sandhurst (VIC).

During the week we were creating and voting on 2012 aims. We spoke about where the national movement is heading in relation to the 2020 targets and we also discussed the outcome of the 2010 aims, set in 2008. Although Sandhurst couldn’t vote we were able to fully participate in creating and discussing the aims and giving our contribution.

Sandhurst has been lucky enough to have Vicky Burrows appointed to work in our diocese. Vicky will help the diocese to get YCS up and running, Vicky has over 10 year experience in YCS and we believe that she will be a brilliant asset to Sandhurst in 2010.

We would like to thank everyone that made this trip possible including Karen Lunney who was a major part in making sure this trip occurred. All of us have appreciated her efforts so very much over the past few months.  We would also like to thank all the schools/parishes who have supported us; we very much appreciate your contribution.

We have all benefited from the conference and are really looking forward to starting YCS groups across the diocese. We are hoping to start groups in Shepparton, Echuca, Benalla and Wangaratta at this stage, and are looking at starting in Wodonga and Bendigo.

YCS is a great movement that really empowers students to achieve, by looking at things occurring in their personal lives or the wider community and act according to their beliefs and values. YCS is an enriching group and benefits all involved. If you are interested in getting involved in any way, feel free to visit the Sandhurst website: www.sym.org.au. Vicky Burrows is contactable on 0412529656 and for a student’s perspective, contact Allison Taylor on 0409143517.

By Allison Taylor (14) Wangaratta