In this Issue:

• Quarterly Mailing

• AYM Invitiation

• Nexus Update

• NCYC Update

• Policy for Drivers

• Youth Ministry Links

The latest Quarterly Mailing went out in the mail today.  Besides Ladders, you'll find flyers for great resources from Loyola, Ave Maria and Pflaum publishing companies, a Project Alert! training update, Theology on Tap flyers, and an updated catalog of all the resources available in the CYM library. Some NCYC information is included too, but we'll get to that in a moment.

The Association of Youth Ministers is extending an invitation to all those involved in youth ministry in our diocese to their next meeting. Please consider joining your colleagues on  Thursday, November 14th at 7pm at St. Joe's in
Middletown. The speaker will be Mark Pacione of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The topic is "Recognizing our gifts and using them in Youth Ministry". Youth Ministers are encouraged to invite their volunteers to this special AYM evening meeting.

Nexus is coming...and so is Matt Smith. If you don't know who he is, ask a teenage girl with cable. Matt was a participant in MTV's Real World a few years ago and now travels the country telling teens about his experience and how his faith actually improved because of it. We're still hoping to secure Ceili Rain for a concert that evening, but we may not be able to afford such a great Irish band on St. Patrick's Day weekend. More info will follow after January 1, 2003.

Plans are already well underway for the National Catholic Youth Conference in Houston in December 2003. Please guess at the number of young people that might want to attend and let us know by December 6th. A flyer is included with this month's mailing or you can email CYM at catholicyouth@cdow.org. Just let us know your best estimate since rooms have to be secure by December 16th. We've approximated the price at $700 for air, lodging, meals, registration, etc. 

The Office for Catholic Youth Ministry has been revising the Policies and Guidelines for Catholic Youth Ministry for several months. When the Charter for the Protection of Children was published this summer by the U.S. Bishops we realized that we would have to re-write most of what we'd written to include the guidelines and the new diocesan policies that would follow. That being said, it's important that you are aware of the policy regarding those who drive young people. To learn more, visit http://www.cdow.org/cympolicies.html. 

Have you visited http://www.cdow.org/cymlinks.html lately? Did you know that to date seven diocese around the country have asked to copy that page for their own website? Visit some of the links today and find out what everyone's talking about.