In Thanksgiving for You

As you relax with your family this weekend and enjoy the company of those you love, please know that the staff of CYM will be thanking God for you and all the wonderful ways you serve our young Church. May God continue to bless you for your kindness and generosity. Happy Thanksgiving!

Bad Behavior and Sports

Unless you've been underground these last few days, you have seen coverage of the melees that have occurred on the playing field and in the stands. In an effort to pre-empt any such imitations at CYM sporting events, CYM is offering 10 Tips for Encouraging Good Sportsmanship (pdf) for use by coaches, players and parents. Coaches might also want to review the rules in the Athletic Handbook. Spectators can review the Spectators' Conduct section as well. 

Voices that Challenge: Ministries Weekend

Registration is now open for the 2005 Ministries Weekend. Voices That Challenge is co-sponsored by the Offices for Religious Education, Family Life, Parish Social Ministry, Worship, and Youth Ministry and will take place from January 21-23, 2005 at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Ocean City, MD. All registration is online and you get get all the information you need at the VTC website.

Connect with Youth Ministers Nationwide

The National Association of Catholic Youth Ministry Leaders will be launched at NCCYM in Pittsburgh next week. If you're going to the conference and haven't joined NACYML, please do so now so you can be included in the activities. If you aren't going and would like to join this exciting new organization, please contact CYM for a new member application.

Commemorate World AIDS Day, December 1st
World AIDS Day is being commemorated on Wednesday, December 1st. This year's theme, "Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS" focuses on the dramatic effect HIV/AIDS is having particularly on women and girls worldwide. Globally, women and girls are bearing the brunt of this disease since they are most likely to care for the ill, lose their livelihoods and access to education as well as face stigma and discrimination. UNAIDS estimates that women accounted for nearly 50% of all people living with HIV worldwide and for 57% in sub-Saharan Africa.

CRS urges the Catholic community to remember the 38 million people around the world living with this disease and the 20 million people this disease has killed since the virus was first discovered in 1981. For resources that you can use to mark World AIDS Day in your classroom or youth group, visit http://www.catholicrelief.org/grassroots.cfm.

Is someone you know being called to live his or her faith overseas?
In response to the demand for volunteer opportunities, CRS has started a volunteer program and will begin placing volunteers overseas in August 2005.

The goal of the CRS Volunteer Program is to provide avenues for U.S. Catholics to live their faith in solidarity with the world's poor by actively sharing their skills and talents through CRS. Volunteers make a full-time, two-year commitment, of which 18 months is spent overseas, and 6 months in the United States.

Anyone interested in the program should visit www.crs.org/about-us/careers/volunteer-opportunities/. The web site provides more information about the program, addresses many questions and concerns that interested individuals might have, and allows individuals to submit a preliminary application on-line and ask questions within the application. While applications will be accepted on an on-going basis, priority consideration for August 2005 placement will be given to qualifying applicants who submit their preliminary application by December 15, 2004.

Call for Teen Writings: Family Matters
Teens feel deeply, passionately, and honestly about their family relationships, often speaking in a louder voice and with more candor than most adults. For this reason, Saint Mary's Press will publish a new book by and for teens that focuses on families and family life.

We are looking for teens who will write with honesty, insight, and creativity as they share firsthand the realities of life within a family. The joys, challenges, highlights, and sorrows of family life as seen through the eyes of teen writers will be exposed in this diverse collection. This book will portray how teens really feel and think about family life.

We are asking you to help spread the word about this project. Please refer interested young people to http://www.smp.org/teenprayers.cfm for submission guidelines and necessary release forms. Submissions will be accepted until December 1, 2004.

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