Advisors and Treasurers and Council, Oh My! By Dylan Grinder

"What is council?" This is a question I heard a lot at Elections con 2010. And despite the number of people asking the question, few seemed to know the answer.

Council, in the words of council member Mia Shackelford, is "The governing body of cons. Adults aren't the ones organizing conferences, it's us: an elected group of your peers who each have a specific role to keeping cons running." Council also meets to discuss general issues that come up at cons, and policy changes. She went on to describe being on council as "Like wrestling with trolls. Very articulate, opinionated, long-winded trolls. But there's also cuddling."

However, this only covers the basics the generality of what council does. What is council? What do the indiviual members do? Obviously, describing each and every council position would take up too much space for a single GRUUST article, but Emily Dumond, the acting Co-Conference-Coordinator  with Mia Shackelford, has given a description of their job. Dumond says,"[We do] a bunch of things. CoCoCos choose dates and get locations for cons. We also get most of the YELLers (Youth-Empowered-Lay-Leaders), [and] at the end of cons we say until the entire church is clean, then take responsibility for any damage to the property." CoCoCos are also in charge of lost and found, and thanking the church foruse of it's facilities. Shackelford, before being elected CoCoCo, was the Officer of RE Outreach.

The Officer of RE Outreach is in charge of  talking to DREs and MREs at different churches throughout the district in order to make sure the youth hear about, and have an opportunity to go to, conferences. While it may seem like cons are made possible largely because of these two position, you shouldn't forget the other positions on council. The OREO and CoCoCos, while important, make up only a fraction of the effort and dedication that goes into making cons happen.

I hope I've helped to answer the question "What is council?", but there will be more questions, and there is more council. So next time, ask them. Ask council  what they think they are. Ask questions, listen to answers, and learn what it is that makes this community possible.