The Ethical Millennial

Matt Herndon
FES memberFuture of Ethical Societies (FES) led a workshop at the 2011 American Ethical Union Assembly to get the Movement involved and engaged in growing the youth base of Ethical Culture. FES was represented by members Alex Romano, Laura Buzek, Matt Herndon, Rachel Kallem, and Spencer Whitman, with Susan Buzek (WES) providing her usual wonderful support and Catherine Bordeau (Brooklyn) stepping up to help as well. Our presentation described what Ethical Culture means to young people currently in the Movement. The presenters shared their own stories along with video clips of interviews taken at the 2011 FES conference. If you would like to see these interviews please look at the
FES YouTube channel. The full interviews are available there now and we hope to add more videos in the future. We think they give some great insights into how young people are involved in Ethical Culture and what drives them to maintain their involvement. Thanks to everyone who was interviewed and to FES members Thomas Allen, Alex Romano, Matt Herndon, and Tara Klein for help producing the videos.
The workshop attendees provided great input during a brainstorming session on how we can build a stronger setting for young people's involvement. People from societies across the country were enthusiastic about getting more young people involved. One of the major areas we identified as a need for improvement is stronger communication between FES and the Societies. A number of ideas were brainstormed to address this. The idea that had the greatest support was to designate a member at each society to act as a FES liaison. This person would connect active young people who visit their Society with FES. Additionally, if young people join FES and move to a given area, we will put them in touch with the FES liaison in that area to educate them about the local Ethical Society. If you are interested in becoming a FES liaison at your society please email the FES steering committee at fesconference[at]gmail.com.
We would like to thank the AEU for working with FES to help make our attendance possible by providing flexible attendance packages that fit our busy schedules and tight budgets. We hope to attend next summer’s assembly in Albany. For more information on FES check out our
website.