Cell meeting: YCS/YSM is a cell based movement. Once a week groups of 8-12 students sit in cells for 45-60 minutes avoiding class room atmosphere to share their feelings on the given situation. Topics should be student related issues which happen frequently, that needs immediate attention and that leads to possible action plan.
How to conduct cell meeting:
- Start with a group technique,
- short prayer,
- cell meeting as mentioned in the Review of life (Incident - See, Judge, Act)
- minutes of the previous meeting,
- agenda of the meeting should be announced
- prepare for an action plan
- agenda for the next meeting
- short prayer and close the meeting with YCS/YSM anthem.
Context: Be conscious about the reality around you and choose an incident which is student related, occurring often and having effect on the lives of students which needs immediate attention. After narration of the incident let the cell leader conduct the cell meeting using the questions given below as the YCS/ YSM methodology.
Awareness:
- What happened during the incident? Where, When, Why and How?
- Who were the persons actively involved in the incident?
- Have similar incidents taken place elsewhere? Your experience.
Reflection:
- Who benefits from this situation and who loses?
- What are the values you find in this incident and what values would have helped the incident for better?
- What were the attitudes of the persons actively involved in the incident?
- What does Jesus/God/Word of God (Bible/Gita/Koran) teaches us in such situations?
- If you were involved in this incident what is your decision for personal change?
Action:
- What is my personal decision for self transformation? What change do I bring about in my attitude to build new society (God’s kingdom)?
- How would I influence my cell members for a change in their attitudes?
- What will we do as a cell to bring about change in the society? Our Action plan.
Evaluation:
- What are the positive & negative results of our action?
- What have we learnt from this action? How have we changed our attitude?
- Have we succeeded in bringing about a change in us and society?
(If yes – good, If no - Why? What change should we adapt?)
Cell Life: It is a setting where educational/religious proposals become personalized; it is a place for expression and responsibility; it is a place to prepare an action plan; it is a place of commitment and an opportunity for interpersonal communications.
What happens after cell meeting? : Besides achieving the objectives, parent – student relationship increases, student relationship gets stronger, and their belongingness to the society (Church, institution etc) becomes meaningful.
Attitudinal change takes place, positive attitude increases, they study better, they face the reality better, they find meaning in helping others, their decisions gets affirmed and they take up leadership roles.
Remember they are coming from different backgrounds. All cannot be weighed equally; they need to be recognized as they are and to be guided.
Types of Meetings:
- Review of life – YCS/YSM is an action oriented movement. Members share their life and faith experiences, observations and discoveries and reflect upon them in the movement methodology.
- Planning sessions - As an action oriented movement the activities are planned in a participatory manner.
- Leaders meeting – This leads them to hold meetings at different levels and areas and get trained in leadership. They share the topics and get down to action.
- Fellowship meetings – These meetings are important to know each other and acquaint with others to understand and build faith in others.
- Evaluation meetings – This helps them to reflect their successes and failures and thus to grow and progress. After every meeting and action they are encouraged to evaluate the action especially their group life, relationships, activities etc., to set right their regularity and punctuality of meetings, following 5 path program, preparedness for any action, outcome of the action and dynamics of the participation, role of the animator and strengths and weaknesses of the group and its impact on others. 24 ycs/ysm resource book
Impact of the cell meeting: Besides achieving the objectives -
- Parent – child relationship increases
- Student – animator relationship becomes stronger
- Student –student relationship becomes healthier
- Their belongingness to the society (Church, institution etc) becomes meaningful.
- Attitudinal change takes place
- Positive attitude increases
- They study better
- They face the reality better
- They find meaning in helping others
- Their decisions gets affirmed
- They take up leadership roles.
- They are coming from different backgrounds and all cannot be weighed equally. They need to be recognized as they are and to be guided.