YGG Changes

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

My favorite lines from Ecclesiastes or my favorite lyrics from the Byrds, Turn! Turn! Turn! If you have been following us for a while, you have seen this before. If you continue to follow us, you will see it again. During change, it settles me. These verses keep me whole (as well as my mantra practices). Thank you.

Dear YGG’ers,

I want to share some thoughts regarding potential changes that we have been talking about for YGG. I also want to hear about any thoughts you have regarding changes for YGG, as the reader. I graduated in May (I may say this several times this year as it is surreal)! My life is changing as I am getting a job, figuring out how to continue to go home to support my parents and balancing out life with my hobbies. You Go Girl, is one such hobby. Stephen and I have begun to talk about the future of YGG and places we may want to take it.

How, as the reader, would you like to see YGG evolve?  Until we hear from you, below is the direction we are pushing toward:

• Changing the name to be more inclusive and have some of the conversations that are difficult. Such as, it is great to be women who want to be heard, but how do we involve cisgender men in that? How are we including transgender women in our conversations? How well are we doing at hearing other voices such as Black women, women of color and other persons from the global majority?

• A subscriber option for five dollars a month. If you choose not to subscribe you will get a highlight newsletter. In August, we may take a couple weeks off and so this will start in September, but I will keep sending out reminders.

• This would be broken up into paying our guest writers, paying myself and Stephen, paying for a website and operating fees.  One of my goals is being able to give jobs to people. It would be great to share a little something with people for sharing their stories. We would like to start small, for example, if we have fifty subscribers at $5/month, that is $250/month. I would have 20% go into cost of having a blog and the rest would be divided into the four writers of the month. Thus, each writer for the month would make $25. It is a small amount but we are just starting.

• The subscription would include a monthly guided meditation and a guided yoga video.

• We will be closing the Facebook page and create a closed group where we will vet the people, to the best of our ability, to help build a community where people can discuss the topics at hand. I hope it will become a place where we can disagree and yet still feel connected and be okay with knowing we are friends of someone who they disagree with. And…we may very well agree on many things and we can celebrate in that as well.

• I am also working on getting a space for people in Ithaca to gather and do yoga practices, meditations and spiritual conversations together. If you are ever in town or want to come visit, please reach out to me specifically and we can share ideas on where to stay and what events are happening during your stay.

Your homework for this week is to reach out to me suzanne.oar@gmail.com

with a name, that you feel is inclusive and celebrates community, hearing, puts us at ease, understands that there are somethings in life that are difficult but we are strong and can endure. I look forward to hearing your thoughts regarding our changes.

God Bless You,

Suzanne Scholten and Stephen Smith (The Cabbie)