West Seattle Hi-Yu: Future still in flux

November 8, 2016 11:43 am
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 |   West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival | West Seattle news

From last night’s West Seattle Hi-Yu meeting at the library in Admiral:

The Hi-Yu board continues to view what they’ve been doing for the past few months as reorganizing, not shutting down. New president Chris Henggeler says he believes that with improved outreach and more volunteers, Hi-Yu could create “a better and more inclusive product” that the community and its other organizations can rally around. Youth participation is at the heart of it, and he’s hopeful that some form of Hi-Yu will be around for years so those opportunities will continue to be available.

But in the meantime, Hi-Yu, with its 80+-year history, remains in a state of flux. The board has suspended its bylaws about member participation so that feedback can be more open to the wider community. And the need for more community participation remains. Right now, what form Hi-Yu will take in 2017 has yet to be decided. Whether they’ll even have a float for local and regional parades is not yet settled. But by year’s end, the board will finalize a message for community groups and organizations, and will be reaching out to them as well – service clubs, PTSAs, neighborhood councils, the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Junction Association, etc. They’re also working on updating their online presence, which has mostly languished in recent months.

Hi-Yu also hopes to achieve more flexibility in fundraising by changing from a 501(c)(4) nonprofit to a 501(c)(3), but that could take at least six months.

Board members are meeting in executive session between the monthly public meetings, so the discussions and plans are evolving almost continuously. The time for the December 5th meeting is not yet set.

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