Week Five: Apply for the YBF US Summer Conference Programme

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

For the past two summers, the Young Britons’ Foundation has taken dozens of young conservative activists from Britain over to New York, Washington DC and California to learn from the think-tanks and activist groups in the United States.

The result is that those activists have returned to Britain better trained and highly motivated to promote conservative values in their schools, colleges and universities, on the blogosphere and in their local communities.

For example, Students for Freedom was launched by Oliver Cooper after he visited the United States last summer, while Tarasyn Whitehead-Patey and Edward Hallam launched The Young Conservative blog on their return to Britain too. 

The YBF US Summer Conference Programme in 2009 will combine the conferences attended in 2007 & 2008. Students will have the opportunity to attend all or any of the following conferences:

The Foundation for Economic Education Freedom University – based just outside New York, this is the foremost academic conference for libertarians who want to learn why the free market system remains the best guarantor of liberty. 

The Leadership Institute International Leadership Seminar - the LI trains conservatives who want to win. Based just across the Potomac from Washington DC, this week-long seminar encompasses an intense media training workshop as well as developing activists’ campaigning skills. Time is also set aside for sightseeing. 

The Young America’s Foundation National Conservative Student Conference – based at George Washington University, YAF’s annual CSC is a highlight for conservatives from across America. It is your chance to hear from the leading conservative thinkers, writers and political leaders in an informal setting – as well as bonding with our trans-Atlantic cousins.

YBF also leads a delegation to Santa Barbara, California, where activists get the chance to see the Young America’s Foundation Reagan Ranch Center (known as “the schoolhouse for Reaganism”), President Reagan’s Ranch (which was rescued for the nation by YAF) and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. 

Full details as to the costs of the conference will be released in the next month. At this stage, however, YBF needs to know what level of interest there is, in principle, in attending the YBF US Summer Conference Programme. It runs from the last week of July to the middle of August – and you can come for one, two or three weeks. Thanks to the incredible generosity of our donors the vast majority of the costs associated with attending these conferences will be met by sponsorship. 

If this hasn’t already whetted your appetite maybe this video, produced by YBF’s Director of New Media, Steven Dent, will. What are you waiting for?

To register your interest, at no cost or obligation to you, email info@ybf.org.uk by 1 March 2009.