The Judicial Committee is currently engaged in a major project concerning the structure of our organization. This report will summarize our efforts thus far. Although the Judicial Committee's primary Constitutional charge is the arbitration of disputes and differences between individuals in and the various elements of The Fellowship, a secondary responsibility is to "...render opinions on any matters involving the construction of [the] Constitution, [or) of the By-Laws of The Fellowship..." It is consistent both with that charge and with one of the Supporting Goals in the Strategic Plan ("To foster input from readers throughout the world on organizational functioning") that the Executive Committee asked the Judicial Committee to facilitate a project to evaluate our organization's constitutional structure and propose appropriate changes.

The primary stimulus for initiating this work came from the substantial interest expressed over the last several years in making our organization more directly responsive to individuals and societies by changing our constituted structure. The depth and scope of this interest was defined in five (5) resolutions on this issue approved by the TDA this past summer for action by the General Council. In early October, 1991, the Judicial Committee submitted a plan for this project which was approved by the Executive Committee for immediate initiation.

A basic principle was agreed-upon to guide the process: that any organizational document we develop for use by The Fellowship should be modeled on fifth epochal principles of representative community process as expressed in The Urantia Book. To accomplish our task, in response to this principle, we established two ad-hoc committees which would operate in parallel and whose eventual work products would be integrated in a progress report (including recommendations, if appropriate) to the General Council at its June, 1992 meeting.

These two committees would be comprised of readers who have expressed an interest in such a project; the respective charges for each are as follows:

The Fifth Epochal Principles Research Committee: This committee would be charged with researching the teachings of The Urantia Book for the purpose of providing a comprehensive view of those principles, patterns, and structures which would seem appropriate to consider as the basis for an organization such as ours in the context of the planet's fifth epoch of evolutionary growth and development. David Elders serves as the Judicial Committee Liaison for this committee. Under the chairmanship of Carolyn Kendall, this committee has prepared an extensive report which, in addition to exploring the teachings of The Urantia Book for relevant direction, reviewed historical materials as well.

The Organizational Structure Research Committee: As its name implies, this committee would be charged with researching various models of organizational structure now operating on the planet for the purpose of identifying the very best evolutionary examples of a structure for an organization such as ours (this research would include our current constituted structure). Duane Faw is serving as the Judicial Committee liaison for this committee. Another committee member, Steve McIntosh, is working on the development of constitutional revisions designed to provide societies with more direct responsibility for organizational functioning and decision-making.

The Judicial Committee, in designing this approach, agreed on the importance of the following:

1. Just tinkering with or fine-tuning the existing constitutional structure might not be sufficient. We felt that if this project were to be undertaken, we should be willing to evaluate the entire structure and make whatever changes The Fellowship members agreed, through group process, were necessary to stimulate growth, not just change.

2. We agreed that we should strive to create an organizational document which would empower The Fellowship to actually attempt to live out revealed fifth epochal principles, so that our organization might someday literally model to others the Supreme concepts derived from The Urantia Book in which we claim belief.

3. We agreed that inasmuch as this is a project which could consume time and energy which might better be applied to other areas of our work, it was doubly important in undertaking this project that we use the process itself to stimulate deeper inquiry into the teachings of The Urantia Book.

4. We agreed that it is important to seek input from a wide variety of readers in this process so that the organization becomes as directly representative of the needs and desires of the broadest base of readership as possible.

5. Finally, we set as a goal the development of a document which while reflective of principles from The Urantia Book, is simple, straight-forward, inclusive of diversity, easy to comprehend, and which facilitates but does not enslave the membership in the conduct of our work together. This is the primary project now engaging the time and energies of the Judicial Committee. We remain ready to review pending society constitutions and provide input on any other matters which it is deemed would benefit from the input of the members of the Judicial Committee, who are: David Elders (Darien, CT), Duane Faw (Malibu, CA), Thomas Kendall (Chicago, IL), Steve McIntosh (Boulder, CO), Ellen Montgomery (Agoura Hills, CA), and David Owen (Chicago, IIL). We invite any reader who has questions or who is interested in the work of our committee to contact any Judicial Committee member. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service. Respectfully submitted, David N. Elders, chairman