During this past year, the efforts of the judicial Committee have been focused almost exclusively on a project, begun in 1991, to consider the restructuring of The Fellowship's constitution. The primary purpose of this work is to make this guiding document more reflective of principles of group functioning derived both from the revelatory teachings of The Urantia Book and from the best human, evolutionary systems available today.

 As mentioned in last year's report, although the judicial Committee's primary Constitutional charge is the arbitration of disputes and differences in 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 Fellowship's Strategic Plan ("To foster input from readers throughout the world on organizational functioning") that we have undertaken this work. 

By way of a brief background, this project was initiated by the 1991 Triennial Delegate Assembly with a charge to the General Council to assume responsibility for a review of our organization's constitution and to develop appropriate recommendations for changes. The judicial Committee was in turn charged with direct responsibility to facilitate this work. Two ad-hoc committees, comprised of Fellowship members who had expressed interest in participation, were established to conduct their research in parallel: The Fifth Epochal Principles Research Committee (researching The Urantia Book); The Organizational Structure Research Committee (researching the best of humanly-evolved systems). Then, on the weekend of November 6-8, 1992, a subcommittee of judicial met at our Wrightwood Headquarters to consider and consolidate the substantial input provided by the research groups into a comprehensive report and recommendations to be presented to the General Council at its February 6-8, 1993 mid-year meeting. Finally, at that February meeting, the following resolution was passed by the General Council enabling the mailing of the sub-committee report/recommendations to every Fellowship member asking for general and detailed input: 

"The General Council approves in principle, but not necessarily in exact detail, the proposal of the sub-committee on constitutional restructuring and instructs the judicial Committee to send the draft document to all Fellowship members and societies for their comments. Further, the judicial Committee is instructed to bring back its finished recommendations for detailed consideration and vote by the General Council at its August, 1993 meeting. Affirmative votes at that time on any element of the proposal will include instruction to the judicial Committee to draft the enabling constitutional language for General Council vote at its next meeting." 

To date, we have received from our Fellowship colleagues only a few responses to our request for input. Additionally, only about three societies have been able to schedule meetings to discuss the proposed changes in any formalized manner and to respond to our request. One society, The First Society in Chicago, has submitted a formal resolution requesting that at least another year be allowed for the process of society evaluation of the proposed changes before any actions be taken (see copy of the resolution attached hereto). Finally, at the society conclave to be held during the IC 93 conference this August, representatives from societies will have the opportunity to explore the proposed changes in a more personally-interactive forum. 

It is our intention to have a conference call meeting of the members of the judicial Committee during mid-July. At this meeting, we will discuss the status of this project, including the input received to date from members, and prepare a specific recommendation on next steps which we will present to the General Council at its August meeting. 

This is the primary project which has engaged the time and energies of the judicial Committee and the members of its related sub-committees for the last year. As is often the case in lengthy projects such as this, what most Fellowship members will see is the final work product to be formally considered. Sometimes this can serve to obscure the substantial amount of unselfish, wholly voluntary expenditure of energies and resources which underlie the final visible product. Though we are still some ways from completion, I wanted to formally acknowledge and thank those of our fellows who have so willingly expended their time and energy on our behalf through service on one or more of the related committees: Virginia Brown, Duane Faw (JC), Scott Forsythe, Carolyn Kendall, Steve McIntosh UC), Larry Mullins, David Owen UC), Lee Smith, and John Hales (who facilitated the November Wrightwood weekend and processed materials). I would also like to thank the rest of the members of the judicial Committee, named hereunder. 

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. We further 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.

Attached: The First Society Resolution 

Respectfully submitted,

David N. Elders, chairman

Duane Faw

Tom Kendall

Steve McIntosh

Ellen Montgomery

David Owen