| By far the greatest amount of effort on the part of the Special
Projects Committee over the past year has been the development of Internet
related services for the readership. This project has grown so large in
scope that it has become a project of the Executive Committee rather than
Special Projects. The reason for this is that Internet services impact
most of the other committees--particularly Education, Translations,
Publications, Domestic Extension, and International Fellowship. This
requires a higher degree of coordination and management than is normally
the case for committee projects.
The technical nature of the Internet undertaking necessitated the incorporation of individuals with requisite technical skills into the undertaking. There are presently some twenty individuals contributing on a regular basis to the continuing development of the website and its associated services in eight languages. The Executive Committee is acting as a web oversight committee. A number of tasks have been assigned to Special Projects over the past decade which have found some degree of completion within the scope of the website and are continuing to be developed under the oversight of the Executive Committee. Resource Library A readership resource library has been developed. A growing collection of documents (now over two hundred and fifty) is currently available on the website. This includes major conference presentations delivered over the past forty years, significant articles from readership publications, study aids, monographs and commentaries. Readership History Historic documents are being digitized and published on an on-going basis. The history attributed to Dr. Sadler is available as is a brief history written by Emma Christensen. Histories written by other leaders such as Henry Begemann, Meredith Sprunger and Paul Snider are also available. An historical time line has been developed which contains a growing collection of links to important historic documents and photographs. Special Interest Groups A number of specialized E-mail groups have formed based on special interests. Among them are the Family Life group, the Theological and Philosophical Working Group, fuente--a study discussion list for Spanish speaking readers and special E-mail services for internal use such as the Translations Committee, the Executive Committee and the General Council. Two of the members of the Special Projects Committee continue to be heavily involved with the website project and I am nominating Lawrence Brown, an experienced network administrator, to fill the vacancy created by Tony Finstad's request to be moved to the status of adjunct. This group, in association with other adjuncts, will continue to develop Internet-based services for the readership and the internal use of the Fellowship. Other Special Projects The primary outstanding project of the committee is the oral history project. At its August 1996 meeting, the committee voted to continue pursuing this project. Barbara Kulieke agreed to get a list of currently living candidates for interviewing, and to draw up a budget and operational plan for finishing this project. Interviews have been recorded with Meredith Sprunger, Bill and Mary Lou Hales, Kenton Stevens, and Tom and Carolyn Kendall. It is anticipated that some degree of completion will be brought to this effort in the coming year. Need for Document Archiving Procedures Potentially important documents and photographs are currently sitting in cardboard boxes in people's attics and barns and other sundry locations. Some of the problems associated with sorting and long-term archiving of these documents have made themselves known as a result of the digitizing project currently being undertaken in association with the website. I have begun the task of seeking out informed people who can help with this effort and have located two professional librarians amongst the readership. We also have a professional archivist--Scott Forsythe--on the Council. It is my intent during the course of the coming to have the Special Projects committee, in consultation with these professionals, develop an outline of several options and submit them to the Council for further direction. It continues to be a great privilege to work with the group of dedicated readers who have formed themselves into the Fellowship and its various committees for the purpose of enhancing their abilities to be involved in the extension of the revelation to the peoples of our world. Respectfully submitted, David Kantor |