In 1989, Steve Dreier, as the Charter Committee Chair states: "The Charter Committee is charged with establishing the requirements for society formation and verifying that such requirements have been satisfactorily met by applicant groups. The Charter Committee is particularly concerned with keeping membership requirements sufficiently neutral so as to allow interested groups anywhere on this planet to join Urantia Brotherhood without experiencing indifference or insensitivity towards their local social and cultural circumstances. At the same time we must maintain a level of requirement which adds to our membership only those who are adequately prepared and willing to participate effectively in our organizational process."

To this end the 1997 Chair, Avi Dogirn and the Charter Committee created the Fellowship Associate status whose "formal inclusion of groups whose purposes are consistent with those of the Fellowship but who do not meet the requirements for society formation." In 1998, The Fellowship added another Fellowship Associate group, The Longs Peak Faithers from Loveland Colorado, which were approved by General Council on April 18, 1998. This new affiliation consists of I I readers who study and fellowship together and organizes outreach programs to share The Urantia Book.

And then in 1998, the effort to allow interested groups become a society saw further effort by the Charter Committee, led by Marvin Gawryn , to simplify the Society Charter standards while maintaining "a level of requirement, which adds to our membership". The recommendations for simplification of Society Charter standards are currently in review with the Judicial Committee and being additionally discussed in depth by the Charter Committee.

Groups of readers that would like to be more than an Associate status sometimes find it overwhelming to create a constitution on their own for their new society. The simplification process will offer a standard society constitution that can be used as is, which will speed up the process as well as simplify. Or a forming society can use the standard society constitution as a template and make modifications, which still simplifies the process, but will then need to be reviewed by the Judicial Committee.

Avi Dogim stated that "Reaching out to individuals and to groups of Urantia Book readers all over the world and finding effective ways of working cooperatively with them is a continuing challenge for the Fellowship." And if we are to play a pivotal role in the social outworking of the Fifth Epochal Revelation on this planet, we need to look for new and varied ways of appealing to non-members." Our current Char-ter Committee echo's this sentiment as we actively proceed in our search for new ways to reach out and appeal to the world, while maintaining standards worthy of the Fellowships values and principles.

As the recently elected Chairperson (April of 98), 1 thank all the committee members for helping me get up to speed and their willingness serve. I also wish to thank Marvin Gawryn, who was the Chairperson for the first part of this year, for his work with the Charter Committee and sharing with me the tasks and challenges our committee has at hand.

In our Eternal Father's service, 

Robert Burns, Chair

Larry Bowman

Robert Bruyn

Tom Choquette

Francyl Gawryn

Dale Sztejnberg