Annual Report of the President

July 9, 2006

The Urantia Book Fellowship continued its outreach and dissemination activities over the past year through the media of print and the Internet, through social gatherings, interfaith activities, expos, book donations and book marketing. The enthusiasm and energy among the people who coordinate and participate in these various activities is high and can be matched only by their dedication to the mission of making the fifth epochal revelation available to all our fellow residents on this planet. Some of these activities have been carried out as part of the work of the Fellowship’s standing committees and some have been carried out by extra-organizational groups of volunteers coordinated by The Fellowship. Detailed accounts of these activities are available in the annual reports of The Fellowship’s standing as well as ad hoc committees.

The Fellowship recognizes the important work done for the advancement of the revelation by individuals and groups who are not formally affiliated with it. It stands ready to collaborate with any group on any project that is consistent with the stated purpose of The Fellowship to disseminate The Urantia Book and its teachings to the peoples of the world. Efforts have been made over the past few years to identify specific areas of common interest between The Fellowship and Urantia Foundation and to explore possible joint projects between the two organizations. I met privately with Seppo Kanerva, the Foundation President, on the campus of Villanova University during IC ‘05 as part of these efforts. The meeting was friendly; we drew up a list of possible areas of cooperation; we agreed to continue to communicate; but we haven’t as yet begun a joint project. The Fellowship involved members of the UAI as well as a number of individuals unaffiliated with any organization in the IC ’05 conference planning and execution. It also reached out to the UAI in order to explore the possibility of running a joint Fellowship/UAI IC ’08 conference. That last overture was rebuffed by the UAI. The Fellowship will continue to keep its door open to such possibilities in the future.

With impetus given by Joe Liszka, a long time reader, originally from Chicago, now in Key West, several members of The Fellowship and the UAI helped organize a “non-organizational” 50th Anniversary celebration of the publication of The Urantia Book in Chicago in October of 2005. Among those in attendance were Foundation Trustees, most of The Fellowship’s Executive Committee and other Fellowship members, UAI members and a number of readers from Chicago, some of whom remembered well the day the books first rolled off the press. The good will among all who were there was palpable and ought to be savored.

Over the past year, The Fellowship took responsibility for coordinating the Pipeline of Light project, the purpose of which is to send Urantia Books to individuals or to groups all over the world who cannot afford to buy them. Both Fellowship members and people who are not affiliated with The Fellowship support and participate in this project.

Over the past three years The Fellowship has continued the process of virtualizing its administrative operation that began during the preceding three years. By “virtualizing” I mean increasing the utilization of internet based communications and data transfer operations and reducing our dependency on brick and mortar. This process went into high gear with the sale of our office at 529 Wrightwood Ave in Chicago.

To help deal with a myriad issues related to this process, we formed an administrative team, a five member sub group of the Executive Committee, that conferred regularly by phone. We also formed an ad hoc information technology (IT) committee comprising an Executive Committee member, Steve Dreier, as its chair and a number of other Fellowship volunteers with expertise in various IT areas.

Less than a year ago, we formed a website content group, initially chaired by David Holt and currently chaired by Peter Laurence. This group was formed largely in response to recommendations made by the General Council that the content of The Fellowship’s website should be overseen by a group rather than by any single individual. The process whereby the group will interact with the Executive Committee, the Fellowship office and the Fellowship’s webmaster has been defined. Initial recommendations from this group have already been made and we look forward to some meaningful progress in the appearance and organization of and the ease of navigation through our website.

An important milestone was reached by The Fellowship recently with the retirement of John Hales who served as our Resident Director for over 30 years. John passed the baton to Paula Thompson who was hired as Administrative Director on April 1st. All of us who have worked with John and have benefited from his service are thankful for all his has done for the organization and for the readership over these many years. We are also thankful for all his efforts to ensure that the transition of responsibilities between himself and Paula are as seamless as can be.

A great deal of work has been done on the formulation of administrative procedures that help facilitate the day to day operations of The Fellowship and clarify the work flow among the members of the Executive Committee and The Fellowship staff. It is recognized by all concerned that these procedures are and must remain a work in progress that needs periodic review and updating in order to satisfy the ever growing needs of The Fellowship and the changing material reality that impinges on its work. Much of this effort is mundane and painstakingly detailed. It is not always easy to see the connection between doing this work and advancing a spiritual cause. Yet the connection is there and its recognition by the minds of those who do the work is what sustains them and keeps their vision alive.

Now, I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts regarding this organization and the direction in which I think it should be moving. When I first became involved in Fellowship organizational activities in the late eighties, my assumption was that, as human organizations go, the then Brotherhood must be operating on a very high ethical plane. Having had some familiarity with the book and what it had to say about ideal group behavior, this assumption seemed perfectly reasonable to me then and does not seem unreasonable to me now. The reality, however, is quite another matter and it didn’t take me long to realize that this group behaves essentially like any other human group and is not exempt from political infighting and manipulation. When I commented about this to some of my friends who had been around this organization a lot longer than I, they reassured me that “things used to be a lot worse.”

We should not be discouraged by this. We should stare this reality in the face and know that we can do something about it. I know it without a doubt and with all my being that if we, as an organization, have something unique to offer, it is our own transformation from a human group like any other group into one that will be a living testament to some of the possibilities inherent in The Supreme. This, I propose to you, should become our unstated mission. While we continue to focus on our organizational purpose, as stated in our constitution, we should learn to conduct ourselves in such a way that will help us become the kind of group we aspire to be. Let that become our “masterful mystery”; let the transcendent, post political human group become our “worthful unattainable”.

It has been said that we need clearer rules and procedures in order to improve the way we operate. Indeed, clear rules and procedures are necessary to the smooth functioning of any organization. But in themselves they are insufficient to the fostering of a human organization that might be envisioned with the aid of revelation. It is not merely for the sake of imparting esoteric knowledge that The Urantia Book tells us that “the highest course of training in universe administration” is given by the Melchizedeks in the “College of High Ethics…presided over by the original Father Melchizedek.” (35-3-15) and that “the higher you ascend in the scale of life, the more attention must be paid to universe ethics.” (27-3-1). Do we wait till we get to the Edentia Training worlds where our “sojourn…will be chiefly occupied with the mastery of group ethics…”? (43-8-2)

I think not. I think it is our supreme responsibility to foster an organizational culture that strives for the highest attainment in individual and group ethics possible in the flesh. And we won’t get there simply by being “nice” to each other. Each of us has a responsibility to always act in a manner that advances the good of the group. It can sometimes mean having to confront or question the actions of a particular member of the group. It can mean casting a vote that goes against a personal loyalty. It can mean taking personal risks by voicing unpopular opinions or questioning entrenched traditions. Painful as it might be, this is what we must do in order to be true to ourselves and to our mission. I know there is enough love and mutual respect among us so that not one of us need ever fear to speak his or her mind.

Since the inception of the Brotherhood in 1955, the Executive Committee has run the organization with the rest of the General Council serving as an interested bystander. Some of this is structural – if you read the constitution you’ll notice that the Executive Committee is vested with most of the power as well as the responsibility for running the organization – and some of it is a matter of tradition. Perhaps there were good reasons for why things were set up this way. But there is nothing that says that this cannot change.

While structural changes can take time and need to be given careful consideration and deliberation, this council need not wait – indeed it should not wait to begin to give real direction to this organization. It certainly should not wait for the Executive Committee to provide the moral or ethical guidance for the group. That guidance must come from the council itself. The Executive Committee numbers fourteen people who work hard to conducts the day-to-day affairs of The Fellowship. It meets four times a year and communicates internally on the phone and by email on a regular basis, as it must. Bonds of friendship and personal loyalties form among its members who serve together in some cases for more than a decade. Expediency rather than principle sometimes hold sway in reaching important decisions. This is human, understandable and forgivable. This council holds the intellectual, moral and, indeed loving spiritual potential to move us forward.

“The temporal relation of man to the Supreme is the foundation for cosmic morality, the universal sensitivity to, and acceptance of, duty. This is a morality which transcends the temporal sense of relative right and wrong; it is a morality directly predicated on the self-conscious creature's appreciation of experiential obligation to experiential Deity. Mortal man and all other finite creatures are created out of the living potential of energy, mind, and spirit existent in the Supreme. It is upon the Supreme that the Adjuster-mortal ascender draws for the creation of the immortal and divine character of a finaliter. It is out of the very reality of the Supreme that the Adjuster, with the consent of the human will, weaves the patterns of the eternal nature of an ascending son of God.” (117-4-8)

The work begins here and now.

Thank you,

Avi Dogim