Liaison Committee Report
January 2008 Dear friends,

Regarding Liaison activities:

I sent you all a report on the work of the Standard Reference Text
Committee earlier this month, and will be providing a brief and
hopefully engaging "show and tell" on this project at our meeting.

Another major liaison effort is unfolding in regards to translations.
We have a 30 minute timeslot on the GC agenda to consider progress and
and issues regarding trajectory in this area. Some important decisions
to consider, and lots of exciting potential.

I may be sharing a couple of additional future oriented ideas for
collaboration in the areas of study group support and marketing and
distribution, but will share these thoughts in the meeting after
"chatting them up" a bit preliminarily in casual conversation.

Lastly, I've been "listening" to the discussion on the Michael's Plan
thread, seemingly a liaison kind of concern. Briefly, my thoughts are
that we need to continue to move our inter-organizational collaborative
service forward in a pragmatic and incremental fashion, building a path
of trust and fellowship as we go. My sense is that we are developing
good forward momentum on this new path, and we should work to maintain
and grow it further. It may even eventually bring us closer to
consideration of some of the suggestions contained in this proposed plan.

However, while I salute the sincerity and integrity of the authors of
this document, I think looking to a past idealized "grand plan" is
simply not workable. Were we to try to address it, I am afraid we would
spend large amounts of time on an unrealizeable theoretical goal, and
distract ourselves from the "on the ground" approach that is finally
beginning to mend our historical brokenness and move us forward in
cooperative fruitful service to the revelation.

I am so very much looking forward to our fellowship and deliberation in
a few days,

Affectionately,

Marvin Gawryn