| A couple of things made the life of the Charter Committee a little
more interesting this past year than in previous years. First, thanks to
the dedication and hard work of a group of our mid-western friends, there
was the installation of the First Wisconsin Society on September 14, 1996
in Sheboygan Falls at the lovely Villager Restaurant owned by one of the
society's founders, Rosemary Eigenberger. In addition to the Wisconsin
group and yours truly, present at this historic event, the first society
installation since 1989, were Steve Dreier and John Hales.
Next, the committee was involved in setting standards of admission of "Fellowship Associates", a new form of affiliation approved by the General Council in its August, 1996 meeting. The purpose of this new affiliation mechanism is to allow for the formal inclusion of groups whose purposes are consistent with those of the Fellowship but who do not meet the requirements for society formation. Soon after the announcement of this new affiliation option, an application for "Fellowship Associate" status came from the Korean Outreach group of South Korea. The group, which now includes 14 members, was admitted as a Fellowship Associate at the February General Council meeting and was presented with its official certificate on May 18th by International Fellowship Chairman, John Lange, at the Korean Book Fair in Seoul. 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. Our traditional approaches and structures may have served us well during the first forty years of our existence, while our outreach has been directed primarily at the US and, by extension, at non-US based western cultures. Yet, 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. In many instances, the new ways may be defined by cultural elements still unfamiliar to most of us. We need not endeavor to change our basic structures in order to appeal to other cultures, but we need to remain open to and actively search for modes of communication and relational mechanisms which take cultural sensitivities into account. Respectfully submitted by Avi Dogim, Chairman Larry Bowman |
A Service of
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Urantia Book Fellowship