The Urantia Book Fellowship
Annual Report of the Membership Committee
July 2003
THE PAST YEAR:
Committee Membership: During the past year, the Committee had all its positions filled until January, 2003, when Wm. ‘Sonny’ Schneider (Hawaii) resigned from The Fellowship and the Committee. (Please see below for a description of events in the Aloha Society.) Other Committee members include Charlene Morrow (Oklahoma), Dale Sztejnberg (New York), Lenny Cowles (Colorado), and John Causland (Michigan) who serves as the Committee’s secretary. Charlene’s term expires this summer and she has decided to not be a candidate for a Committee seat at this time. Richard Omura has agreed to become a candidate for one of the two vacancies. If you or anyone you know is interested in the areas of membership and fostering Society purposes, please contact us.
Name Change: Last summer the General Council passed the Constitutional amendment to change the name of Charter Committee to Membership Committee.
Membership Structure: The Committee finalized materials that describe membership, explain criteria, and facilitate application. The materials are now available for download from the website at http:\www.urantiabook.org and follow the links What Is The Fellowship to Membership Information. Here are some highlights:
Societies – The standards for Society chartering requires at least ten Founding Members who have read the entire Urantia Book and who adopt a constitution to create an organization which participates in the representative governance of The Fellowship. The Fellowship does not require that a Society’s Charter Members and subsequent regular Members to have read the entire Urantia Book as these standards are determined by each Society.
Members-At-Large – The Executive Committee has the authority to approve individuals to be Fellowship members. Applicants are not required to have read the entire Urantia Book
Affiliate Organizations – The Executive Committee also has the authority to establish an administrative relationship with Affiliate Organizations. MAL applications are made available to the individual participants of Affiliate Organizations who wish to become Fellowship members.
Societies: No inquiries for chartering were received during the past year and no new Societies were installed.
Evergreen – In January 2003, eight remaining active members decided that, “…we should let Evergreen Urantia Society of Washington fall by the wayside and channel our energies into the larger and more active Washington Urantia Association.” A request has been made for the group to return the charter document to The Fellowship.
Aloha – In February 2003, The Fellowship received a petition from 14 of 24 members of The Urantia Book Aloha Society (TUBAS) of Hawaii. These individuals agreed to rescind the special election of February 5th as is provided for in their constitution and they asked The Fellowship to assist in monitoring a fair election. They sighted numerous instances where the constitution of TUBAS was not being followed while some officers made arbitrary and unilateral decisions about membership and procedures. Several members resigned from the Society and thereby The Fellowship, sighting harassment and intimidation by these officers. Shortly after The Fellowship agreed this request, Bud Kagan when to court seeking a temporary restraining order against The Fellowship. The Fellowship then withdrew from participating in a new election. The majority of members believe that the Society does not function constitutionally. Discussions about resolving this dispute will likely continue in the coming months.
Members-At-Large: Welcome to Edward Risley of Renton, Washington and Theresa Ransbottom of Zephyrhills, Florida who applied and were approved by the Executive Committee to become Fellowship members. Theresa is now serving as a member of the International Fellowship Committee.
Affiliate Organizations: No application for becoming a Fellowship Affiliate has been received since the installation of “Centro didático-terapêutico Casa de FAD” on May 6, 2002 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Furthering Society Purposes: This Constitutional task has focused on the following:
· TDA – The Committee continues to foster an annual meeting of Society representatives primarily by providing information to new delegates and alternates and promoting the exchange of ideas and information.
· SocAdmin Email List – In January, SocAdmin celebrated its third birthday by adopting a revised and expanded set of guidelines. It is evolving into a wonderful tool for Society officers and representatives and General Councilors to communicate with each other.
NEXT YEAR:
Society Expectations: The Committee is faced with addressing issues of Society functioning and vitality. Should Societies be expected to maintain a minimum number of members? Should Societies be expected to abide by their constitutions? Should a majority of society members be allowed to petition the central organization for oversight? These issues are not currently addressed in The Fellowship Constitution. Possibly the TDA could discuss the characteristics of a well-functioning Society and recommend criteria to determine when a Society no longer a living part of the organization.
Administrative Communication: The Committee believes that Societies and individual members should have easy access to all administrative forms and materials. We hope to assist in making increasing amounts of information and materials readily available on The Fellowship’s Website.
For the Membership Committee,
Bob Bruyn, Chair