Mission and Community Concerns Committee

Missions Meeting Minutes, May 31, 2008

Pilgrim Association Mission and Community Concerns Committee

Stan Duncan, Ruth Poole, Jim Howard, Dot Sime, Joe Wadsworth, Helen Burgess.

(You can download and print a paper version of these notes by clicking here.)

1. Housekeeping: Peggy Files and Lindsay McGrath sent notes that they would be unable to attend.

2. Update on the situation of Jim Howard and Stan Duncan, and welcome to Peggy Files

Stan’s future is still somewhat up in the air. He is no longer an official member of the committee, but the committee (perhaps unwisely) said they might consider letting him stay on unofficially unless or until his geography changes sufficiently to make staying on impossible. One thing that still needs to be decided is who would represent the Missions Committee at the Pilgrim Association Executive Council meetings.

Jim’s future is more clear. He has resigned from his church, gone into the search process, and found a new church up in New Hampshire. This, in fact, would be his last meeting with us. We all wished him well, gave him our blessings and our prayers, and let him pay for his own breakfast.

Peggy Files was voted in to replace Stan Duncan on the committee, but she had an internment ceremony and was unable to attend. We will welcome her, wish her well, and allow her to buy her own breakfast at our next meeting.

3. Publicize the Norwell trip to El Salvador

John Galvin of the UCC church in Norwell has asked us to help with the publicity for their upcoming trip to El Salvador, August 25. We agreed, but are not sure how we can help other than endorsing it.

Someone noted that the trip is coming up soon, and may be already filled. Someone else recalled that there are actually two trips this year. One is with the church alone and the other is with Habitat. So it may be with the Habitat trip that they want help. Stan said he would try to contact John Galvin to see what we could do and how we could do it.

We discussed getting the Area or conference offices to send out mailings about it.

One possibility was to put a slide show about last year’s trip on the South East Area web page. Contact Peggy Files about that as a possibility (Peggy is a pastor at that church).

4. Fill the Ark Campaign

Joe wrote to Heifer to ask about designated giving. They said that if someone from a particular church sends them some money but makes a notation on the check or cover letter saying that it is also a part of the Pilgrim Association Fill the Ark campaign, they would note that for us. We would have to contact them periodically to get the totals as they came in.

We decided that we should contact all of the churches in the Association to inform them of the project and asking them to participate by putting a note with their donations that this came from the pilgrim Association and should be also included in their total for their Ark. It should be emphasized in the communication to the churches that this will not take away from the recording of their gift. They will still get credit in their local church for their gift. We just want to get a total of the entire Association because we are attempting to raise the equivalent of an Ark.

We also wondered whether Heifer knew, which churches were UCC and within the Pilgrim Association. Joe Wadsworth was asked if he could contact Heifer again and get a clear report back to us on what they could and could not do for us.

When is the next Pilgrim Association Annual Meeting? This is important to know early for our publicity of the project. Stan said he would be at the next executive council meeting, so he would check on that and report back at the next Missions Committee meeting.

It was strongly suggested that we send out both email and paper announcements about the project. Perhaps more than once. Letters as well as posters. Helen said that the flier that we now have needs to be revised because it’s too busy. She volunteered to do that. Stan said he had it on his computer and would send a copy to all of the members who wanted to tinker with it and shorten it. The one that Stan has is actually scanned from a physical flier that Joe made. The original computer version was lost when Joe’s computer died and went to the great hard drive heaven in the sky. Things that should be stated clearly on the flier are: how to give to Heifer, how to list the Ark project for credit, and to contact us when they do so (though we understand that they may not follow through on any of these).

5. The trip to Equal Exchange

The Executive Council was excited about our committee meeting at EE, and asked if we could organize a trip there for the entire association. Stan Spoke to Peter Buck at EE about that and he was agreeable. They typically host delegations during the week (when they are open anyway), but would be willing to be open on a Saturday (when we could get a bigger attendance) if we set it up far in advance. The tentative date that we for our trip during our last meeting was October 4, but Stan hasn’t cleared that yet with Peter. He will do that and send back a report to the rest of the committee.

6. Publicity for this and other events

It was suggested that we send out a Mission Newsletter-type email about the Ark Campaign, the El Salvador trip, Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters, and the trip to Equal Exchange. There was some discussion about whether the Conference office in Framingham would include something about our projects in its monthly mailing. The rest of the committee thought this unlikely, but should be looked into. It is likely that they would include something about us after the fact in one of its Spotlight pieces. And it is guaranteed that the Area office in Plymouth would send out an email newsletter for us. Stan said he would look into creating our own online presence.

7. Potential dates for our next meeting are August 16^th (preferable in terms of planning ofor the fall) or August 23^rd (not quite as good, but doable).

Send a note back as soon as you can on which dates work for you.

Respectfully submitted (more or less)

Stan Duncan