We welcome cordial comments, suggestions and commitments for past and future conferences.
Obviously if we needed any immediate actions, we could say the next conference is the last in the Mayan calendar. Rumor has it, this could be the end. Or ... the beginning!
Blessings,
Webmaster
About Me
- Urantia IC
- I helped with the IC08.org website and will be preparing the next site foor IC11.org . This area is reserved for those who'd like to contribute constructive commentaries on IC08. How do we make it better? How do we get more attendees? How do make the events more attractive? Anything you can think of, let it rip here!
6 comments:
Despite the Fellowship losing a lot of money on IC08, otherwise, in my opinion, IC08 was a great success! As usual, the people, the workshops and the personal growth from IC08 was palpable.
I think the "movement", like most everything else these days, has to decentralize and promote itself more via local growth rather than centralized growth.
I liked the idea of working groups on a regional or local basis. I know our long time (30 yrs) study group has seen many new people come into our group recently.
The low attendance had nothing to do with the growth or vibrance of the UB movement. It has to do with the unfortunate trend in all industry trade shows and conferences. The high cost of getting to, lodging, dining and attending conferences are causing attendance to drop everywhere. I go to 10-12 trade shows/conferences per year and they all are seeing drastic drops in attendance and there are questions in all of them if they will even be around in the next few years.
I do hope there is an IC11 wherever that may be. The lower attendance does make for more frequent interactions with the other attendees. So planners should plan for lower attendance accordingly and even if 50-100 attendees show up, the interaction will be more intense. It is very unfortunate that only those who can afford it will attend.
Maybe with technology and video conferencing, local and regional conferences can tap into the international conferences via the internet and those folks that cannot afford to attend the international conference can still get the information. They then can get the interaction and interpersonal relations from their local affiliation conference.
Tom Alexander
Corvallis, Oregon
P.S. By the way, all of us Oregonians that were in attendance at IC08 were actively recruiting people to consider moving to Oregon; or more specifically, Corvallis. Two close UB friends from LA have bought land near Corvallis and others are considering it. This is not necessarily an intentional community situation but more in the vein of living in the general area (Willamette Valley), and to participate in our study group and also to participate in working groups on service type of things. Between Portland and Eugene (the Willamette Valley--about 135 miles between them) there are many study groups and many more readers. It has been and is a fertile UB area. Come to Oregon! God knows what could happen.
I had the great pleasure of rooming with Susan Cook and got to see her in action for nine days. what can I say??? She's like the ever-ready bunny, only much more beautiful. Watching her work out the daily details was a perfect opportunity to observe someone who has truly learned to be invigorated by difficulty...
Susan pulled off an amazing event on our behalf this past week, and so I'm happy to say that she has already accepted the title of conference chair for IC'11. We are so lucky to have such a powerhouse presence in our company! Thank you, Susan, you are an inspiration and we all owe you a huge debt of gratitude.
Michelle Klimesh
Danville, California
I missed most of the conference and ended up at least staying from Friday night on. I like the idea of the modular payments per day plus the options for the other events. The idea of paying for everything and only using a few of the features is not cool !!
The most amazing things happened and one was my partner Lesley ended up really enjoying the people and is now going to be a forever UB'er.
And my daughter loves the UB'ers so much that her wanderlust to find God has found a home. Mari, I hear your work at the conference was great! Having Susan as a boss should give you an idea of how you will be called on someday to do the same... Because us old people are looking for those prime suspects that will carry on the tradition of flying high the 5th Epochal Revelation flag !
It is right! We heard it. We felt it. There's something seriously wrong in our world. Truth has been replaced with too many lies. The time has come to make something happen or we will be digressing into a mechanistic world fed by pharmaceutical prepped emotions and dictated canned living processes.
A small change is better than no change at all and it must start in each and everyone of us.
Yearn for the world to change.
Listen to your heart and the special internal voice instructing us all to do the things that will bring about loving global change and believe it.
Seek and join hands with like minds and figure out what you can do to awaken the sleeping public comforted in the lies that are perpetuating the downfall of our culture.
The conference intention was not to preach to the choir but to stimulate those to move outside the box and spread the stimulated word.
And for the few days I was at the conference, I was totally turned on to see the real McCoys :)
Blessings and onward/upward!
Take the cover off the back of the book! Your example to others should make them ask you ... "what makes you go???"
Chris Yandall
p.s. Got Conference Pics you want to share?
webmaster@ic08.org
The conference was a wonderful reunion with folks from the NE U.S.
and Hawaii, and and experience of joy in meeting new friends from so many areas. After an approximate 10
year break from contact with the greater Urantia student community, some of us are committed to starting a new study group in Santa Monica.
To Chris Yandell,
I tried to send photos to
webmaster@ic08.org
and it is not recognized as an email address or a website.
Is there a mistake?
Marilyn Alexander
This was an amazing conference! I got to meet a lot of people.Besides the fact that we lost money on this conference I think we earend more then enough spirt to make that fact almost invisable.
This is really the first conference for me to really to see everything and how it works. Like I said I meet a lot of people.Thank you so much to everyonre who made this conference possiable.
marilyn! thanks for your input!
webmaster@ic08.org works fine.
try again and put in the subject line "pictures for ic08" .
i will get to them.
i just depersonalized this message board and made it not so much mine :) ...
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