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So this Friday, at the crack of dawn, I will be picking up our old WC friend Birthstone & we'll be heading off on a 'road trip' to our Conference AGM in Port Elgin - about 3 hours drive from here. Church, church & more church for a couple of days, but then topped off by zooming home to go to a Jays game Sunday afternoon. Revjohn - we will miss you this year.
 
It is also Conference weekend in BC in Vancouver but alas having completed my term as Presbytery rep I won't be going. I usually get a visit in there with somegal.
 
KayTheCurler said:
Good to hear that your mum is coping well MrsAnteater. Don't like to pour cold water on the situation but feel I must point out- so was my mum. Doing her own housework, shopping, cooking, medical appointments - totally unaided. No Home Care, no Meals on Wheels. I was there in May. We did things together. Talked about the relatives, the living and the dead. Mum died at the end of August without losing any of her abilities beforehand.
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O, she has home care and she gets frozen meals from the corner store. I would rather wishher a sudden death than loosing her mind slowly and having to move to LTC. That would accelerate her decline and also bring a lot of trouble for my siblings.
I somehow had the feeling this year that I might not need to schedule my visit fornext year, even though she has not declined that significantly. She has had a hospital stay over thast year, had a fall and wasn't found until the next morning, now is wearing her alarm buttom. But she tends to not drink, so she doesn't have to use the bathroom, she eats everything even though she takes insulin- it is very easy to turn to the worse if the system gets out of whack.
 
Ministers and lay people from here are headed to London Conference this week. It's a long drive for them, but they carpool and rumour has it, they have fun along the way. I always end up leading worship at our church so that our minister can go. I'm not inclined to enjoy the politics of the church; worship is a better fit for me.
 
Nancy said:
Ministers and lay people from here are headed to London Conference this week. It's a long drive for them, but they carpool and rumour has it, they have fun along the way. I always end up leading worship at our church so that our minister can go. I'm not inclined to enjoy the politics of the church; worship is a better fit for me.
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Amen, sing it, sister! I've chaired committees but that's about as far as I'll go. Have managed to squeak out of serving on the board a couple times. Fortunately, since UUs are congregational, there is no higher court to be involved with (no presbytery or conference, IOW). CUC has regional groups that meet a couple times a year but those aren't governing bodies, just administrative units to facilitate communications and cooperation among congregations in a given region. And CUC has an annual conference for all congregations (though I believe there's been talk about going to biennial to reduce costs).
 
This coming weekend is Newfoundland and Labrador Conference's General Meeting. I will not be attending because I just recently got up here and I am not about to turn around and drive the Seven hours back down the coast.

Hopefully I will be in a call come the fall and I can attend the regular District meeting and get reacquainted with my peeps.
 
revjohn said:
This coming weekend is Newfoundland and Labrador Conference's General Meeting. I will not be attending because I just recently got up here and I am not about to turn around and drive the Seven hours back down the coast.

Hopefully I will be in a call come the fall and I can attend the regular District meeting and get reacquainted with my peeps.
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Tis a wandering Pilgrimage ... especially considering what would face you ... I'm not going either ... our minister has to bear it. I have a lot of sympathy for a few good men ... not a lot for the other poorer folks ...

Assists in defining differences between sympathy and empathy ... versus a' pithy ... for some of those wearing those pointy hats ... could be a remote equivocation ... that with some depth observation can be interpreted to be a dark satyr ... perhaps even Gabriel calling in a shady manner ...

Stuff normal common hosts of people (pagans floods?) shouldn't know ... according to some priests derived from a peculiar limestone know as aragonite ... it assists in building walls and a' gates of Avalon ... contrary to Jeshua's roué ... thus veil rending sounds from the deeps as opposites get right into IDe ... and thus rise of IDe'aums? These are icons despised by iconoclastic types that would be rate 'n alien tongues ...

Thus the ignorance about Aramaic folks ... one should read up on these folk ... best in their own language ... but according to the famous satyr ist ... they'll never meet! Could be because of the global spin values ... affects even the weather ...
 
Luce NDs said:
it. I have a lot of sympathy for a few good men ... not a lot for the other poorer folks ...
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Edmund Burke said:
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing
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The Tick said:
Evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can't let the package hide the pudding. Evil is just plain bad! You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog. Bad dog.
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Annual General Meetings are not a necessary evil, they aren't even necessarily evil. They are necessary. They can be a place of insipid banality masquerading as justice or they can be a place where deep thought and passionate spirituality prevail. Most of the time, they are business as usual. Which, in and of itself, is not always a bad thing. P's and Q's are minded, I's dotted and T's crossed so that decency and good order may not only prevail but flourish.

All going well they will not be a donnybrook, a brou-a-ha or an imbroglio.

They aren't always for the "feelers" I will agree with that though I would never apologize for that. There is a time to think and there is a time to feel. Since AGM's routinely discuss matters of polity it is probably good for it to be more of a think fest and in that regard it means that there should be some critique of material presented simply to test whether or not it is truly worthy of being considered.

Do I find AGM's life-giving? Nope.

Do I find AGM's life-ordering? Most always.

And with some sense of order at play we find the bounds of freedom and play within that order pushing it further as needs be. Mindful that mediocrity is its own form of evil and good men and women can easily stop it in its tracks.

The Tick said:
May evil beware and may Good dress warmly and eat plenty of fresh vegetables.
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If the beef is well smoked as jerky ... will it eliminate the ticks?

I've heard that ticks are a sign of difficulties with anger management syndrome ... with the beef or the tick? It is yet unknown ...

Tis due to a trend towards unknowing ... and thus all was lost for want ...
 
I always attended Newfoundland and Labrador Conference and Manitou Conference, but I completely lost my interest in Conference meetings in 2006 (I think) when Hamilton Conference had to have a one day meeting. I honestly don't remember why. Interestingly enough, everything that had to be done got done, the people who needed to be ordained got ordained, neither the United Church nor Hamilton Conference collapsed. I never attended a meeting of Hamilton Conference after that because in that act they had demonstrated that making me spend the better part of three days away from my family (and my congregation) was a total waste of my time. My congregation at the time didn't care at all if anyone went to Conference. Our lay presbyters never attended, and the congregation had no interest in paying the ministry staff's costs to attend, so neither of us ever did, although both of us were involved with Conference Committee work. We could have forced the issue, got Presbytery involved to tell the congregation they had to pay - but why bother? Although I've not been asked to sit on a Bay of Quinte Conference Committee, I have attended Bay of Quinte Conference last year and I will this year basically because Pickering Village United Church expects me to and is willing to pay for my travel and accommodation - although I suspect that if I just said I didn't want to go they'd be happy enough not to force the issue. Truly Conference is perhaps the most meaningless organization that the human mind has ever devised. Regional Council sounds like it will be even more pointless.
 
Our Fellowship National Conference is an annual event in November. Last year it was in Niagara Falls and a topic up for discussion was baptism. This year it will take place in Toronto. I've never been to one, but I might go this year since it's in TO.
 
I like Conference. I like the energy of bringing (almost) all the United Churches in the Province together. I love the worship and the ordinands-and the commisionands-and the feeling of not being alone. God is working through all these people. Are the meetings too long-often! and boring-yes- but overall it is worth it.

Our conference always has the choice of billeting or paid accommodations- and travel costs are paid by our Conference-so the cost to the congregations is just registration fee and that is under $50!
 
The differing opinions and experiences lead me to suspect that some conferences give better conferences. Which I would expect, to be honest.
 
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