 19 Nov 2006 @ 15:45, by Roger Eaton
Text of a report that was delivered to the UDC World Council on November 18, 2006. Also, an excellent development from that meeting, Lyle J. Noorlun has subscribed his contact list of 900 that he has gathered from his website, worldpeaceflag.org, nearly doubling our current list of participants. Plans are coming together, and it appears we will be off to a good start. The Interfaith flag displayed to the right is the Fourth of Ten Peace flags from the World Peace Flag site. Information is posted on the site to submit your design for the next World Peace Flag.
Global Assembly Progress report - November 18, 2006
We will be able to enroll groups and participants as of Dec 10, 2006. Enrolled participants will receive a message tailored to their group with both an "Invite a Friend" and an "Unsubscribe Me" link at the bottom. External links from websites will allow an individual to subscribe to the Global Assembly Dialog as a member of a group. Likewise links can be sent via email to make it easy for groups to invite their members to subscribe on an opt-in basis.
The Dialog will begin on January 15, 2007 with a Unity Round. The theme of the Dialog is “Creating a World that Works for Everyone”. Each writer in the first round of the Dialog will be able to choose from the subjects previously used or add a new subject to the round. The plan at this point, as developed by Robin Gillies and myself, is to seed each round with several preselected subjects, with "Organizing the 2008 Global Assembly Meeting" always being one of the subjects. Other possible subjects are "Global Warming", "Challenge to US Democracy", "Nuclear Destruction", "Human Rights" and possibly one or two more.
I will be manning a table for the Global Assembly Dialog at Peace Sunday. We will have copies of the UDC website material on the Global Assembly Dialog with an updated list of groups that will participate. At the table we will recruit individuals and organizations for the Dialog. Organizations will have the choice to email an opt-in link to their members or to simply include everyone, in which case the members of the group will get an email welcoming them to the Dialog with an unsubscribe link so they can opt-out.
A couple new organizations are likely to participate. Together, an organization based in Culver City, founded by Rebecca Rona, will consider joining its entire email list at its upcoming Advisory Board meeting. Culver City Area Interfaith Association (CCAIA) will email an opt-in link to its members. IARF Pakistan may be joining us as well.
The UDC mailing list is going to be split into two parts to make two groups for the Dialog. First, Interfaith, and second Unity-and-Diversity. Organizations that join up via the opt-in method will have a choice of being part of either the Interfaith or the Unity-and-Diversity group until their membership exceeds 100, at which point they will be separated out as a group on their own for the Diversity rounds. Therefore we will be starting with at least 4 groups: Interfaith, Unity-and-Diversity, Common Peace and Unaffiliated, with Together being a likely fifth participating organization. IARF Pakistan may also be a sixth group. With this much of a start I think that between now and January 15th we should be able to enroll at least a dozen more organizations, with most of them going for the opt-in method.
In the process so far, I have become convinced that existing Interfaith organizations should be a major target for growth of the Global Assembly. The Interfaith movement is wonderfully alive and by its nature it is inclusive and non-dominating. Therefore it is safe to include the Interfaith movement in the Global Assembly Dialog even in large numbers, since it can be trusted not to try to take over the process for its exclusive use.
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