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News

ByLaws Revisions Ready for Membership Review
(9/14/04)

Attention All Members!
At least every five years the Coordinating Council appoints a Bylaws Revision Committee to consider how well the Bylaws are still meeting the needs of the membership and to propose suggested changes. The proposals are then brought to the membership. The current Bylaws Revision Committee (Sharon Beecher, Eleanor Cutts, and Val Rosado) would like to propose the certain changes. You will find these changes in the linked .pdf document below or in the September issue of the U. U. Womenspirit Newsletter.

Bylaws Revisions

The proposals will be brought up for discussion and consensus at this year's fall event. If you would like to submit a written comment on any of the proposed changes, please send it to valda@charter.net or Val Rosado, 285 Crestridge Dr., Boones Mill, VA 24065. Or to aliceabelkemp@cox.net -- Alice Abel Kemp, 741 Barracks St., New Orleans, LA 70116

CoCo Nuts
(from Summer Meeting, 8/24/04)

New CoCo Members
Your Coordinating Council (CoCo) met July 9 and 10 at the lovely home of Lea Close
in Loudon, TN. We welcomed two new members: Renee Robb-Cohen and Eleanor Cutts; and said THANK YOU to two members who have completed their terms: Krista Meinersmann and Elizabeth Adams. Our new job assignments are listed below.

Financial Concerns and Efforts
Our biggest concern is our increasing penury, and we considered and adopted several policies aimed at keeping closer tabs on where we are and reducing the amounts we spend on our events. The short analysis is that our events cost about $10,000, of which $6,000 is credits. Credits are for track and workshop leaders, 15 credits for the Planning Committee (PC) and one per event for the Chaplain. Then the CoCo members get one credit each per year, and the newsletter editor and web Goddess get the WomenSpirit fee only for each event. For Spring05, we will limit the number of tracks to three and total workshops to nine (three all day, and three each morning and afternoon).

The CoCo is only going to meet once a year in the future, and we’re offering the Planning Committees the option of replacing their post-partum meeting with a conference call. We’re asking the Worship committees to combine their altars and decorations to save costs, to limit or omit the give-aways, and keep the Xeroxing costs to a minimum. Instead of a full flyer and registration form, we’re only going to mail a two-sided flyer to the churches, book stores, and Women’s Centers on our mailing list.

Something Different for Fall 2005
Now for the BIGGEST news: With the blessings and appreciated cooperation of The Mountain, we decided to make a major change for 2005. The Spring05 event will be as usual--Institute and Gathering, with a Planning Committee already in action.

However, Fall05 will be only a weekend Retreat, 9/23 to 9/25/2005. This Retreat will be a chance for you to reconnect with the women you only see at WomenSpirit, with more free time than is available during a big Gathering. At the membership meeting THIS FALL (Friday night--9/24) we'll allow extra time for your questions and concerns and to brainstorm ways to handle the Retreat.

For the Retreat weekend the CoCo will be responsible for handling registration and setting up volunteers to do simple worship services and perhaps some no charge workshops. The CoCo will hold our summer meeting at the weekend, and we intend to have the Spring06 Planning Committee in place so that they can meet during the retreat as well. No one will receive any credits.

The Terms
The Mountain has agreed that IF we met our minimum of 100 women attending, the cost will be our discounted Mountain fee (earlybird) of $125 plus the three percent increase already written into our contract. We’re going to round this to $130 and use the extra little bit to pay for snacks at happy hour. We will urge everyone to pay a WomenSpirit fee of $25 as well in order to build our funds. Total for the weekend of $155. As you know, our fees for either an Institute or Gathering are $125 for The Mountain, and $55 program fee to WomenSpirit.

Marketing?
We will need to make some decisions about how to market the retreat - is it just for WomenSpirit veterans? Or could we invite women from various other women's groups to do some networking? Should we work on some special project for The Mountain? Surely some of these questions and ideas will come up for you before this fall - jot 'em down, email them to Renee, our Scribe, and we'll talk about them at the Friday night membership meeting. We also have some details to work out with The Mountain, and we’ll have a full report at the meeting.

This may seem like a drastic step, but we felt we had to do something drastic before we’re completely out of money, and to do something without breaking our contract with The Mountain.

Another opportunity to help
We urge all of you to participate as much as you can in this Fall’s event: WOMAN AS WARRIOR and IF you are receiving a credit and could afford to donate the fees, either The Mountain fee or the WomenSpirit fee, that would be greatly appreciated. But everyone who receives a credit has earned it and is entitled to use it. Just a request.

Feel free to contact any of us if you have any questions now.
Hope to see you September 24th.

Coordinating Council, August 2004:


 



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