wfn.org | Changes Conference Resourcing

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3542 notes).

Note 3539 by UMNS on April 7, 1997 at 17:29 Eastern (6510 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency
of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn.,
New York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Joretta Purdue                         185(10-71B){3539}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           April 7, 1997

New plan for resourcing annual conferences
approved by Commission on Communication

     NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Members of the United Methodist
Commission on Communication approved a new way of providing
services to annual conferences at the commission's semi-annual
meeting here April 4-5.
     The decision authorized a Conference Resourcing Team to be
staffed by a Nashville-based associate general secretary, a
networking specialist and an administrative assistant.
     The team would include at least one representative from each
of the 66 annual conferences and a majority of the agency's
professional staff, according to the Rev. Robert W. Edgar,
Claremont, Calif., who headed the task force that created the
proposal. 
     Edgar said the team concept would send United Methodist
Communication's (UMCom) professional staff into the field, share
annual conference talent across conference lines and develop a
pool of funds to hire outside expertise when needed to provide
services to all 66 conferences instead of just some of them.
     Inherent in the new plan is elimination of the five field
staff offices and the personnel that currently staff them.  "I
think the five staff people ... have done a good job and have
worked as hard as they can with the resources that we gave them
but were only able to help a handful of the annual conferences out
of the 66," stated Edgar, president of Claremont School of
Theology.
     Conference needs change quickly, he said. 
     "It is our hope that the culture of the agency internally and
externally might be changed by the establishment of this team,"
Edgar said. He voiced an expectation for "cross-fertilization"
across division lines within the agency and across conference
lines in the church.
     In urging the other directors to vote for the plan, Edgar
expressed the hope that "we will go out and find the very best
people with listening, interpersonal, communicative and, yes,
management skills to invade both the agency and the annual
conferences and to build the bridges that need to be built with
this new concept."
     Felix Gutierrez, San Francisco, saying he looked at the issue
as a reporter or editor judging a story, commented, "This appears
to me to be a headquarters solution to a field service problem."
     Dawn Hand, Charlotte, N.C., opposed the plan, saying that she
thought the team concept was already in place with the five UMCom
field staff located in the five jurisdictions and that they were
able to bring in help from Nashville and other areas of the
church.
     The Rev. J. Jeannette Cooper Dicks, Toledo, Ohio, expressed
concern for the field staff and asked if the concept could not be
implemented by agency management through the present staff. She
also warned of distrust for apportionments and activities beyond
the local church and questioned how "axing our own" might be
understood around the connection.
     Bishop Joe Wilson of the Fort Worth Area said, "I can
function very well without field staff people. I have for five
years, and I still can, but I want a resource team up here [in
Nashville] that I can call, and I can get help and our people can
get it for their own resourcing."
     Kimberly Pace, a member of the task force, expressed a belief
that the agency needs "new, fresh people, people that did not, in
a sense, know the old way."
     The Rev. Elijah Stansell Jr. of Beaumont. Texas, said he
thought the critical issue was how the decision -- whatever it
might be -- was going to affect the total United Methodist
Communications.
     "This agency needs to be impacted in a new way, a different
way, so that we can come to commission meetings and not only hold
field representatives accountable but we can hold executive staff
accountable," he declared. "Anytime you make a change, somebody is
going to be impacted [at the] top and bottom, but what about the
agency?"
     More than an hour was given to discussion of restructuring
annual conference services -- with participation by almost every
director of the 26-member commission who was present. At the vote,
the plan prevailed by a large majority. 
     A subsequent resolution of appreciation for the work of the
five field staff was passed unanimously.
     In her report to the commission on the previous day, the Rev.
Judy Weidman, UMCom general secretary, had supported the team
concept, saying, "There can be no more critical issue for any
national agency of the denomination than the effectiveness of its
services to and collaboration with the regional bodies of the
church."
     Her report also included information on 30-second television
spots on the United Methodist Church being developed with the help
of commission member Ronald Pearson, Indianapolis, Ind., and the
weekly television show, News Odyssey, which began regular airing
in February.
     Weidman said orders for Special Sunday offering materials
were up significantly and indicated that the UMCom foundation is
working to obtain funding for several projects including research,
scholarships and computer services.
     In other business, the directors approved the agency's
personnel manual and handbook, but at the same time reserved the
right of the commission's Personnel Committee to continue
reviewing the policies.
     The directors adopted affirmative action guidelines and
endorsed the Personnel Committee's plan to monitor progress
annually.
     The 1997 budget was amended to add $70,000 to Interpreter
magazine and put $142,000 into general reserves.
     Bishop Sharon Zimmerman Rader, Sun Prairie, Wis., presided
over the commission meeting.
     The Rev. F. Thomas Trotter, president of the Foundation for
United Methodist Communications, led a meeting of the foundation
board immediately preceding the commission meeting.
     The board heard the Rev. Ken Bedell, Dayton, Ohio, talk about
church communications in a society that has experienced cultural
transformation shaped by television and discussed guidelines to
direct the work of the six-month-old foundation.
     Negotiations were reported to be in progress with several
funding sources for specific projects.
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