wfn.org | NCCCUSA Executive Board Meets May 22-23, Washington D.C.

[CAROL.FOUKE@ecunet.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org 

Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
	Complete Agenda Available Upon Request

50NCC5/18/2000

NCC EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETS MAY 22-23, WASHINGTON, D.C.

WHAT: Quarterly meeting of the 50-member National Council of Churches' Executive Board.  The board includes delegates from the NCC's 35 Protestant and Orthodox member communions (denominations) embracing some 50 million congregants and is responsible for Council governance between annual General Assemblies (November).

The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar is the NCC's General Secretary; the Hon. Andrew Young is the Council's President.  (Incidentally, both are former members of the U.S. House of Representatives.) 

The National Council of Churches is the nation's leading ecumenical organization, with a broad program, supported by some $70 million annually, of humanitarian assistance, unity, justice, education and public witness.

NEWSROOM: NCC Washington Office, 110 Maryland Ave. N.E., Washington, D.C.; 202-544-2350 ext. 11 (May 22-23 only; at other times call 212-870-2227).

AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS:

1:30-4:30 p.m. Monday, May 22, Cannon House Office Building, Caucus Room #345.  The agenda includes:

2:00 p.m. - Presentation of a proposed framework for NCC/Church World Service and Witness future, which would separate out financial management of CWSW, the Council's humanitarian response ministry, from that for the rest of the NCC, while reaffirming a common ministry and common accountability to the NCC General Assembly.

6 to 8 p.m. Monday, May 22, Rayburn House Office Building, Gold Room #2168

Reception and dinner honoring Mary Anderson Cooper, an Episcopal Church lay member, celebrating her 35 years of leadership in ecumenical public policy advocacy and education through the NCC's Washington Office.

Father Daniel Coughlin, Chaplain, House of Representatives, will give the dinner keynote address on "The Role of Religion in Public Life."  The dinner has been arranged in cooperation with the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future, which Dr. Edgar chaired from 1982-86.

8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 23, Hall of States, 444 N. Capital St. N.W., Room #383.  Agenda includes:

9:15 a.m. - Action on a proposed framework for NCC/Church World Service and Witness future, which would separate out financial management of CWSW, the Council's humanitarian response ministry, while reaffirming a common ministry and common accountability to the NCC General Assembly.

10:00 a.m. - Administration and Finance Report, including action on the proposed July 1, 2000-June 30, 2001 NCC Consolidated Budget.

11:40 a.m. - Action on a proposed 10-year "Mobilization Against Poverty," committing the Council and calling on the Council's member communions and partners to join in a program to relieve poverty in the United States.  

12:15 p.m. - Lunch; members of Congress invited to attend.

2 p.m. Tuesday, May 23, Hall of States, 444 N. Capital St. N.W., Room #331

"Book Launch" of "Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda," drawings by child survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.  Editor Richard A. Salem will be present.  Hillary Rodham Clinton, who wrote the book's foreword, and Richard Sezibera, M.D., Rwandan ambassador to the United States and among the book's contributors, have been invited.  A portion of the proceeds from the NCC Friendship Press book along with other contributions will be used for the treatment of trauma in Rwanda.

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