Excerpt from the AEU Spring Dialogue. The full text can be found here.

One thing that has become abundantly apparent, especially as technology and social media has entered all areas of our lives, is that we benefit from and need to work in teams across different areas of expertise in Ethical Culture. The Membership people need to work with the Communications people and the Communications people need help from the Ethical Education people who need help from the membership people and so on. And all of these areas need to work seamlessly together to make a well-functioning Society.

As we continue to work more in teams within the American Ethical Union, we are joining more areas of specialties in a combined Skills Summit—with Communications, Ethical Education and Membership teams joining forces to gain skills together and separately.

This October 14th at the Philadelphia Ethical Society we will have an all-day Saturday event from early morning (check-in at 9am) through early evening. There will be some informal gatherings on Friday evening and Sunday morning for those arriving early and staying late. There will be some home hospitality arrangements possible, as well as recommendations for hotels (hotel arrangements will need to be made by attendees). More information will be forthcoming, as we get closer to the event.

How will this Skills Summit work? We will have some joint sessions together and workshop sessions for us to attend based on your Society roles or interests. There will be a Communications tract, an Ethical Education tract and a Membership tract. There will be time over catered meals to mingle with the other members attending to share what we have learned.

Having it combined gives more people an opportunity to bring back to the Society what they heard at the same time. It also allows for people to carpool and share hotel expenses if needed. As was announced at Assembly, if you are interested in sharing news and ideas about Ethical Culture, if you are interested in attracting and keeping new members, and if you want to see more children raised in your Societies, then this Skills Summit is for you.

Agenda items are being created for the conference now. If there are topics of special interest to you, contact one of the Team leaders for the Conference. Emily Newman, Communications (enewman@ aeu.org), Melissa Sinclair, Ethical Education (msinclair@aeu.org), and Richard Koral, Membership (rkoral@aeu.org).

–Melissa Sinclair, National Director of Ethical Education