I'm presenting a workshop at the conference, so I will look forward to enjoying your music.

I have a friend getting married that weekend, but I'd love to go... haven't signed up yet, but I may,  (if only to see all the people I know from here and other spots doing workshops!)  I'd love to help too...

But I don't have enough musical talent to share with you Spiritbear :)  I can listen along with RevJamesM.

Hi Spiritbear, I'll bring my trumpet! Peter Woods (Jazz sop. sax) is also bringing his instrument! 

Bruce Harding is doing the music for the event. and I'm sure would be open to a conversation about either using musicians who coming for the plenary music or helping set up a Spirit Jam.

If you're still in for this, I will send out an invite to other participants!

Urbanurchin

I wish I still had my trumpet and euphonium, but I'll definitely be stopping by to listen in and meet some WCers.

wow -- aotn -- ** pinga waves

So much going on in June...wish I could be there.

aotn - good to see you again!  I'll be at the conference ... I'll look for your rainbow!

I'm not much of a rainbow person in real life, but, if the conference demographics reflect those of the UCC as a whole, I'll likely be the only young adult male there, so I shouldn't be too hard to spot.

Really, though, I'm looking forward to this conference (and commuting in from Mississauga every morning.. gah). See you there!

aotn - will you be taking the GO train? Look for three wonderful vivacious intelligent (slightly older) women of various sizes & colours ... we'll be boarding at PC station!  7:43am - way tooooo early for a weekend IMO.

say "hi" to those from Regina. 6, I think.

Well, I missed aotn, and I didn't see anybody from Regina CH - sorry about that!

But I DID have the great pleasure today of hearing SpiritBear play his clarinet & Faerenach play her cello, along with a wonderful pianist & several admirable vocalists!  AND - the music they performed was written by SpiritBear!  Wonderful indeed.  I hope he'll record some of it & post on youtube so we can share!  I purchased the book of his music (yes ... he's a composer & lyric writer too!) which I look forward to passing on to our choral director.  Thank you for your gifts of music all!!

Thanks for your support, carolla!  And may I add that Faerenach is a fantastic cellist!  It adds such a wonderful dimension to music when you've only heard something played in a certain way, and then you hear it in a different way.  If I had my way, a cello would be mandatory with all the music that I write.  Neat meeting aotn (he got to advance the slides with the lyrics so that people could sing along.)  I hope our paths cross again someday.  All of us that were there should really see if we'd like to share experiences. I attended a marvellous workshop by the UCC composer Linnea Good, for instance, with tips that would definitely be worth sharing with a CEd/SS committee.  And yesterday, there was a great workshop unravelling some of the stories/reasons behind some of the membership stats we are seeing.

It was great to finally meet some of you WCers, and I enjoyed the Spirit Jam session. Carolla, I'm willing to bet we probably met at one point or another, and just didn't realize it- I'm the young man with the beard and curly hair.

I thought the conference was inspiring and plenty of fun, especially yesterday's plenary and drum session. I'm ready to get back to church and get things going. I think the UCC just may survive after all.

Yes, the conference started with a sense of loss, but there are definitely signs of hope emerging. I just hope the national leadership will learn to trust the emerging hope, and not try to hang on to their power.

I think the unstated message of the conference (and its predecessor) is that real change has to occur at the local level, and that it's largely up to congregations themselves to make the changes that will keep them viable and vital. Unfortunately, the expertise(or imagination/vision) isn't always present at the local level, and those congregations will have more difficulty. 

I was particularly taken with one comment at a workshop, where it was stated that the answers aren't going to come from one source - and there will be no single answer to renewal.  But that means that it will be critical that we are able to share different approaches, that we have the fora (ok, non-latin scholars: forums) where that sharing can occur, and the resources to put new approaches into practice. I wonder just how affordable it will be to hold national events like this every few years. Will people that haven't participated before come? Or will it be the same crowd time after time?

If we want to get the message out beyond the 300 delegates & 100 presenters, then we'll need to be more creative. Richard Bott is offering the site www.ucc-resources.ca  as a place for the presenters (and anyone else with ideas) to share their resources.

I know when I get the audio recording of my presentation, I'll post it to share. Too bad  the forums weren't videotaped. Perhaps next time we can host a virtual conference, and have everyone post a youtube video of their presentation. Or do it as a series of webinars, like the missional group Leadership Network (www.leadnet.org) or the Alban Institute (alban.org)

The webinars are a great idea -- I've recently done two series (related to work, not church) online - come home, go to the website at the appointed time & listen to dialogue by amazing speakers - followed by a bulletin board where comments could be posted.  They had OVER 6.000 people tuned in from around the WORLD!!  Quite extraordinary.

BTW RevJamesMurray ... I enjoyed the session you & George did very much!  I was sitting at the front blackboard ... squeezed in!

You should have said hello - thanks James and I had fun doing it.  we were surprised by the turn out...

I had a blast!  Thanks SpiritBear, for the wonderful music - I highly encourage a cello part for every piece of music ever.  There's always room for C-E-L-L-O!  FYI, he's an incredible composer, informal or no.  I happen to believe writing simple songs that everyone can enjoy can be the hardest type of composing out there.

It was also awesome to meet and spend time with aotn, and to see Carollus again.  I wasn't sure I'd run into anyone I knew, but I was so glad I did.

I think that the UCC has some interesting directions ahead, and that no one knows exactly how we're going to get there.  But it'll take a bit of death and a bit of hope, and a lot of faith.  Things I think we have in spades.  Now if we could only stop talking about my generation as a separate entity, I'd be happy.

There is no magic bullet nor one way to get to the future for we are buiding it - out of the past and what worked and what we think we are about - it is a constructive theological task first for there are no methods that will get us there, as if there was a skill set or a plan - just follow this - it is always contextual and built there.

One of the things that I have heard was that the event was wonderful but the long walks between venues was gruelling.