Hi everyone,
And happy Friday. Hope you’re grand. We’re all good. 300 people have enquired about starting Assemblies in the past three days so….. 2014 should be interesting.
This Wednesday was the Sunday Assembly Board of Advisors meeting, where one of the key things we discussed was coming up with a plan for 2014, and we took it from from our values, mission and vision.
So it is worth saying again, we are a godless congregation that celebrates life. Our motto: live better, help often and wonder more. Our mission: to help everyone live this one life as fully as possible. Our vision: A godless congregation in every town, city or village that wants one.
From this we can see that there is both a need to try to have as big an impact as possible on people’s lives, but also to try to help as many people as possible. We need to focus both on the quality of care at the Sunday Assembly, and also on the quantity of people we reach. This is not quality or quantity, but quality and quantity.
That being said, we can still prioritise different things at different times of the year. The first thing we need to do is to help the current crop of Assemblies to survive, and then to thrive. In the second half of the year, our emphasis will be in helping the next round of launches in 2014.
Jan-Jun: helping current Assemblies
Jun-Dec: helping new Assemblies (the next how many?)
Helping current Assemblies is something you guys would know about. What would help you?
As we see it a healthy early stage Sunday Assembly has a strong team, a growing congregation and growing community. The question is how can we help those happen?
1. Give tools, resources and help to that enable these things to happen.
2. Create marketing, press campaigns and content that drive more people to the Assemblies and engage current attendees.
With regards to new Assemblies the key to getting them off the ground is:
1. Getting people to meet up.
2. Getting them to meet regularly.
3. Getting a strong team.
The next round of launches will be in September because then they can benefit from the press around a large event, and it gives more preparation time. In order to make this happen, between now and February 19th (when we have the next board of advisors), meeting we will have created plans, and staffed them with volunteers.
The plans we will create include:
Assembly Support
Communications: marketing, press, content.
Digital
Community Action / Service
Community in the Assembly
Governance
International Conference
Diversity
Organisational Development
Fundraising
Of particular note here is the question of governance, which Mark McKergow is working on. We are working on putting together the framework that allows us to help as many people live this one life as fully as possible.
In the next week we’ll be looking for folk who might want to help in these areas. Get ready for an email on the folk we are on the look out for. We would love a hand (though we’re aware you’re already super busy).
Also, we are advancing bit by bit on becoming a charity in the UK. The application has been made by our lawyers, and we already have the trustees. We hope to get this up and running ASAP so we are all transparent and regulate (we have applied to be 501(c)3 in the US, and are enquiring in Oz). We are also looking to create a Community-Interest-Company wholly owned by the Sunday Assembly charity, that could trade on our behalf with all profits going to the charity to fund our work.
We’ll be asking for quite a few opinions from you in the next few weeks as we would love to have your input.
Thanks once again for all your help.
All the best,
SJ
