Leading up to the second Tri-Conference Annual Meeting of the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences, Conference leaders have hosted a series of online forums about the upcoming votes to formally create a new, unified conference.

A recording of one of the webinars is now available online for viewing.

There is also one more live webinar remaining tonight, Tuesday, June 12, at 7:00 PM, with Jim Antal, Mass Conference, Barbara Libby, Rhode Island Conference, and Kent Siladi, Connecticut Conference.  Sign up here.

Delegates to the Annual Meeting, to be held June 15 - 16 at the Mass Mutual Center in Springfield will be asked to pass a a covenant agreement and a set of bylaws for the new conference and to elect a new Board of Directors.

More information on the new Conference votes can be found here.

More information on the Rhode Island plenary session can be found here

Detailed information on attending the Annual Meeting can be found here

By The Rev. Amy Lignitz Harken is Minister of the Mattapoisett Congregational Church in Mattapoisett, MA
 
The question tumbled forth and hovered over the empty dinner plates: “How many raviolis can I have?”
 
I’d just set a steaming vat of ravioli in the middle of the kitchen table. The cat was shooed off a chair; napkins went into laps; a fork clattered to the floor. The usual stuff.
 
The question came again, louder, in case I missed it the first time. As a newly minted stepmom, it baffled me. How should I know how many raviolis each kid could have? There were five of us and a triple batch of ravioli, plenty for everybody with leftovers for tomorrow. But for those meals that could somehow be counted numerically, the insistence on a fair share — or at least one more than the others — meant there were never leftovers. The boys would make themselves sick first ...
 
Such is life together. 
 
In the crucible of a collective — be it a family, a village, or a denomination — we learn who we are. We learn what drives us bonkers and what makes us happy, how we are powerful and how we are vulnerable, how we are alike and how we are different. This is to say, in the company of others, we learn what it means to be human. We learn to be an “I” in the midst of the “we.”
 
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This is the third in a series of four blog posts looking at the Vision, Mission and Purpose statement drafted for a new, unified Conference. Delegates from the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences will vote on formally creating this new conference at the joint Annual Meeting June 15-16 in Springfield, MA. Many Voices, One Mission: Beyond The Vote By The Rev. Ellie Richardson, Associate Conference Minister for Lay and Clergy Leadership Development for the Massachusetts Conference, UCC As the 2018 Tri-Conference Annual Meeting draws closer, buzz about “the vote” seems to be increasing. Have you heard it? Have you felt it? For some of us this conversation has been going on for what seems forever yet, for others it is fresh and new. One thing is certain though. On June 16th, each of us, as individual conferences, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, will decide whether or not we will pursue a future together, “Living the Love and Justice of Jesus” ... Perhaps most important in all of this, no matter how the vote goes at Annual Meeting, is that we all need to seriously discern how we relate to each other, not only as Conferences of the United Church of Christ, but as children of God, called upon to further the mission and ministry of Jesus in the world.   We can talk until the cows come home about structure, process and strategy and get stuck in the weeds missing the fundamental nature of what is truly important in supporting something new.  Read more