by Ken McGinity
I am part of all that I have met. -
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1842)
As you receive this CCFM Today newsletter, we are but four to five weeks away from our 14th Annual CCFM Conference to be held April 25-28th in beautiful New Orleans. The Conference is the high point of our fiscal year when the preparation and hard work of our Planning Committee, our Executive Director, our consultant Plaza Meetings and your Board of Directors comes to fruition. All the speakers have been confirmed, so let the performance begin.
Our theme this year is New Orleans - Where Faith and Knowledge Meet. The only element needed to assure a successful conference is YOU, our members and others like you in neighboring dioceses and religious orders. Please find a way to participate in this stellar event this year! It is designed to lift you up spiritually and professionally and make you more effective in the years ahead. If you don’t support CCFM, who will?
Hopefully, with the Bishop’s February 27th publication of the sexual abuse report, this sordid chapter of our Church’s history can be put behind us and let us re-focus on building the kingdom of God on earth. Our web site, our Conference, our peers, our loyal and supportive vendors are an integrated system to help us to continuously improve our performance.
CCFM is still a relatively new Church organization. Founded as a very informal regional gathering on the West Coast in 1991, it expanded nationally in 1996 under the dedicated guidance of Joe Galano and Lou Baird, with the Conference in Baltimore. Membership grew to 110-120 dioceses and 20-30 religious orders rather quickly but has remained at this level. Conference attendees last year in San Diego came from 104 dioceses and 39 religious orders. Suppliers were first invited to attend in 1998 when we met in Newport RI. Under the expert guidance of Doug Cissel, supplier support remains strong but the numbers invited to the Conference must be kept in balance with the number of members attending.
I ask you to think about our situation and form opinions for discussion at the Conference business meeting on Monday morning, April 26th when we will consider how we can stimulate both growth in membership and Conference attendance in future years. As you know, costs increase every year and we have reserved facilities in Denver for next year and Washington DC in 2006. These large cities are attractive, stimulating but also expensive. Together, we all will need to develop a consensus on plans to keep our membership and conferees growing so we can financially afford the programs and ambiance we want and need. As a group, I=m sure we will find the best way. We need the education, the contacts, the interaction. We also owe it to the dedicated, generous CCFMers who started our organization and showed us the way.
See you in New Orleans!
