News from the National Secretariat
Each month we will bring you in this spot a message from the Australian National Secretariat or The Upper Room Emmaus Office in USA. But you'll need to check it each month ... next month it will be replaced by a new one!
July's Message is from an Upper Room policy document on the role of the Board Representative:
The Board Representative (BR) is considered a conference room team member, trains with the team, and participates in all the walk activities along with the conference room team. The BR is single gender (man on a men’s weekend, woman on a women’s weekend) and single position. This means the BR cannot hold any other team position while performing as BR. The BR is an advisor to the weekend and has no leadership authority. The BR will primarily observe, make notes on happenings and events during the weekend, and present a report on the quality of the weekend to the Board of Directors at their next scheduled meeting. This report should contain any suggestions for improving any aspect of the weekend for future walks. Should an issue arise during a walk, the BR should bring it to the attention of the walk Lay Director and/or the walk Spiritual Director in private. Caution should be used by the BR not to involve the conference room in any potential problems so as to protect the pilgrims.
What the BR’s job is not!
The BR has no supervisory or leadership authority, only advisory. The BR’s job is not to micro-manage the weekend but be available for assisting on interpretation of Upper Room guidelines should a question arise. The BR does not give a talk.
Letters of Agreement to be no more!
Well that's not quite true. Of course we all need to confirm each year our willingness to stick to the Upper Room model of Emmaus - it's a model God has blessed (that's why we're all involved!), and if we each made one small change each year the program would eventually become unrecognisable as Emmaus! But as from the beginning of next year the old Letter of Agreement will be replaced by a new Covenant between the International Office, the National Secretariat and each Community.
Why a "Covenant"? The International Advisory Committee in April pointed out "The word Covenant has a strong biblical significance and we believe that currently a Letter of Agreement is an agreement between men, but a Covenant is an agreement as a community with each other and God. Nehemiah 9:38 says 'because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document.'"
National newsletter
July 2010: Here's the latest newsletter from the National Emmaus Executive.
And just in case you missed it, here's the previous one!
Going Fourth
A number of Communities have shown interest recently in running “Going Fourth” days. The Going Fourth day is a one-day program developed by Northern Inland Community to refresh and rejuvenate Community members. The National Emmaus Secretariat encourages Communities to seriously consider implementing this program. Click here to download a Going Fourth manual.