Adding Online Archive

From the Editor-in-Chief:

With this issue InterConnections celebrates its first birthday, and what a year it has been! Perhaps my favorite moment was at General Assembly in Rochester when InterConnections–and then its fine editor, Don Skinner–were introduced to rousing and well-deserved applause.

People who have worked at the UUA far longer than I are hard pressed to think of any initiative that has been better received. This is a great tribute to Don, who plans the issues and writes the articles with clarity and wit, but it is also a great tribute to the lay leaders across the continent whose exemplary work Don writes about. The effectiveness of what they do–what you do–is what makes the newsletter so helpful to the leaders of other UU congregations.

It's an American axiom to build on success. So in its second year, we're going to build on InterConnections. In fact, we've already started.

We are creating an InterConnections archive as part of the UUA website. It will be jammed with materials from many sources that will help you strengthen your congregation–and in far greater depth than any newsletter can deliver. If you are interested in how to raise more money through your canvass, say, you will be able to type "canvass" in a blank on the screen and the computer will find you all the relevant materials in the archive–articles from earlier issues of InterConnections, from UUA fund-raising guides, from sample materials that successful canvassers have used in other congregations (UU and otherwise), reviews of books and videos that offer expert advice.

Not only that, the information will be available at the very moment you need it. When the newsletter arrives with an article on more effective canvassing, your church may not be ready to deal with it. But when it is time, the next newsletter that arrives may contain articles on how to run an effective building and grounds committee. So if all you had to rely on was the newsletter you'd be out of luck. Not so with the archive, which will be available 24 hours every day from computers at church, home, work, or even public libraries. Everyone can get access.

Already Jim Mason, the UUA's volunteer webmaster, has put together a search engine to make it easy for us to find what we need. So far, the archive contains only the articles that have appeared in the newsletter and a few other pertinent documents. But Don Skinner has agreed to become editor of the archives as well as editor of the newsletter, so you can expect the archive to blossom over the next few months; look for progress reports in the newsletter. Meanwhile, to get an idea of how the archive will work, click here. Give it a try to see how easy it is–and imagine the rich possibilities once we've loaded the archive with lots more information.

To free up Don to work on the archives, the newsletter will publish five issues in Volume II–to arrive in January, March, June, August (before the start of the new church year) and then another in October. The time that Don put into the sixth issue of Volume I will henceforth be devoted to the archives. The result will be far more useful information than you got in Volume I.

Don loves to get feedback–particularly ideas for newsletter articles and letters and questions about congregational leadership issues. Now he's also looking for top quality material for the archives. Please let Don know about material on any topic that you've found particularly helpful–and if your congregation has created effective materials that might help other churches, make sure you let Don know about it. This could include anything from a compelling covenant or mission statement to a new procedure on running the annual meeting, keeping track of members or holding a service auction. Click here to see how to get in touch with Don.

Tom Stites
Editor-in-Chief