HUMANITY'S TEAM -- C O M M U N I Q U E # 2
APPROX READING TIME: 8 MIN.
Ashland, Oregon. April 8, 2003
from Rita Curtis, Worldwide Coordinator
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Doubling Our Membership
2. Our First Joint Activity
3. Where We Stand
4. About Commitment
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Note: A download copy of this document has been attached
should you wish to print out and read away from your computer.
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DOUBLING OUR MEMBERSHIP
The excitement of what is occurring around the Humanity's Team initiative is extraordinary and palpable-and that is all due to you!
Since Humanity's Team was formed only five weeks ago, more than 9,000 of you have signed up to join, and over 1,000 have officially registered for the First Worldwide Leadership Gathering of Humanity's Team June 27-28-29 in Portland, Oregon.
That's a wonderful response-and now we are asking you to do something to help us double it.
PLEASE SEND INFORMATION ABOUT HUMANITY'S TEAM TO TWO
OTHER PEOPLE YOU KNOW - AND ASK THEM TO DO THE SAME.
Just tell them about it. Let them know that if they care about what's happening in the world, there is a way they can show that, and do something about it. Send them this link:
Just ask them to read the message there, and if it resonates with them, to respond. It's as simple as that. Will you, can you, do this for us, please?
OUR FIRST JOINT ACTIVITY
Remember when we told you that we had no intention of letting Humanity's Team become just another organization that, in the end, doesn't do very much except send emails to each other? Remember when we said that we intended Humanity's Team to make a difference on the ground in communities around the world? Well, we meant it.
That's why we've teamed with Greatest Visions, the conscious commerce for-profit arm of the CwG worldwide outreach, to put together a spiritual activist campaign raising consciousness in communities around the globe this Passover and Easter weekend - a key time in the lives of many, many people. It involves more than sitting at your computer and sending things off.
To learn more about how you can play a vital role in this local community movement this Easter and Passover, please take a look at the 9-point activity program outlined for you at: http://www.FiveStepsToPeace.com
Please do this now. Today. Maybe even before reading the rest of this Communiqui.
http://www.FiveStepsToPeace.com
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WHERE WE STAND
As you know, we made a shift two weeks ago in the membership request for Humanity's Team. We asked people if they would be willing to contribute One Hour for One Our.
That's one hour's wage and one hour's time, dedicated to Humanity's Team each month, to help co-create the reality of one "Our" on the planet.
The biggest challenge on the earth right now is enlarging people's thinking.
We must shift from our ideas of separation to a new idea that everything on the planet-from its rich natural resources and its golden opportunities for fulfillment, to its intolerance and suffering and violence-is "ours."
Far too many people feel that the golden opportunities are "ours" and the problems are "theirs," and that if only "they" would get it "right" and stop doing it "wrong," then "they" could have what "we" have.
And, if we could create the experience of there being just o ne "Our" on the earth, many of the problems that we confront would go away. So many of humanity's difficulties arise out of the fact that people treat others in ways that are vastly different from the way they treat themselves. That occurs because humans think that there is such a thing as "others." If we ever "got" that there is only "ourselves," everything could change overnight.
How can we "get" that? Only through increased awareness. Only by expanding our consciousness.
Yet there is not one national or international government program devoted to that. There is not one of the world's major religions willing to allow its members to explore that. (Most say they already have all the answers and no further exploration is necessary.)
There is not one worldwide media group, business conglomerate, education consortium, or economic coalition ready to suggest that.
There are many smaller groups urging it, encouraging it, sponsoring it, and attempting to create it as a collective outcome-but they have been unsuccessful in producing it on a worldwide scale that massively impacts the collective experience of humanity.
Now along comes Humanity's Team, and we are saying let's do that. Let's gather together and collect our energies and combine our resources and let's do that.
At first, we invited people to join Humanity's Team by simply signing up, at no cost. A total of 9,158 did so, within two weeks. We invited those people to provide financial support for this program if they felt moved and able to do so.
We also indicated that one half of all membership contributions received would be put in a set-aside fund for return to the communities from which the money came, after Local Humanity's Teams established themselves there.
Here is your report on the results:
Of the 9,158 original sign-ups, 403 accepted this invitation and offered con tributions, ranging from $3 to $1,000.
That produced income of $29,559, with $14,779.50 available for getting the program underway, and a like amount placed in the set-aside fund.
On March 15 we launched our One Hour for One Our Campaign, asking new enrollees to devote one hour's wage and one hour's time per month to Humanity's Team.
Since that campaign was inaugurated, 111 people have become monthly supporters, contributing a combined $1,017 per month to this worldwide movement.
When launching our Campaign we invited all 9,158 people who originally joined Humanity's Team to consider becoming part of the One Hour Campaign, although we made it clear that they were by no means required to do so in order to retain their membership.
This produced 320 one-time gift givers, and raised the total amount of funds received by Humanity's Team to $34,441.
Here, then, are our up-to-date numbers:
Total members now having joined Humanity's Team: 9,589
Total income to Humanity's Team since its inception: $34,441
Placed in set-aside fund: $17,220
Available in General Fund for direct program use: $17,220
Estimated cost of producing First Leadership Gathering in June: $85,000
General Fund Shortfall (-) or Surplus (+): -$67,780 (shortfall)
As the above report shows, we have received 20% of the funds needed to produce our First Leadership Gathering June 27-28-29 in Portland, Oregon. We are blessed by this outpouring, and we have nearly three months to produce the rest!
We believe that the members of Humanity's Team will create that outcome. Right now it would take about $7.09 per regular member for the Team to do so. We see those contributions coming to us in the next nine weeks. In fact, this could occur within the next 24 hours. You can go right now to the Conversations with God Foundation website and make an instant donation of $10 or more. H e re is the link: http://www.cwgonline.net/store/Donations.html
Thanks so much for making this happen!
RITA CURTIS
Humanity's Team Coordinator
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ABOUT COMMITMENT
A Closing Note from Neale
I am grateful to Rita Curtis, my dear friend, for taking on this huge job of launching and coordinating the worldwide outreach that we have called Humanity's Team.
Millions of people around the world have had their lives touched in very deep and important ways by the truth and the wisdom found in Conversations with God. Rita is one of them. Long ago she made a commitment to the world as a response to that. I remember that day very well.
It was nearly eight years ago, and I had just finished delivering a sermon as a pulpit guest at a small church in the tiny town of Bend, Oregon. Among the usual gathering of questioners and well-wishers after the talk, one woman stood out. She waited her turn to exchange a few words with me, and when that turn came the ten words she spoke changed my life.
"I will do anything to help get this message out."
I smiled and replied, "Don't say that to me twice, because I'll take you up on it."
"I will do anything to help get this message out," she repeated, almost as a dare.
"That's it," I said matter of factly. Then I turned to my wife, standing nearby. "Nancy, meet the newest member of our staff."
From that day on Rita has worked tirelessly to move the freedom-giving message of Conversations with God into the world. For three years she served virtually full time-but as a volu nteer. She gave up a very fine job with the state bar association and, living off of her savings and with the friendship and support of her husband, took on one important function after the next. At last, our outreach effort grew to the point where we could afford to pay her a salary.
Today Rita Curtis is the executive director of our non-profit Conversations with God Foundation, and the worldwide coordinator of Humanity's Team. She is also my personal events director, road-trip scheduler, and media and public relations contact person.
Do you think that is enough for one person?
I am telling you this story for a reason. It has to do with the parable of the chicken and the pig.
A chicken and a pig were walking down the road one day when they chanced upon a huge billboard with a beautiful picture of hams and eggs on a plate and the legend: "America's Favorite Breakfast."
"Wow, look at that," said the chicken to the pig, "that makes me so happy. Doesn't that make you happy?" To which the pig replied, "Yes, but you must understand something. For you it's heavy involvement, but for me, it's Total Commitment."
What it is going to take right now for Humanity's Team to move to the next level in its launching and self-creation is for people to step forward who are Totally Committed. To what? To me? No. To Conversations with God? No. To changing the way the world thinks about God and about Life, so that we may end our collective nightmare at last? Yes.
If you feel called to this purpose, if you feel moved by this mission, please join the ranks of those who have stepped up to leadership in Humanity's Team. Decide now that the goodness which has come TO you is going to flow THROUGH you. That the wisdom which has come to you is going to flow through you. That the freedom, the clarity, the new level of awareness, and the love which has come to you is going to flow through you.
In the striking words of Conversations with God, decide now to BE THE SOURCE in the lives of others, of all that you would seek for yourself. This is the invitation of The New Spirituality. This is the opportunity. Your heart knows, even now, if this calls to you.
An anxious world awaits your decision. Now is the time of choosing. For the human heart breaks at the news of more inhuman ways in which human beings treat each other, and the human soul cries out, "Who will be on humanity's team?"
Will you? It takes courage, and deep commitment. Can we count on you for that?
We need your help now. We need your time, your energy, your financial support, your deep interest and commitment, if we are to truly make a difference. We need you to give us one hour a month to make Humanity's Team work. Can you do that?
If your heart sings, Yes, that I can do, that I can do, then go right now to the following Internet link: http://www.humanitysteam.com/join.html
This page offers you an opportunity to re-join Humanity's Team as if you were a new, incoming member, but to join in a new way, to commit at a higher level, to become an on-the-ground Spiritual Activist choosing now to make a difference.
The motto of Humanity's Team is: YOU AND I ARE THE HOPE OF HUMANITY.
It is true.
When you make it true.
God bless you always.
NEALE.
P.S. Please send information about Humanity's Team to two other people you know, and ask them to do the same. Send them this link:
Thank you!