At the end of December, the Conference's Articles of Incorporation were filed with the Massachusetts Secretary of State's office, establishing it as a nonprofit. On Jan. 1, employees of the three historic conferences became employed by the Southern New England Conference.
Perhaps more visibly, the Conference launched a new Facebook page and new website - sneucc.org - and all staff now have email addresses that end in sneucc.org (last name first initial @ sneucc.org, such as vailt@sneucc.org).
Conference staff had their first all-staff meeting together over two days in December. They will now be organized under the new, transitional structure, with news lines of supervision and new team configurations. (Related: Transitional Realignment of Staff Planned, July 28, 2019)
Staff (with the exception of those from the historic Rhode Island Conference - see related article here) continue to work out of the same offices in Framingham, MA, and Hartford, CT, where they have been working. Contact information can be found on the new website staff directory.
All of these steps mark a starting point, rather than the arrival at a destination.
"If we are to be faithful, there is something unique about our new Conference," said Bridge Conference Minister Rev. Don Remick. "What lies ahead is neither the proverbial sprint nor the marathon. God is always calling us to the place in between, where we surrender the future to the will of God. Our scripture keeps reminding us that God is found there: in the wilderness, on the road, in the tomb, in the liminal spaces where it is God on whom we must rely. This is not a new year, nor an epiphany, that reveals something new. It is one more moment in God's continuous evolution. Come join your journey."
Just as the Conference is in its beginning stages of existence, so is the Conference's new website.
The new site is now home to all news articles, event listings, blog posts, devotionals, newsletters, classifieds and similar content for the new Conference, including news and blog archives from the historic conferences. Anyone following links for those types of items either on the historic sites or on older newsletters or social media posts will be automatically redirected to the new website.
But many of the resources that existed on the three historic sites have not yet been transitioned to the new site. They can still be found on the historic sites, with links leading to them from the new site.
"While we would have liked to have had the new website immediately take the place of the three historic sites, that just wasn't practical" said Tiffany Vail, Associate Conference Minister of Communications. "It will take time for the newly combined staff to map out what their ministries will look like going forward, and to review, update and consolidate the resources on the historic sites. The content will be transitioned to the new site, and the old sites phased out, over the coming months."
The new site is designed around the four main points of the new Conference's Vision statement: Make Disciples of Jesus, Make God's Love and Justice Real, Bring New Life as Agents of Change, Form Covenant Partnerships.
A new Facebook page has been launched, and the historic pages will be phased out over the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Conference Twitter Feed and YouTube channel are being transitioned into Southern New England presences.
A Facebook group that had served as a place for church clergy and lay leaders in Connecticut to share ideas has now been opened up to people from across the new Conference. The group is called the SNEUCC Leadership Forum.
In other updates:
- Email newsletters are available to people throughout the new Conference. Subscriptions can be updated at: sneucc.org/subscribe.
- Local churches will be asked to do their UCC Yearbook Reporting based on their historic Conferences, since the Yearbook is looking back at 2019. Nancy Stubbs at the Framingham office is the contact person for Massachusetts and Rhode Island; Jill Ford is the contact person for Connecticut. Church administrators should watch for instructions arriving in their email soon.