Letter to Humanity's Teammates Worldwide

Dear Friends From Around the World,

Greetings to each of you!

This year is becoming another milestone year for Humanity's Team, marked by innovative new activities, extraordinary growth in countries around the world and an exciting international conference and festival in June!

But before we speak in detail about what's ahead for 2005, we'd like to take this moment to briefly update you on activities of 2004!

We believe 2004 will be remembered as the year that our movement found its footing. In the spring, Neale asked that we set up Humanity's Team as a movement separate and independent from the CwG Foundation, but still strategically aligned with it. We created our separate identity over the summer and became a legal nonprofit entity based in the United States in the fall.

WE MET IN ISTANBUL, WHERE THE CONTINENTS MEET

The Global Council met in the shadow of Istanbul's famous domed Sleymaniye and Blue mosques, and enjoyed traditional Turkish hospitality. Steve Farrell, worldwide coordinator, and Keith Garrison, western U.S. regional coordinator (who attended on behalf of U.S. Coordinator Ceci Schulte), had "a fez of the heart" one evening, wearing the hats that once were the national headdress of Turkish men.

Also in the fall -- in November -- we convened our first Global Council meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, the only city in the world to straddle two continents. During the meeting we agreed to formalize an administration structure that includes a Council of Trustees, a Worldwide Coordinator, a Worldwide Outreach Team, a Worldwide Services and Support Team, and a Global Council, which is made up of both worldwide teams and all country coordinators from around the world.

These entities will administer the movement on a day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year basis. All key decisions will be brought to the Global Council for discussion and vote.

The Istanbul meeting, lasting most of a week, was productive and fruitful beyond what words can describe. We discussed current projects and developed plans for many 2005 initiatives in individual countries and around the world.

All our work can be roughly grouped into seven focus areas. They are:

Inner work, living in our highest, grandest being;
Education, education, education, starting with self-education;
Building the Humanity's Team structure globally and in each country so that everyone, everywhere can find a place and a space to meet near home;
Growing and strengthening our study groups;
Launching "spiritual activism" projects focused on manifesting the New Spirituality in the world;
Implementing "Beingness Circles" -- stay tuned for news in the near future about this exciting new initiative; and
Creating abundance to nurture the movement.

We are now working on a major new initiative: We are planning our next Humanity's Team international conference, set for the first weekend in June.

COME TO OUR WORLDWIDE GATHERING JUNE 3-5

The spectacular new Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, with its architecturally bold and dynamic environment, will be a central meeting place for the conference.

And in an unprecedented step for our movement, we are teaming -- no pun intended -- with one of the leading institutions of higher learning in the United States. We are co-creating a groundbreaking spiritual conference and festival with Bard College, rated one of "America's best colleges," according to U.S. News & World Report.

Located in New York state 90 miles, or 145 kilometers, north of New York City, Bard provides an exquisite campus setting in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley region, with fields and forested land bordering the Hudson River, known as America's Rhine. The majestic Catskill Mountains can be viewed across the river to the west. Walking trails crisscross the campus through wooded areas, along the Saw Kill stream and down to the riverbank.

Our event -- titled "Seeds of Transformation: Toward a Spiritual Renaissance in a Time of Fundamental Change" -- will begin on Friday afternoon, June 3, and go through Sunday night, June 5, with breakfast served Monday morning, June 6. Please mark your calendar! You will not want to miss this! Or, better yet, register now by clicking on http://gathering.humanitysteam.org and going to the online registration form!

The conference will explore the ramifications of a widespread shift in some of people's most sacred beliefs about God, life and humanity.

As the next grandest version of the Humanity's Team Gathering that took place near Portland, Oregon, in June 2003, we are bringing together some two dozen speakers, including world-renowned authors, theologians, scientists, artists, and spiritual leaders of Eastern, Western and indigenous faiths to explore the many aspects of the New Spirituality. Of course, our own Neale Donald Walsch will be among them! We'll show you the list, as it stands today, in a moment.

Before we do, though, we wanted to point out that this event will be able to offer attendance to only 900 people, so please register early, while space is available. We just began offering registration on February 14 and those who register by April 15 will receive a significant discount. Nearby accommodations are available off campus, and a limited number of people will be able to register for affordable on-campus housing. We recommend you sign up early to reserve your spot on campus, in the middle of it all!

TWO DOZEN SPEAKERS, PLUS MUSIC, ART, DRAMA

Now, here are the names of the nearly two dozen speakers, including Neale, who are scheduled to take part in the event:

Feisal Abdul Rauf, chief executive of the American Sufi Muslim Association, who will participate in a panel discussion about the commonalities and differences among Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, who will speak about the need for a "new spirituality"
Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College, who will also participate in the panel discussion and give a talk about momentous changes in religious and spiritual history
William Commanda, traditional Algonquin Elder from the Kitigan Zibi Reserve in Maniwaki, Quebec, who will speak about Native American spirituality
Phil Cousineau, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker, who will speak about the sudden rise in spiritual pilgrimages around the world
Armando Favazza, professor of psychiatry at the University of Missouri-Columbia Medical School, who will examine the impact of the Bible on human behavior
Andrew Frankel, storyteller, who will share multicultural stories from many of the world's sacred traditions
Alex Grey, visionary artist, who will give an illustrated talk about art as an expression of spirit
Andrew Harvey, poet, writer, religious scholar and teacher, who will speak about "mystical activism"
Kala Iyengar, coordinator of the Peace Village Learning and Retreat Center, who will facilitate an experience of the power of spiritual peace through inner silence and whose members will present a puppet show about the fable "The Little Soul and the Sun"
Stephen Larsen, biographer of Joseph Campbell, whose talk will distinguish between "discerning spiritual authority" and "hearing voices" and explore the growth of fundamentalist thinking in different faiths
John Naisbitt, trends researcher and author of the forthcoming "A World Between Eras," who will speak about an emerging global spiritual revival
Carol Ochs, director of graduate studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, who will participate in the panel discussion about the commonalities and differences among Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and speak about how belief shapes our consciousness
Jana Riess, author of "What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide," who will speak about the changing portrayal of faith and spirituality on television
Huston Smith, visiting professor of religious studies at the University of California, Berkeley
John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey
Betsy Stang, interfaith minister and co-founder of the United Religions Initiative, who will coordinate and participate in an outdoor ecumenical religious service officiated by clergy from a range of faith traditions
Arthur Zajonc, professor of physics at Amherst College, who will speak about the growing convergence of science and spirituality

Other presenters are pending.

The event will also be the site of a special meeting of the Spiritual Caucus at the United Nations, which will discuss the U.N.'s evolving spiritual role over the next 20 years.

Besides lectures, panel discussions, seminars and workshops, the conference and festival will feature special screenings of award-winning films depicting the changing religious and spiritual climate; uplifting performances by Emmy and Grammy Award-winning musicians, including the British spiritual pop-music group Bliss, singer-songwriter Faith Rivera, and Jay Unger and Molly Mason, who draw their inspiration from such American musical styles as 19th century classics, Appalachian, country and swing. We'll also have a live production of a critically acclaimed religious drama, inspiring sculptures and paintings of scriptural figures and spiritual expression, and the outdoor ecumenical religious service mentioned above, among the many activities of intellectual and spiritual enrichment.

MAKE TEAMMATE CONTACTS, LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY

If all that is not enough, we will also be creating opportunities for all of us in Humanity's Team to interact and engage in informal communication with each other and "team building" to strengthen the movement! We'll all be invited to participate in "track rooms," also known as breakout rooms. These rooms will include:

A networking room in which Humanity's Team communities from around the world can link and meet;
An event that will connect Humanity's Team people with those who live near them;
Rooms featuring speakers from Humanity's Team international, Humanity's Team U.S. and the Worldwide Outreach Team;
Presentations focused on spiritual education; and
A room devoted exclusively to creating spiritual experiences.

The "early-bird" discount price is $460 US, including all meals, available through April 15. Double rooms on campus are $135 US a person for the three-day weekend, for a grand total of $595 US for the conference (including all meals and double-room accommodations). Single rooms are $195 US for the weekend, for a total of $655 US. The regular registration price, starting April 16, is $650 US for the conference and all meals. The room fees will remain at $135 US for double rooms and $195 US for single rooms.

Please remember that only a limited number of on-campus rooms are available, so we recommend you sign up early to reserve your spot! Hotel accommodations are also available nearby.

As we mentioned, the conference registration site just went live February 14. Just click on http://gathering.humanitysteam.org and you can register right now, while you are thinking of it. We will accept credit cards and checks paid in U.S. dollars. Please remember that as a nonprofit organization run by volunteers, the success of the conference depends on early registration from our own Teammates, so please register as soon as possible. We expect this event to sell out quickly!

MANIFEST THE NEW SPIRITUALITY

Needless to say, all of our work as a movement is focused on manifesting the New Spirituality. We believe that we on the Worldwide Outreach Team speak for the whole movement when we share that we are incredibly passionate about this work -- renewing and restoring our connection with God and with each other and becoming a living invitation to the New Spirituality.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank each of you for the passionate, authentic and loving work you are doing in your communities. Country Coordinators from Russia, Switzerland, Malaysia and Taiwan have recently joined HT and candidates for Poland, Moldova, Romania and South Korea are in discussions with us now.

Humanity's Team is now represented in 94 countries on six continents. We think this is amazing, and believe it could not have happened if it were not for the work you are doing to create sustainable HT communities in your part of the world!

Before closing, we'd like to take this opportunity to invite you to share your abundance with the worthy causes briefly described below. Thank you in advance for joining with us to create sufficiency!

If you'd like to donate to our June 2005 conference, please click here http://gathering.humanitysteam.org. Your generosity will offset expenses associated with this event and reduce registration fees for people who feel financially challenged so that anyone with a desire will be able to attend, without the barrier of cost preventing them.

If you'd like to donate to help pay our growing expenses for Humanity's Team, our all-volunteer movement, please click here: www.humanitysteam.org/contribute.html. Donations help pay for our information technology, media, communications, transportation, education and other costs needed to build and support our worldwide activity.

If you'd like to donate to aid relief for people in the nations hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami, please click here http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/international/earthquake/tsunami122 604.aspx?source=GOOG&cmpgn=EATSU.

If you'd like to order the daily inspirational messages published by Humanity's Team's New Spirituality Network, please click here http://www.newspirituality.org/subscribe.php.

And if you'd like to order the new and inspiring Humanity's Team CD, "Standing as One," please click here http://www.humanitysteam.com/Standing_A s_One.html.

As a final note: As our movement grows, we'd like to make sure you can stay abreast of our increasing activities around the world. So starting immediately, we plan to send informational bulletins like this one to you by e-mail every other month -- or more often if we have news that we want to tell you about right away! As we move forward, we'd also love for you to tell us how we can improve our communication!

Talk with you soon! And we hope to see you at Bard College June 3-5!

With love and gratitude,
The Worldwide Team

Steve Farrell, Worldwide Coordinator
Lynn Launer, Worldwide Teams Facilitator
Duysal Askun, Geography Coordinator for Eastern Europe, Asia and Pacific
Bea Boes, Spiritual Accountant
James Burn, Worldwide Education Coordinator
Diego Cornejo, Geography Coordinator for Central and South America and Caribbean
Marta Dabis, Worldwide Team Administrator
Phillip Daniel, Worldwide Audio-Visual Coordinator
Gerry Harrington, Worldwide Communications
Bill Koerner, Worldwide Information Technology Coordinator
Steve Pao, Worldwide Marketing Coordinator
Stefano Russo, Geography Coordinator for Western Europe
Cecilia Schulte, Geography Coordinator for North America
Nancy Seymour, Worldwide International Liaison