A Long Thanksgiving Missive #10 [December 8, 2016] 1

Star Quilt at St. James Episcopal Church, Standing Rock Reservation, Cannon Ball, North Dakota

Standing Rock Reservation NewsYou may have already heard the Army Corps

of Engineers is supporting the request for a move of the Dakota Access Pipeline away from sacred sites and water. This is a real victory for the people of Standing Rock, and you may have already heard about it in the news. As you know, this directly affects our UTO intern, Rachel McDaniel, who is living and working in Bismarck, North Dakota, and has been helping people by being a presence to the protectors. You may also know that with a change in administration coming, this could be a temporary halt. We are thankful for right now.

It would nice to send Rachel a Christmas card and some encouragement. Her address is Rachel McDaniel, % Annunciation Monastery, 7520 University Drive, Bismarck, North Dakota 58504. She is from Tennessee and spent her previous 2 years in Brazil, so she is experiencing cold weather with lots of snow along with her reservation ministry. She is working with Fr. John Floberg at Standing Rock whom we met this September at our UTO meeting when we saw the Tiny Houses. Rachel is truly blooming where she has been planted—or at least she will bloom when she thaws out. She has some beautiful photos on the UTO Facebook page.

All Things GrantsYoung Adult and Seminarian Grants

The Young Adult and Seminarian grants are on their way to be approved by the Executive Council (EC) in mid-December. Heather or I will send you a notification when that occurs so you can send the list to people in your provinces. Thank you for reading, voting, and identifying your top 3 choices for purposes of publicizing the grants. We always learn where we need to tweak our granting process, and thanks for understanding that on-going need.

And a special thank you to Caitlyn and Peg. This is a time-consuming effort I know that it is also a steep learning curve to assume a new responsibility. And Caitlyn is doing this while attending seminary. Many thanks also to Heather who has been able to get information to us. Heather gathers information on what she hears from both grant writers and reviewers, and shares that so we can constantly improve the process.

BIG THING WE LEARNED ABOUT SUBMITTING YOUNG ADULT GRANTS—There were bishops who did not forward Young Adult grant applications because they thought they had to choose one of

Congratulations to Standing Rock Reservation water protectors!Rachel McDaniel’s work in ND and addressQuestions about UTO InternshipGrants Young Adults and Seminarian Grant Announcement for Regular Grants Grant Process for Review of Regular Grants Staff assistantIngathering reminderPocket Prayer Book InvitationsUnited Nations Commission on Status of WomenThanks for carrying on while I was awayUpdate Addresses and phone numbersList of tasks from ND meetingResources

those OR one of the regular grants. So this is a specific issue that we can all work on clarifying for the bishops in your province. Please let Caitlyn and Heather know what needs to be done to better educate bishops in your provinces about these being completely different applications.

We don’t know how many bishops were confused, so please be mindful of making that distinction that these are completely separate grants and dioceses can apply for both.

Regular GrantsAs with the Young Adult and Seminarian grant review process, Peg is transitioning this

responsibility to Joyce Landers. Thanks to both of them. The announcement for regular grants has gone out to the bishops. When you get things that need to be forwarded, it is critical that you forward information to bishops, their support staff, and UTO coordinators plus others on your list within your province. I think to clarify what needs to be sent on, we will put NEEDS TO BE FORWARDED in the subject line. Peg has already sent you an example of the email she has forwarded to the people in her province for the Regular Grants, and that is a great model that we should continue. This has been done by the Grants Convener, Peg, who I hope will continue doing this throughout this Triennium.

RubricsJoyce Landers, members of the Grants Committee, as well as Heather are working on rubrics that

can be used to review grants and improve and hopefully streamline the grant review process. This will be our first time to standardize the process using a single instrument—a rubric, so it will be a work in progress. Be patient and be kind in your feedback about how it works for you. Remember it is about improving the process—every year we learn something to make the process better, not expecting it to be perfect the first time.

You will receive rubrics in advance of your need to review grants.

Table of Up-Coming Grant Review Process—Relax it doesn’t start yetThe information on the next page is from the 2017 timeline for regular grants approved at our

recent meeting. I have added some steps related to setting up the Google Docs and opportunities to ask questions. I have placed it on a separate page in case you want to copy it and have it available. There is a little flexibility, but any date changes will need to be recommended by the Grants Committee and approved by the Executive Committee of the UTO Board.

UTO North Dakota Meeting Photos

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Episcopal Flag at ND Camp Ceiling at St. James Church, Standing Rock

Protector Banners UTO Group at Standing Rock Camp Site

Activity Date--All in 2017 Specific Times Who is responsible?Deadline for receipt of grant applications

March 3 5 p.m. Eastern Time, no extensions given

Heather will receive and check whether completed applications

Initial review of grants using rubrics

March 6-10 Grants Committee

Meeting with Global Partnerships on international grants

Tuesday, March 14 1 p.m. Eastern Time(can take 2-3 hours)

Grants CommitteeOpen to Board

Decide which grants are in and out of criteria

Friday, March 17 TBA Grants Committee

Set up Google Doc and Drop Box links, send to Board, including how to ask questions as grants are being reviewed.

March 19 Heather will prepare Google Docs and send email with links to Board; Grants Committee will assign someone to answer questions.

Q & A Zoom meeting(s) regarding grants with questions not answered through Drop Box Q & ACan meet 1 or 2 times depending on need.

TBA, but last week of March or first week of April(2 hour limit per meeting)

8 p.m. Eastern Time Each Board member should limit herself to 2-3 questions that could not be answered through the Q & A connected to the Drop Box

Full Board Approval of Grants

Currently scheduled for Thursday, April 6

8 p.m. Eastern Time Full Board to attend and approve

Holy Week & Easter April 9-15, April 17 No meetingsSend forward grants list to Executive Council for translation and approval

April 26 Heather with alert to Marion Luckey when submitted

Announcement of grant winners

After June 9-11 Board meeting

Executive Council and Neva Fox

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Staff SupportKayla Massey, our first UTO intern, is working in the UTO office a couple of days a week. Since she

knows UTO, this has been a great boon to us all. She is also pursuing her degree on-line and is doing very well.

Ingathering ReminderDuring Advent is a great time to do an Ingathering. At our church, we did a one-Sunday

Ingathering without all the fanfare that occurs following the Ingathering during Lent and collected the first Sunday after Easter. But fanfare is fun, so do what works for your congregation, diocese, and province.

Please encourage your UTO Coordinators that Advent is a great time of anticipation, and that includes anticipating how much we have in grants to give each year. Remember, we are about GRATITUDE and TRANSFORMING LIVES.

Request for Prayers for the 2018 UTO Prayer Booklet This request will appear in our next UTO e-newsletter and you should have recieved a letter of

request sent earlier. I have also sent it to many people in my diocese and former Board members. I think it should go out to everyone you can think of. I think Barbara and Vernese tasked each of us to get at least 5 prayers. Thanks to their good work and Heather’s technology skills, this request is up and ready to use. The request went out under my signature.

Your job is to get people to submit prayers. So time to send out requests to bishops, UTO coordinators, and people who you think would be willing to write a prayer. You know how much we use our pocket prayer book, so it’s time to collect a group of fresh prayers.

From e-newletter for January 2017As you may know, every three years, the United Thank Offering gathers original prayers from

around the Episcopal Church to create a pocket book of prayers available at General Convention. Last Convention we were able to collect 125 prayers of gratitude in honor of 125 years of the United Thank Offering. This year we are hoping to collect original prayers from nine categories: gratitude, guidance, fear/danger, forgiveness, healing, loneliness, crisis/dealing with disappointment or crisis, love of God or other. Children, women, men, clergy, seminarians or groups may write prayers for this edition of the booklet. We welcome prayers from every diocese and province of The Episcopal Church and prayers can be submitted in any language. Prayers can be submitted in any format: collect, litany, free form or prose. We encourage you to listen to the Holy Spirit and write a prayer to be used through out the church by individuals, to begin or close meetings, or in a variety of settings.

Please submit all prayers by July 1, 2017. All prayers must be submitted using this webpage: https://dfms.formstack.com/forms/uto_book_of_prayers. More information about the project can also be found there.

United Nations Commission of the Status of WomenI applied for and was accepted to attend a meeting in New York City at the United Nations. This is

one that Barbara attended a couple of years ago. Rachel McDaniel, as a part of her UTO internship and I will be attending. The theme is “Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Changing World of Work.” So I will be in New York in mid-March during grants review time.

I look forward to telling you about it whether through sharing on Facebook or afterwards.

I will not use UTO funds to attend this meeting, but am hoping to have support from my province and diocese.

Thanks for Keeping Things Going in my AbsenceMy month in Morocco, Spain, and on the transatlantic cruise was a tremendous experience and

one of the greatest trips of my life. Thanks to everyone for keeping things going on the home front, especially to Birdie who spent all kinds of time trying to get the minutes and Fact Sheets done with my being in and out of email contact.

Update Address and Phone NumbersIf you have moved or changed phone numbers, please send that information to Birdie so she can up-date the UTO Board and staff list. If you have given information to me, that does not guarantee Birdie has it.

List of Tasks from North Dakota MeetingYou made a list of tasks to complete, and sent them to Birdie. Please dust those off and see what you need to complete. I know I have things listed as I am sure you do as well.

For Your 2017 Calendar—UTO Meetings—Puerto Rico and MarylandOur next Board meeting will be May 3-6, 2017, in Puerto Rico. Our other 2017 meeting will be September 25-28 in Maryland. Mark your 2017 calendars now.

ResourcesEpiscopal Migration Ministries (EMM) Advent videos which are being done by Canon Mark Stevenson, the man who spoke with us in Nashville. https://vimeo.com/192786777

Article and Resources by Canon Stephanie Spellers and The Rev. Heather MeltonLook here for an article called Reconciliation Begins at Home. Some nice resources. http://www.episcopalchurch.org/posts/evangelisminitiatives/reconciliation-begins-home

Archbishop of Canterbury Teaching a Free Video Course Linkhttp://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/11/17/archbishop-of-canterbury-to-teach-free-online-advent-course/

Make Ready the Feast—A collection of recipes from all over the worldhttps://makereadythefeastblog.com (includes recipe for Buckeyes with photos of Heather and her girls)

The Presiding Bishop Releases a Letter about the Diocese of Haiti (conflict between Diocesan Bishop and Bishop Suffragan)http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/12/01/presiding-bishop-releases-letter-about-the-diocese-of-haiti

WORD FOR THE DAYCall it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a

family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

JANE HOWARD

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