2012 Autumn – From the President
Kathleen Swadling
A very belated Happy New Year to you! I hope you had a safe and happy festive season and are now well and truly settled into 2012.
In this issue you’ll find details on ANZURA’s annual confer-ence which will be held 14 to 17 September at Alexandra Headland on Queensland’s gorgeous Sunshine Coast. The theme is: “More Things in Heaven and Earth—Adapting to an expanded description of reality”. If you’ve never experienced an ANZURA Urantia Book Readers’ conference before, or if you haven’t attended one for a while, or if you’re simply ‘umming and aahrring on whether or not to go this year, why not contemplate a holiday on the Sunshine Coast to coincide with the conference? If you live in that region of the country this is a great opportunity to meet up with other readers from interstate. There’ll be day rates available if you don’t wish to attend the full conference. Whatever the case, this conference promises to be a very special event jam packed full of meaningful and valuable experiences and encounters.
Another annual event looming on the horizon on the weekend of 26th and 27th May is the Annual National Study Day where readers all over Australia and New Zealand meet in their local areas on the same weekend to study the same topic from The Urantia Book. This year’s study will be Papers 4 & 5—God’s Relation to the Universe and God’s Relation to the Individual. These two papers really give us an insight into the inspiring nature of our Father in Heaven and how he holds it all together while at the same time loving and valuing every single individual as if they were the only child in the Universe. I hope you’ll be able to find other readers in your region to join you on this special day. If not you may wish to join the on-line Study Day on the UAI Forum by going to the Urantia Community / Events, Conferences and Meetings section at
http:// Urantia.invisionzone.com
ANZURA’s Strategic Planning Committee held its annual meeting in Sydney over the weekend of 31st March. Nigel Nunn has virtually completed all 3 parts of the Introduction DVD that he has been working on and he showed them to the group for feedback and review. They are truly amazing… you must see them for yourself. The visuals and the messages are superb. The 3 parts are: 1. Universe Frames, 2. The Personal Universe, and 3. A family Affair. They can be viewed on-line at Nigel’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/sangik7. We will have hard copies on DVDs available shortly. Meanwhile, since this work has come to the attention of some in the international readership, requests have been made to have the presentations translated into other languages. Work is now underway to “make it so”.
William Wentworth agreed to represent ANZURA at this year’s UAI International Conference which is being held in Colombia as I write. (The UAI International Conferences are held once every 3 years.) He will be giving a presentation and representing readers from our region of the world. He has also packed a few copies of the introduction DVD to share with the international readership. We look forward to hearing about his adventures. Vice President Julian McGarry and I continue to participate in the continuous on-line meeting of the Representative Council of the UAI (the RC). See further on in this issue for a report on some recent resolutions passed that may be of interest.
Winter 2012 – From the President
Kathleen Swadling
Welcome to this winter issue of the Arena. Hopefully you’re all rugged up nice and cosy as you read this latest news from ANZURA and various readers from around the world.
If you’re still thinking about going to the annual readers’ conference at Alexandra Headland on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in September and haven’t registered yet, this is your last reminder! The countdown has begun and it’s promising to be a great conference. See further on for more details on the program.
The National Study Day was held in May and quite a few groups managed to get together and spend a whole day reading and enjoying social contact with fellow readers. You’ll read about some of the individual groups who met in this issue.
William Wentworth attended and represented ANZURA at the UAI’s International Conference in Colombia earlier in the year and gave a talk on ANZURA and reader activities in our part of the world. Read on for his presentation.
Representative Council discussions have resulted in one resolution having been passed since the last Arena. It was to establish a set of UAI Guidelines for International Conferences. There is an important discussion underway at the moment concerning the development of a new UAI website. The UAI Communications Committee, led by our very own Vern Verass, has been working with a development team on this project for the last 4-6 months. It’s shaping up to be a dynamic, professional, and state of the art website. The committee is planning for the new site to include an Intranet, a member log-in database, online membership process integrated with PayPal, child-sites for all UAI associations, translations into as many languages as possible, document library for the ISB and all UAI associations, and conference/event reservation center. I’ll report on the ongoing progress of this issue as things unfold.
ANZURA has a small supply of a wonderful little children’s book called Tales of Joshua. It’s an illustrated children’s story of Jesus from birth to 13 years of age as per The Urantia Book’s record. The illustrations can be also be used as a colouring book. A great gift for parents and grandparents to consider for the little ones.
My own children had a copy when they were growing up and loved it. They tell me they have cherished memories of book—they are now adults with children of their own and grew up to become readers of The Urantia Book. See more details on prices and ordering further on.
2012 Summer – President’s Report
Kathleen Swadling
Welcome to this Summer 2012 edition of the Arena.
No doubt this will find you preparing for that hectic time of year as Christmas, New Year and the summer holidays loom. I wish you all a happy and safe season.
It’s been an eventful few months since the last edition as many of us made the journey to the Sunshine Coast for
ANZURA’s annual reader conference. Some wonderful presentations were given which we will share with you as much as possible in article form in this and the next few issues. Seeing as I volunteered to write the conference report this year I thought I’d dedicate my President’s report to the conference. Before I do though I’d like to announce that the crew from the Canberra study group has volunteered to host next year’s 2013 conference in Canberra. More details to follow later in this issue.
Also the New Zealanders have offered to host the 2014 conference in New Zealand so start making plans for that long awaited holiday across the Tasman for 2014.