Next Communication Commission meeting:
SEPTEMBER 27-30, 2010 in WASHINGTON, DC
 

The 2010 annual Communication Commission meeting will be in the nation's capital during the last week in September. This year's meeting is a joint venture of the Commission with the UCC media justice program and Odyssey Networks.  We will meet at several locations around Washington to take advantage of the city's communication resources.

Program.  In addition to our task-centered workgroup sessions on news and media relations, web management, marketing and promotion, media advocacy and electronic programming, highlights of the week will include: 

• Sneak Preview screening of a segment from “God in America,” this fall’s epic, six-hour PBS series, plus a dinner conversation with the production team from WGBH-Boston, Frontline, and The American Experience.
• The annual Everett Parker Breakfast, with a keynote address by FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, at the National Press Club.
• Release of new Pew Surveys of Religious Literacy in America, and Media Coverage of Religion, hosted at the Newseum by Ray Suarez, with panelists Alan Cooperman and Gregory Smith of the Pew Trust, Stephen Prothero of Boston University, Krista Tippett of NPR, Dan Gilgoff of CNN, Melinda Henneberger of Politics Daily, Ken Paulson of Religious Freedom Education Project, and Mark Silk of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.
• A visit to the headquarters of Discovery Communications, featuring a team of their producers discussing their experience in multiple media platforms for distributing content.
• Odyssey Networks’ Producers Workshop, full of info on trends and techniques — open to all NCC film, video and audio producers.
• The commission's annual Ecumenical Film Festival, a showcase of the best of the year’s faith communion productions, long and short. 

All sessions will be open to all participants, offering the best features of two annual meetings – NCC and Odyssey –  in one compact travel week.  Tickets to Monday and Wednesday evening keynote banquets, Tuesday lunch and the Wednesday Parker Breakfast will be free to all participants.  And the presence of Odyssey's interfaith members will provide an added dimension of fellowship and insight for Commission members.  There is no registration fee .

Travel and Lodging.  Our headquarters will be the Hilton Hotel, 8727 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD, a few blocks walk from the Metro subway's Red Line, providing a short ride into the District.  Make your hotel reservation now by calling 800-445-8667 or 301-589-5200 and ask for the "NCC group rate" of $189 per night, good from Sept. 25-30, allowing you to stay a night longer or spend the weekend in Washington if you choose.  Reservations may also be made online via the Hilton website, using the same "NCC" group discount code.

Make travel plans to arrive in Washington on or before noon on Monday, September 27, and depart no earlier than Thursday mid-morning, September 30, so you won’t miss any of this interesting agenda.  If you're flying in, Silver Spring is easily reached by Metro subway from Reagan National, and can also be reached by MARC train from Baltimore-Washington Airport via connections to the Red Line Metro at DC's Union Station.

Registration.   As usual, there is no registration fee for the meeting, but because two dinners, two breakfasts and a luncheon will be provided at no cost to participants, we must have an accurate count of those who plan to attend.  Use one of these registration forms to respond no later than September 1, 2010, and email or fax to Deb Mathews (dmathews@odysseynetworks.org or fax to 212-870-1040) as soon as possible to hold your place.

  Word Format  for emailing         PDF Format  for faxing   

If you have any questions about registration, call Deb at 212-870-1043,  Pat Pattillo at 212-870-2048, or Dee Glover at 212-870-2227.

Watch this space for updates as the plans develop!

A look back at last fall's meeting . . .
SEPTEMBER 28-30, 2009 in NEW YORK CITY

The Communication Commission met in New York City for its traditional three-day gathering, Monday morning through Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 28-30. Starting point for each day's sessions was The Interchurch Center, home of the National Council of Churches,  on Manhattan's upper west side, with afternoon field trips on Monday and Tuesday to several top communication companies. Wednesday afternoon, the 27th annual UCC-sponsored Everett C. Parker Lecture on Telecommunication Ethics was held at The Riverside Church, featuring NCC General Secretary Michael Kinnamon.

--Worship was led by Garland Pierce (left), senior program director for NCC's Education and Leadership Ministries Commission
--the Commission's Media Education and Advocacy Focus featured a case study from Deepa Fernandes, director of the Peoples Production House, a grassroots media development center in New York City.

--the Keynote presentation was by Dr. Serene Jones (left), President of Union Theological Seminary, New York, who spoke of the seismic shifts the new media are making in church and society analogous to the impact of the invention of the printing press just before the Reformation.
--an on-site seminar at CBS Broadcast Center was hosted by Jack Blessington (left), an active Roman Catholic who heads the religion and culture unit of CBS, a partner with the Communication Commission through the IBC documentaries. New 60 Minutes correspondent Byron Pitts, a Baptist, had an extended visit with the group on the eve of the release of his book, Stepping Out on Nothing. 
--an on-site seminar at WNET-PBS studios was hosted by Dr. Bill Baker (left), who helped create Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, PBS News Hour, Bill Moyers Journal and other pioneering public TV programs.  David Brancaccio, host of NOW on PBS, also spoke to the Commission visitors, and the group toured the Moyers and BBC America studios.
--an on-site seminar at The New York Times newsroom, hosted by Laurie Goodstein (left), national religion reporter, also featured Rich Meislin, who directed the development of the phenomenally popular Times website.  The site visit  concluded with a tour of the Times' newsroom, part of their new headquarters building just west of Times Square.
-- an on-site seminar at Associated Press headquarters, hosted by national religion writer Rachel Zoll (left) and other AP staff, including an extensive backstairs visit to the AP's global  newsroom, which covers a space larger than two football fields in a massive structure spanning the main rail yards of New York's Penn Station.

For more stories on the 2009 meeting, see http://www.ncccusa.org/news/091001commcomm1.html

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Other recent Commission meetings . . .

APRIL 20-22, 2009 in NASHVILLE: The Communication Commission held its spring meeting at the Embassy Suites Vanderbilt Hotel and at the offices and studios of United Methodist Communications, whose staff brought the group an extensive presentation on coordinated communication strategies that demonstrate convergence across platforms and the use of social networking media.  Among other highlights was a discussion of local coverage of religion with Nashville Tennessean religion editor Bob Smietana (left), co-author of Good Intentions: Nine Hot Button Issues Viewed Through the Eyes of Faith.  The third Ecumenical Film Festival featured a half-dozen of the latest documentaries and outreach productions from Commission members. 

The commission also received progress reports on the development of the new interfaith media advocacy site, So We Might  See, a joint venture of the United Church of Christ, the NCC Communication Commission, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and other faith organizations.

NOVEMBER 10-12, 2008 in DENVER: The Communication Commission held its fall meeting in conjunction with the 2008 General Assembly of National Council of Churches and Church World Service, November 11-13 at the Denver Renaissance Hotel.  The Commission met from midday on Monday, November 10, through Tuesday, November 11, followed immediately by the opening session of the colorful gathering of 35 Christian communions who work together in unity for justice, education and peace. 

A special feature of this Commission session was an opening dinner dialogue with the new general secretary of the National Council of Churches, Michael Kinnamon (right).  At lunch on Tuesday, the marketing and promotion committee hosted a program featuring Adam Dempsey, a prominent African-American advertising and broadcast executive in Denver, and greeted Mike Maus, former commission director, now in Denver.

Tuesday evening, commission members were invited to share dinner with the Assembly delegates from their own communions, and some stayed over to attend the full General Assembly, which adjourned Thursday night after a special dinner culminating the 100th anniversary of the modern ecumenical movement, which saw the drafting of the churches' Social Creed and the founding of the Federal Council of Churches, predecessor to NCC, in 1908. A highlight of the dinner was a presentation by Bill Fore, (left) a former director of the Communication Commission, now retired and living in California.

JUNE 4-6, 2008 in MINNEAPOLIS:  The Communication Commission met for its 2008 spring meeting at Westminster Presbyterian Church, which was followed by the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) June 6-8, at the Minneapolis Convention Center two blocks away. 

The Commission opened with a dinner presentation by NCC President-Elect Peg Chemberlin, (right) CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches. The next day's lunch featured a presentation by Romeo Ramirez, member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a movement of mostly hispanic low-wage farmworkers in Florida, and Melody Gonzalez of Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida and the Student/ Farmworker Alliance, shown at left.  They shared communications insights from the CIW's long struggle for fair treatment by the fast food industry, and described the operation of CIW's low-power community radio station, a key organizing asset. The luncheon was underwritten by Intersections, a ministry of New York's Collegiate Churches.

The commission's new Marketing and Promotion Committee held its initial session during the Minneapolis meeting and the Electronic Programming Committee sponsored its second Ecumenical Film Festival, showcasing faith productions of the Commission's member communions.

More than 3,500 registered for the media reform conference that followed. It featured addresses by Bill Moyers (right), Arianna Huffington, Dan Rather, and FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, and dozens of media-related seminars, including two faith-based sessions co-sponsored by the  Commission and developed by UCC staffer and Commission member Cheryl Leanza.

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For a brief summary of the other NCC Communication Commission meetings since 2001, click here. . . .