Submitted by Michael Bleiweiss

This past June I attended the annual Assembly of our parent organization, the (AEU), held this year in Albany, NY. As usual, it was four very intense days of workshops, meetings, speeches, and networking. This year, it had a double focus: building and strengthening Ethical Culture and advocating for prison reform. This is a report on the major actions taken there and some items that we might find useful here in Boston.

The core reason for the Assemblies is the business meeting. There, we vote on ethical action resolutions, elect board members and officers, and pass the budget for the coming year.

For the second year in a row, the AEU Board of Trustees proposed a budget with realistic income estimates based on historical revenues totaling $267,700.

We also debated a resolution introduced by the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia to formally restore the requirement for recipients of the Elliott-Black Award to have acted “at personal risk and hardship.” They feel that the award has been diluted by neglecting this requirement for recent recipients.  After extended debate, it was decided to table the resolution and remand it back to the individual Societies for discussion. It will then be  reintroduced at next year’s Assembly.

The AEU has developed a new strategic plan aimed at fostering membership growth, enhanced public relations and publicity, having a voice and presence in the outside world, and having coordinated national ethical action projects. The major actions taken so far include adding FES (Future of Ethical Societies) members to the AEU Board, hiring a part-time Executive Director, issuing statements on our positions on important issues, and promoting national EA projects each year at the annual Assemblies. As always, there were also many workshops on organizational development, ethical action, and Ethical Culture philosophy and practice. This year included a major ethical action focus on criminal justice and prisons. All of the workshops on Saturday were on the various aspects of this and how to make the system more humane and just.

I was able to attend the following Ethical Culture focused workshops:

Architecture: How Do We Want Our Societies to Be?
This was a brainstorming session in which we made collages of our visions for different aspects of Ethical Culture. The point was to brainstorm on the characteristics and elements that we want and need for the health of our Societies.

What Is the Best and How Do You Bring It Out?
Felix Adler believed that the Golden Rule was insufficient because it does not focus on fostering growth in relationships. The parts of bringing out the best are respect, gaining the inner truth, and taking the impersonal attitude.

Making Choices for Societal Well-Being
This workshop discussed what helps to make for a strong and stable organization. The major aspects are good programs, participation by many people, avoiding burnout from focusing just on deadlines and goals, practicing the ethics of care, having respect for differences, establishing behavioral norms that get translated into action, and infusing non-violent communication into all programs.

Other workshops that I was not able to attend were:

• Gather Together! Planning Dynamic & Welcoming Platform Services
• Bringing Both Heart & Mind to Society Finances
• Adios to Burnout with Society Volunteers

The AEU also has a Presidents Council, where the presidents of the various societies can network and exchange information. It holds a breakfast meeting at the Assembly, which I attended as our delegate. Discussion was wide-ranging and touched on all aspects of managing Societies as well as our relationships with the AEU.

Friday evening, we watched the movie Zero Percent, about a college degree program run by Hudson Link in Sing Sing Prison.

This year’s National Ethical Service (our NGO at the United Nations) address was given by former New York governor David Patterson. He spoke on reforming the Rockefeller drug laws and trying to reform how the criminal justice system deals with minorities.

The Elliott-Black award is given to a person who has devoted their life to advancing humanist values, often at personal risk. This year’s award went to Robert Gangi. He is the Senior Policy Advocate at the Urban Justice Center and founder of the Police Reform Organizing Project. The award was for his many years of work in reforming anti-drug laws, conditions inside prisons, and police-neighborhood relations.

A much more detailed report has been submitted to our Board of Trustees and can be made available to any member who is interested.