Letter to the Green Sanctuary Committee Soliciting Support for the Earth Charter
(from Ed Oaksford, former cahir of the Green Sanctuary Committee)

Greetings Green Sanctuary Committee Members,

I'm addressing this email to you because this year's Church records show your names as having interest in the Green Sanctuary Committee and, as luck would have it, that's all it takes to become a full fledged member. Meetings are held after church on every third Sunday of the month. However, attendance has been a bit sparse in the past few months.  Regardless, I know you are all interested and I have an important issue that will require a vote of the GS Committee members ASAP so that we can act on an important issue that is explained in the next few lines.  The World Summit on Sustainable Development will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa August 26 to September 4, 2002, and one of the issues that will be discussed is the ratification of the "Earth Charter".  Developers of this document, which has been years in the making, are trying to obtain as many endorsements from individuals and organizations a possible before June 30, 2002 to assemble and take to the conference in a show of support from around the world. Unfortunately, I have embarked on an endorsement effort for our whole church congregation too late to go through the formal process it would require to support congregational endorsement of the Earth Charter before June 30.  However, we can as a church committee, upon taking a vote, chose to endorse the document as a committee before that time so at least a voice from our church can be registered in support of this all encompassing document to protect our earth and its inhabitants.  Therefore, I would like to ask that you check out the Earth Charter on the web site www.earthcharter.org and communicate back to me if you as a member of our GS committee would be willing to support a committee-wide endorsement of this document. You can also endorse this document as an individual and I would like to suggest that you do that too prior to the June 30 deadline if you concur with its content.   I will be asking Reverend Amy to send an email from the church asking that everyone in our congregation review the Earth Charter and endorse the document as an individual if they approve of its content.  Please let me know your preferences so that I can proceed with the endorsement if a majority of our committee members are in concurrence with my request. I have already endorsed the document as an individual as have many of my friends and several organizations I belong to. I look forward to taking this positive action in the name of our committee if we have a majority of support within the committee. I will report the results of the cyber vote as the results come in. Please be prompt in your deliberations. 

Thanks–Ed