The Florida United Methodist Foundation hired Hammond Donald Caldwell Jr. last month as the new vice president of fund raising, according to the Rev. Tom Marston, the conference’s treasurer and the foundation’s executive director.

Caldwell will be helping churches plan and coordinate capital projects and annual budget fund raising, Marston said.

"This is a ministry through the foundation to keep the cost at a minimum for local churches doing fund raising," he said.

While Caldwell’s services will be based on a fee structure, Marston said the cost will be "significantly lower than you’ll find elsewhere."

Caldwell served 10 years as a field representative with the General Board of Global Ministries’ Office of Finance and Field Services. He also worked with Africa University’s endowment fund campaign and has marketing experience in the financial and insurance industries.

Caldwell has more than 30 years experience in the local church.

According to Bill Walker, director of the Conference Council on Ministries, the Journals for active clergy, churches and lay delegates will be sent to their district office for pick up. Those not picked up will be distributed at district pastors’ gatherings.

Retired pastors living in the Lakeland area will be able to obtain their Journals at the Methodist Building. Those unable to travel or living outside the Lakeland area will receive their copy by mail.

This year’s late completion date was caused, in part, by delays in inputting church, clergy and laity information into a new computer program for maintaining the data.

"The conference is well aware that the Journal is quite late this year…despite massive efforts during the change to an out-of-state printer, as well as an entirely new word processing system for Journal information," Walker said, adding that the new systems will help make future Journals "more timely and less burdensome."

People will be able to access the Journal via the conference’s Web site, however, at http://www.flumc.org/journal99.

It will be posted there and divided into 10 sections, allowing computer users to download the section or sections they need. Users will be able to view and print the sections, but not change them.

To view the documents users must have a copy of Adobe® Acrobat® Reader, which is available free at Adobe’s web site, http://www.adobe.com. Most of the sections are small enough that they can be saved to a floppy disk.

According to paragraph 570 of the United Methodist Book of Discipline, petitions must be postmarked no later than 150 days prior to the opening session of the General Conference. That date is Dec. 3. If petitions are sent by means other than the United States Postal Service, including fax and, for the first time, e-mail, they must be in the hands of the petitions secretary Dec. 3.

The Rev. Carmen Arnett, the conference secretary, is preparing the resolutions to be sent to General Conference from the Florida Conference. Those include a resolution passed in 1996 petitioning General Conference to change the Book of Discipline regarding the formula for the allocation of the number of delegates, and resolutions passed at the Dare to Share Jesus 1999 Florida Annual Conference Event.

Arnett said she is only preparing and sending petitions already passed by the Florida Annual Conference, but anyone may petition General Conference on their own. Those petitioners are subject to the same rules as the conference, but, she said, conference petitions "carry more weight" than those from individuals.

"If it’s [a petition] new, fine," she said. "If it belongs to the conference, let it go."

The General Conference is also asking people not to send multiple copies of single resolutions. "The same petition sent in quantity is wasted effort and money," according to a petition guideline sheet published by the General Conference.

Guidelines for writing petitions can be found on the General Conference Web site at http://GC2000.umc.org/petwrite.html   and in paragraph 507 of the Book of Discipline.