By: Christa Meland

Mark your calendars: The 2014 annual conference session will take place May 28-30 in St. Cloud, and Minnesota Conference office staff is investigating other options for 2015 and beyond.

A resolution approved during the 2013 conference session asked Bishop Bruce Ough to consider moving the 2014 session to a weekend in June.

But no June dates are available at the River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud, and the Minnesota conference session must be worked around the already scheduled Dakotas conference session taking place June 5-7. Those two factors heavily influenced the decision about the date and location for the 2014 session, which came out of a conference sessions committee meeting last month.

Ough and members of the sessions committee saw the need for more time to investigate options that would be both logistically feasible and cost-effective for future conference sessions.

Within the next few months, conference staff will explore possible dates and locations for 2015 and later. A new date might require a change of location, so Minnesota United Methodists will then be invited to provide feedback about the possibility of moving subsequent sessions to a new city in order to make that happen.

Among 2013 conference session attendees who submitted evaluations, 53 percent indicated they’d prefer that future sessions stay in St. Cloud (others were split between the Twin Cities metro area, Rochester, and Duluth).

A committee comprising a handful of individuals from both the Minnesota and Dakotas Annual Conferences will meet this fall to look at options and coordinate future dates for conference sessions within both areas—a necessary undertaking given that the bishop will preside over both sessions.

The theme of the 2014 Annual Conference Session will center around developing missional congregations. Additional details will be announced later this year.

2013 conference session survey

Thank you to those who completed the 2013 annual conference session survey, which Minnesota Conference staff uses to assess the event and continually make it a better experience for you. Here’s some of the key feedback that was shared through the survey:

• 83 percent of respondents said the length of the conference was just right
• 88 percent said the cost was reasonable compared to other conferences of equal length
• 48 percent said the workshop by the guest speaker, Rev. Sue Nilson Kibbey, met their expectations and 42 percent said it exceeded their expectations
• 80 percent said that fellowship with other United Methodists was one of the most important parts of conference for them; next most important was worship, which 70 percent cited as being one of the most key elements

Christa Meland is director of communications for the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.