City Council Meetings - Finally finished!

Bill and I attended the city council meeting in Loganville on Thursday. We don't even live there, but as part of my public affairs calling, I had asked the cities in our stake to issue proclamations naming November Month of the Family. The governor had previously signed a similar proclamation, as he has done for the last few years. We wanted it to have a bigger impact in our local area.


It wasn't difficult to get the cities to agree to issue the proclamations. A phone call and then some follow-up emails pretty much took care of it. I had to send each city a proposed copy of the proclamation, which was the same as the state proclamation except the city name instead of the state in the text. They were all willing to support the family so it wasn't much of a controversial issue.


Where possible, we asked a bishop from that city, or a counselor, to receive the proclamation. We also encouraged as many members as possible to attend the meeting to show support for the family. These things are usually done at the beginning of the council meeting. The mayor introduces the proclamation and invites a representative of the requesting organization to receive it.


We had a total of 8 cities and I participated in three of the presentations. Lawrenceville was unable to add it to the agenda for a city council meeting because the agenda was already too full. That mayor invited me to come to his office and receive it there. He suggested a picture in front of his bookcases of family pictures - that seemed the perfect place for a famiy proclamation to be given.

I also attended the Dacula meeting, as that is my ward. Loganville was the last one and because of some communication problems with the city, we didn't know until late in the afternoon that they were presenting the proclamation. By then, the bishop was unable to attend. So, Bill and I went to receive it. I was asked to explain briefly about why we had requested it and about the importance of families.

All in all, it has been a successful event. The wards that participated have come away excited about the connection with their community leaders. I got a note from the counselor in the stake presidency yesterday about how enthused the bishops were at their meeting the other night. He looked forward to doing it again next year and making it better.

I am glad to have a positive result from this. There were moments when I felt like I was pushing an elephant who didn't want to go. No one refused, but they didn't always seem to be interested. The result for public affairs has been positive all the way around. As a result of visiting with some of the mayors, we have already found some service projects.

Even so, it feels great to have the worry about having someone show up at each of these meetings finally over. I will think about it tomorrow! or next September, maybe.