UMMen Omaha District

                                     2004 year ending report                                

On march16^th, a letter was sent to all Pastors in the Omaha District. This letter was sanctioned by The Omaha District Superintendent, Dr. Ronald Croom. We asked that all pastors and the men of their church attend a meeting at Faith Westwood UMC on March 23^rd, 7PM for an organizational meeting for the UMMen of the Omaha district. The meeting was convened with Doug Kellenson, the Ne. Conf. Communicator, who came down from Columbus, Ne.,  Dr. Croom also was present, and I, Bill Stambaugh. Doug spoke on the importance of the Methodist Man in the church. Dr. Croom urged us to organize together as a working district board and get all men involved in local church groups. There were 25 men in attendance, representing 11 different churches from the district. We broke down into separate church groups and each church picked a man that would represent them at the next meeting within 2 weeks. On May 13^th we on the district board decided that we knew each other well enough to vote in officers. The following men were elected, their office, and church follows.

Bill Stambaugh               President               Gretna UMC

Charlie Walcutt              Vice President        St. Pauls UMC - Papillion

Gary Spivey                   Treasurer               St. James UMC - Bellevue

Randi Folkerts                Secretary              Gretna UMC

These officers will serve until the fall of 2005. At the June 24^th meeting we installed Craig Nordaker and Sam Deel, both men are from St. Pauls UM– Omaha and also Scott Avery of Elkhorn UMC as officers in charge of the Web Site. They have us up and running, so now you can obtain info at www.ummenomaha.com  Go to that site and you will see pictures from some of the work days we had at Camp Fontanelle. More on that later. Along the way we added Dr. Dennis Edwards as the District Prayer Advocate. Dennis is a member of Union Memorial UMC. We also added Willis (Willy) Lucht, a member of Kennard Grace UMC, as the District Scouting Director and Jerry Farber of the Ashland/Memphis UMC as the director of a speakers bureau.

The different officers and I have been trying to get around to the different churches in the district, but I am afraid we haven’t called on all of the churches as of yet, (there are about 45 churches in our district). This is on the “to do” projects for 2005. We have been having work days at Camp Fontanelle through out the summer and fall inviting men, women and children (as long as they are old enough) to the work days. We have replaced all the wood on all of the picnic tables, except 6 of them that didn’t need the wood replaced. We then painted every one of them. Another clean up day we cleared brush and trees from different areas that Trent Meyer needed to have cleaned out. Trent is our new camp manager. I recommend that you get up there and meet him as he is a great guy and a hard worker. Lately we have been cleaning out the old barn. As I understand it we have a contractor coming in this winter to rebuild the barn at no cost for labor or materials. Trent envisions the barn as a petting zoo during the summer and a place to have hot cocoa and coffee when it gets to be sled riding time. There has been an area close to the barn that has been cleared out and should be a nice sledding area down into the trees. Next year Trent will have nice pumpkins for sale again so keep that in mind also. They are large ones and make good jack-o-lanterns. We also had a large project at Union Memorial UMC. They had a water problem in the basement. We put out the word for some specialized work. We were rewarded with good help there. We were able to direct the downspouts into underground duct. We had to cut the curbing to do so. We moved 4 A/Cs off of their pad and added about 8” of concrete to raise them up as the original pad had sunk that far. We put down grass retardant and then covered it with river rock. Inside the sanctuary we extended the cold air return so that it would quiet the noise down from the A/C. It is now so quiet the congregation can hear Pastor Gaines speak. Amen.

Projects for 2005:

 First off the Omaha District is hosting the Ne. Conference Winter Rally at Camp Fontanelle, which is being held the week end of February 18, 19, and 20^th. You can get the whole story off of the Ne. Conf. web site and as soon as Scot can get it transferred to our site it will be available there also, or you can go to www.gcumm.org which is the General Commission on United Methodist MEN. While you are at one of these sites pull up the info on the Purdue Conference for men in July. The Ne. Conf. will have a bus chartered for that. Looks like a total cost of about $450.00. That includes the trip and your Purdue stay, food, and lodging. Have you ever heard 5000 men sing?

We are also planning on replacing the deck at Camp Fontanelle this early summer. We have a donor that will buy all of the decking materials. we just need your labor. If you want to volunteer at any time just give me a call or an e-mail. I will include my phone numbers and e-mail address at the end of this report. I do believe that we will have a busy summer and fall. I know that you are all busy with your own doings, but see if you can donate a day or two to the Lords work, and that work is improving Camp Fontanelle. As there is nothing better for a child than a well maintained church camp to go to during the summer. Get the children away from the TV and computer games.

Well I think that is all for now. I will try to get updates out on our web site when they seem timely. If you have comments, ideas, or need help to start or restart a mens group in your church or just want to talk, give me a call or e-mail.

Thank you and God Bless.

Bill

                        Bill Stambaugh