Preface

Introduction to first edition - August, 1985

Chapter 1 - November, 1984 "Welcome to UCHUG!"

Chapter 2 - December, 1984 - SIGS - "Lection.list" - volume and costs

Chapter 3 - February, 1985 - DivCom Annual Meeting - "Welcome to SCC!"

Chapter 4 - March, 1985 - Reflection and Transition

Chapter 5 - May, 1985 - "Welcome to UNISON!"

Chapter 6 - June and July, 1985 - SCC Annual Meeting - Financial Crunch

Chapter 7 - Autumn 1985 - Early Days on UNISON

Chapter 8 - January, 1986 - We shared a Tragedy "in Unison"

Chapter 9 - "One Byte at a Time"

Chapter 10 - An Ecumenical Community Grows

Chapter 11 - Summer, 1986 - Parti becomes a "Moveable Feast"

Chapter 12 - April, 1987 - Camcon II and Ecunet, Inc.

Chapter 13 - 1986 and 1988 - the "Globe and Mail" and General Council 

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PREFACE

"Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation" Mark 16:15 Revised Standard Version

It has now been over three years since I joined my colleagues "online" in UCHUG, the United Church Computer Users Group.

 We were entering a world unexplored for us, on behalf of our Church. The United Church of Canada wanted to know whether there was anything in this "electronic communication" which could serve the Church. Our Church was willing to provide $4,000 to find the answer to that question. (Our Church has provided much more since that time.)

 What follows in this account is the working out of the answer to that question.

 For me the answer is a decided, "Yes!".

 My colleagues and I have spent a lot of our early mornings and our evenings promoting a concept which began as an experiment but which has gained considerably in viability and credibility. We have all invested heavily in our own computer equipment, software and supplies to give this experiment its best chance.

 We are satisfied that our time and expense, and the budgets approved by the Division of Communication of our Church have been more than justified by what we have discovered and what the Church has learned.

 The following Introduction to the first edition indicates how the experiment felt before the first year was complete. Any tentative conclusions as to the value of this type of communication have since been greatly strengthened.

 The greatest benefit to me, personally, has been the opportunity to meet so many talented and interesting people both across Canada and throughout the United States and Europe.

 Without listing a lot of names, with the danger of forgetting some important ones, I refer to those with whom I have worked on the Small Computers in the Church Committee, those in the National Division of Communication who have supported our effort, and my friends in Ecunet. Their names appear in the text of this book.

 I thank especially my wife and editor, Marilyn, and David Lochhead, my consistent colleague and friend.

 I do believe that in all this work, we have been following the Biblical mandate, to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation".

 Gordon Laird Vancouver, B. C. February 24, 1988

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Introduction to first edition - August, 1985

(which was called "UCHUG - An Experiement in Church Communication")

 This is the story of a remarkable time in my life and I believe in the life of the United Church of Canada. This is my story of the UCHUG experiment - a free-wheeling experiment in computer networking to research and demonstrate the role which small computers might play in the various levels of the Church.

While writing this story I had in mind the people of the Ellesmere congregation with whom on occasion I had shared the fact that I was now using my computer to talk to people in various parts of North America. It was hard at the time to go much beyond that brief explanation. As you read this story you will see why.

 I also hope it will serve as one of the momentos of an experiment which became extremely important for those of us who were involved.

 We developed a jargon during this experiment which will undoubtedly creep into this story. UCHUG was what we called the "United Church User's Group". It was composed of people who were called together on the most unlikely basis - that they had a computer and either had the telephone attachment which is called a "Modem" or were willing to purchase one. Also that they were willing to find a number of hours in their lives for this experiment, we had no idea how many, from their busy schedules.

 Over the months, for a variety of practical reasons having to do with my particular computer and with my personality, I found it worthwhile to create electronic files of all the material which came to me from others, or which I wrote. I have searched these files extensively to provide quotations from actual memos of the kind of interaction between UCHUG members and the reasons for the various decisions along the way.

 It was a very rare privilege for me to be part of the UCHUG network. I felt as if I was at the birth of a whole new style of communication within the Church, one which should affect the Church profoundly in the coming years.

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Chapter 1

November, 1984 "Welcome to UCHUG!"

On October 31, 1984 I received a message from David Lochhead: addressed to the following people: N.Parker, JR.Easton, WJ.Dearborn, JP.Mullen, DG.Laird, DB.Martyn, CA.Holmes, VR.Saklikar, DJ.McCrindle.

What was contained in the welcome note was some immediate instructions as to how to send messages on the Envoy 100 network and how to send Envoy Post (a system of sending letters to anyone electronically, delivered by the postman). We were now called "UCHUG" - the United Church Users' Group.

David Lochhead is a Professor of Theology at the Vancouver School of Theology, who has served the United Church of Canada on a number of national committees. In 1979 David had purchased one of the earliest models of Small Computers out of interest, but then had found that he could do some of his theological research on it. He had spoken at Presbytery a year prior, an occasion I remember which sparked my interest in Computers.

David had been working at the national level of our Church with a group called the Task Force on Information Flow (TFIF), Phase 2. The UCHUG experiment had come from the discussions of that group, which persuaded the national Division of Communication (DivCom) to fund a four month experiment in computer networking. The names which accompanied mine in that opening notice included those of the other novices in telecommunicating.

David Martyn, Vasant Saklikar and I, were all in the same area and the same Presbytery. David is the minister of Central Burnaby United Church. Vasant, of Sixth Avenue United in New Westminster. The author was and is the minister of Ellesmere United Church, Burnaby, B. C.

 Two others were friends from B. C. Conference: Dal McCrindle was located in Prince Rupert and was also President of B. C. Conference. Subsequently, Dal moved to St. David's United Church, West Vancouver.

Clare Holmes is the Chaplain at the University of Victoria and was Chairing the Education and Students Committee of B. C. Conference.

Neil Parker, who ministered in Petitcodiac, Nova Scotia, was a former student at the Vancouver School of Theology.

Three of the names were completely new to me.

 - Bill Dearborn was a Conference staff officer in Regina and had been heavily involved in the prior discussions and decisions of computer matters for the United Church.

- Paul Mullen is an associate minister in Edmonton.

- John Easton is a lay person and computer expert who is involved in Alderwood United Church, Toronto.

We learned that we joined a group of people who, like Bill Dearborn, had done a lot of spade-work in the computer field for the United Church: Iain Macdonald, Norm Perry, David Lochhead, Paul Stott, Murray Bentham and Emrys Jenkins. Several became actively involved in UCHUG.

From the beginning we were joined in our interactions by Randy Naylor, Secretary of the national Division of Communication.

Iain Macdonald threw himself into the UCHUG network quickly and with provocative and lengthy contributions. Many Churches were adopting standard weekly lectionary readings. This had made it possible for some of us to meet, across denominational lines, with other pastors who were preaching on similar biblical texts each week.

Iain drew some of us immediately into discussions of the weekly lectionary readings for our weekly sermon preparations.

Iain had gained his experience as a telecommunicator on the American network, THE SOURCE, in a discussion group called "Religious Associates". He had a very engaging style of writing, at once personal and confessional, at the same time provocative and sometimes outrageous - demanding response. We complied.

In the early stages some of us were holding back from adding messages for reasons which had to do with technique and with our own personalities.

 We were still struggling with technical questions: (how does my Modem really work? How do I bring the messages onto my screen and save them ("download")? How do I send messages? Do I make the message up in advance and then send it with a few strokes of the fingers ("upload") or do I try to answer LIVE?)

The simplest if also the most stressful way of answering a message was to answer LIVE. All that was required when you received a message was to type ANSWER and type your message. The system addressed the message back to the sender, complete with the Subject heading. Neither stamp nor envelope were required! The simplest form of communication since ordinary talking! The stress came from the feeling that a giant computer was waiting on your every word and the feeling that every error you made would be clearly known to scores of people.

 Some took to this kind of talking 'like ducks to water', others stood by the edge of the pond, dipping their toes in.

 Iain wanted us all in to enjoy the 'water' as he obviously did. He was impatient that we had this wonderful network and only a few of us seemed to be exchanging any messages.

 So he started a Conference anyone could join and enjoy. It was called "Hard-/Software" and his opening message came over my screen Wednesday November 7, 1984:

Dear All: This is an invitation...When the 'Action' Prompt comes up, type in 'ANS ALL' and when 'Text' is prompted, type in a description of the hardware you are now using.... Next give us a description of what hardware you would LIKE to have. Next tell us briefly what software you are using - and particularly give a description in 1000 words (or lines) or less of any programmes you have written yourself. Finally tell us all of any software you find yourself waking in the night yearning to have.... Cheers

 Iain had included in the addressees of this note all of us who were new to UCHUG plus all of those whom we had joined from the Task Force on Information Flow (TFIF). Furthermore he had added 2 names of people at the Head Office, 85 St. Clair, Toronto, who were at present not part of either of UCHUG or TFIF and who had not shown particular interest in being joined.

 Iain's invitation resulted in a deluge of discussion. We all had something to say about the kind of computer we had purchased and the software we were using. And by the simple typing of ANS ALL we were sending our answers automatically to 20 people.

The ease with which we did this was deceptive. Had we all had to mail those comments to 20 people we would have had a great problem of typing our comments, making 20 copies, buying 20 envelopes and stamps and finding the exact names and addresses of the recipients. By comparison after we made up our comments into a file, the process of sending it to 20 recipients took as little as 5 minutes of Envoy time.

Iain's intention was ingenious: "Tonight I have tried a second push to get new people to declare themselves on the system, if only by talking about their equipment."

And it worked. Some of the responses to Hard-/Software were 2 or more pages, single typed, and the volume was automatically multiplied by the 20 recipients.

When problems develop on computer networks they develop fast. Our first of many problems was happening before our eyes. Suddenly there was a flood of material crossing the telephone lines, in some cases going to people who would not welcome it at all. Some of those recipients were not reading the material being received. They may not even have had their computers and modems setup to receive any messages at all.

 Conjure up the picture of a person 'logging on' a few weeks later and finding that he faced 1000 or more lines of text to be read. Iain's judgment in this matter was later questioned, although it is hard to question his original purpose. In fact this single decision may have been one of the most significant in the 4 month experiment.

Nonetheless this exhilarating experience raised a question we were to struggle with for years to come: How much is all this costing and how do we justify it in light of overall Church budgets? We all knew that this 4 month experiment was being funded out of national funds - administered by the Division of Communication. None of us was ever free from constant memory of this responsibility.

The impact of UCHUG on my life was immediate and immense. I was sending and receiving a number of notes per day, meeting new friends electronically. It was obvious that in the midst of all this discussion was something of great potential for the Church.

At various times I had to stop and take stock of what was happening to me and how I felt about it. The first occasion was November 11th, just two weeks after UCHUG began. I made this memo for myself:

MY POLICY AS IT IS DEVELOPING RE ENVOY 100 November 11, 1984

 1. I have been most excited by the dialogue, the getting to know other people about significant matters, therefore the Lectionary discussions show the greatest promise for me.

2. I can imagine some very interesting items coming up "out of the blue" which I will find most exciting, eg. the suggestion by David Lochhead regarding Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

 3. I could imagine some discussion which would fall under the "Practice of Ministry" category: Time control, Priority decision-making, Dealing with conflict, approaches to offering Bible Study. Ways in which Computers can help the minister in all of these.

4. For me the discussion of Hardware and even Software would be lower on the scale. I would want to talk about why I am more excited about the use of computers for the minister than for the congregational office.

 5. I will probably check my "mail" every morning at 6:00 am. If any message takes a more considered response than can be given immediately I would think about it during the day and send an answer in the evening.

6. This way I expect Envoy 100 to be handled in about 1/2 hour in the morning and perhaps 1/2 to 1 hour in the evening. The time I spend on lectionary, of course, is time for Worship preparation, I won't consider it as something added because of Envoy.

We had started to learn the intricacies of electronic communicating. We had begun lectionary discussions among a growing number of members, but for now had to be satisfied with labouriously addressing the messages individually to the name of each participant. We were now to learn that Envoy 100 offered an easier way to carry on continuous discussions, such as our Lectionary conversations.