August 6, 2009

WACC is pleased to announce that four outstanding communicators have agreed to become Honorary Life Members of the Association. This brings to only 19 the number of members acknowledged through Honorary Life Membership.

The Honorary Life Membership is awarded by WACC's Board of Directors to communicators who have served WACC, religious communications and the cause of communication rights throughout their careers and whose work is characterised by dedication, integrity, and achievement.

The four honorees are: former General Secretary, Carlos A. Valle; former WACC President, William F. Fore; a regional broadcaster and mainstay of NABS-WACC, Ed Willingham; and, Shirley Struchen who has served the cause of ecumenical and interfaith communication.

In announcing the honourees, WACC's General Secretary, Randy Naylor congratulated the 4 honorees and applauded them for their outstanding contribution to WACC's mission and for advancing the cause of faithful communication throughout the world.

The Honorary Life Members will be installed as such in 2010.

Carlos Valle, a Methodist minister from Argentina, served as WACC's General Secretary from 1986 through 2001. Prior to serving as General Secretary he was a member of the WACC Board and a pastor in Methodist congregations in Argentina. He was also a staff member of the ecumenical theological school, ISIDET, in Buenos Aires, where he taught various courses on communication, especially film and theology.

Carlos has written numerous books, published in both Spanish and English, and is an active proponent of communication and justice. During his years on the Latin America Regional Committee he, with others on the Executive Committee, recognized that there was a strong need for dialogue between communicators within the Americas (North and South) and he was part of the Latin American group that proposed an "encuentro" or encounter between WACC Latin America and WACC North America. The first encuentro was held in Mexico City in 1986, while a second one was held in Puerto Rico in 1988. Both events brought WACC members together to recognize the challenges within the two Regions and to look at possible ways to jointly address those challenges.

As the General Secretary, Carlos organized the first WACC World Congress which was held in Manila. Subsequent Congresses, under his leadership, were held in Mexico and the Netherlands.

During his time in office, Carlos also worked to develop a written understanding of cooperation and commitment between the World Council of Churches and WACC. He also convened the first meeting of senior communication leaders in European churches and ecumenical organizations.

Upon his retirement, Carlos returned to Argentina to serve as a chaplain to students at ISIDET in Buenos Aries, where he continues to write on issues related to communication and to serve his Church.

William F. Fore (Bill), a minister of the United Methodist Church, was President of WACC 1982-90, during the difficult transition from the "old WACC" to the "new WACC" which was formally adopted in 1986 and registered in England in 1987. The move resulted in the Board of WACC being recognized as the highest authority for decision making within WACC.

Bill served for many years as the Executive Director of the Communication Commission of the National Council of Churches, USA, where he became recognized as a leader in the field of communication policy and regulation. He is often remembered as saying, "if you want to know where the real communication issues are to be found in regulatory matters ‘follow the money' ."

He also taught in Yale Theological Seminary and when he retired taught communication for some years at the United Theological College in Bangalore, India. Not content to reflect on past achievements Bill launched a website that would publish articles, papers, and research documents related to communication and theology. The site now attracts one million hits per month!

Two of his best known books are Television and Religion: the Shaping of Faith, Values and Culture and Mythmakers: Gospel, Culture and Media.

Ed Willingham, a Baptist minister, worked for three decades with the Council of Churches of Detroit and Windsor (a USA/Canadian border city alliance), first as communication officer and eventually as Executive Director. During his years at the Council, Ed became well known on both sides of the border and to this day takes some pride in celebrating religious, civic and cultural events in both Canada and the USA.

He was a delegate to the conference in 1968 that gave birth to WACC, where the old WACC (once WAC Broadcasting) was merged with the North American committee, RAVEMCCO.

Ed is well known for his work with the North America Broadcast Section of WACC. Present in Toronto at the founding meeting of a group of North American ecumenical communicators that decided to form NABS-WACC, Ed was the Business Manager (a 1/4 time position) of NABS for nearly 30 years.

During that time, NABS held yearly conventions of one-week duration in which ecumenically minded communicators from the faith communities of Canada and the USA gathered for inspiration, information, renewal and fellowship. The annual gathering was recognized as the largest annual ecumenical event held in the world. Each convention held premieres of about-to-be-released Hollywood films, theme speakers from the field of broadcasting, workshops on new technologies and production techniques, worship, evenings to share latest productions by attendees, and lots of time for networking. Even though NABS has not met since 2001, Ed has continued to keep the network alive through a monthly newsletter in which past attendees report on current travels, life experiences and professional developments.

Shirley Whipple Struchen, a United Methodist and an employee of United Methodist Communications, has worked as an ecumenical Christian communicator for essentially all her career. She was instrumental in introducing the use of satellite downlinks for sharing information important to improving church and community life. Her biggest success was to hold a satellite seminar on youth and gun violence with two weeks of the infamous Columbine High School shooting massacre in 1999 in which hundreds of hospitals, police stations, community centers and churches throughout the United States joined the seminar to learn from experts on kids and guns, violence in the schools.

Shirley is equally well known in the ecumenical world for her pioneering work as a co-creator of the Television Awareness Training programme She was also an active committee member of the Communication Commission of the NCC USA and in 2002 became a television producer for the NCC's quarterly television programming, coordinating at the same time the access for religious broadcasting on the major US television networks by the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, and Jewish faith communities of the USA.

Although recognized as a denominational and ecumenical communicator extraordinaire, Shirley is best known these days for her pivotal role in both the Religion Communication Congress 2000 and RCC 2010. A long-time member of the Religious Public Relations Council, now known as Religious Communicators Council, she has served as the coordinator for both the 2000 and 2010 RCC events.

Shirley has also served on the WACC North America Executive Committee and the WACC Board. She has been an active participant in WACC Congresses as well.

World Association for Christian Communication