04-05-2012 13:47 Belize Mission Trip with International Servants, Dr. Paul Whisnant, and our Belize Mission Staff. Children's Ministry and Church Construction.
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Belize Mission Trip 4 with International Servants and Dr. Paul Whisnant - Video
04-05-2012 15:02 Belize Mission Trip with International Servants, Dr. Paul Whisnant, and our Belize Missions Staff. Medical Missions Team, Children's Team and Church Construction Team.
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Belize Mission Trip 3 with International Servants and Dr. Paul Whisnant - Video
04-05-2012 15:58 Belize Mission Trip with International Servants, Dr. Paul Whisnant and our Belize Mission Staff. Medical Mission Team, Children's Team and Church Construction Team.
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Belize Mission Trip 2 with International Servants and Dr. Paul Whisnant - Video
04-05-2012 17:29 Dr. Paul Whisnant leading Ed Young of Fellowship Church and 2 other Pastors on a Mission Trip tour of our Belize Mission with International Servants.
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Dr. Paul Whisnant leading Pastors on a tour of our Belize Mission - Video
04-05-2012 19:53 Promo Video for our Belize Mission Trips with International Servants, Dr. Paul Whisnant and our Belize Mission Staff. Medical Missions Team, Children's Team and Church Construction Team.
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Belize Mission Trip - Promo Video - 3 minutes - Video
From its earliest days as Tauntons meeting house to the present day, First Parish Church has long strived to be a more than house of worship.
Opening our doors and welcoming the community has been a central part of our ministry for 375 years, said longtime church member Barry Sanders, who has served as First Parish Churchs director of religious education for 18 years. Over the years, weve done all kinds of things at the church.
The citys annual Liberty and Union celebration, for example, a series of events held each year to commemorate Tauntons role in Americas struggle for independence from Britain, grew out of a service First Parish Church began holding approximately 20 years ago, Sanders said. And when the Silver City Teen Center was forced to vacate the former Pole School amid concerns over safety conditions there, it found a new temporary home in the First Parish Church basement.
We were welcomed in on very short notice, teen center director Annemarie Matulis. They have been as warm and welcoming as can be and have been the only congregation that has welcomed the gay-straight alliance.
The gay-straight alliance, she said, is one of the teen centers programs.
Matulis is also director of Southeastern Massachusetts Voices Against Violence and runs Dress to Impress, a program that provides gently used business attire to economically disadvantaged jobseekers. Those programs have also used space at the church for years.
Although the teen center is seeking a larger space than the church can provide, Sanders said he would like to maintain and strengthen the partnership with the organization, even if it relocates.
One of the things were always interested in is to become partners with these organizations, Sanders said. Much of their work is things that are absolutely in the ministry of Unitarian Universalism and our church.
The church grounds over recent years have hosted charity walks, domestic violence awareness displays and inaugurations of elected officials. When construction of a new park forced the Taunton Farmers Market to relocate, it found new space on the church grounds last year. Additionally, the Taunton Garden Club holds its meetings at the church and plans to create a new garden on the grounds, Sanders said.
Assisting community organizations and forming new partnerships, Sanders said, is a rewarding experience for the church.
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Partnerships connect First Parish Church with community
Walking from their homes in West Concord to West Concord Village last week, friends Betsy Higgins and Pam Swing stopped in their tracks when they noticed some interesting construction going on at the West Concord Union Church.
We noticed a man was there putting stones in place, Higgins said. We stopped and said hello and asked him about it. Its quite beautiful.
Since the beginning of April, Marty Kermeen, of Labyrinths in Stone, has been busy creating a Petit Chartres Labyrinth, based on the design of the Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth in France.
According to the West Concord Union Church, a labyrinth is a single path of several circuits combining the ancient symbols of circle and spiral. It is a spiritual tool based on ancient patterns that date to pre-Christian times.
West Concord Union Church Deacon David Sedlock said the decision to construct a labyrinth at the church began about a year ago.
We had discussions with members of the congregation about creating a welcome garden and many of them were interested in constructing a labyrinth next to that, Sedlock said. Many of the members were very familiar with walking labyrinths and thought it could be a very spiritual and meditative activity that we could incorporate within the church environment and the Concord community.
After working with a site designer to develop a plan, Sedlock said the church was able to find Kermeen, who operates the labyrinth-making business out of Chicago, Ill., with his wife Debi.
As founding members of the International Labyrinth Society, Marty Kermeen and Labyrinths in Stone, have made temporary and permanent labyrinths all around the country. Kermeen said labyrinth-making has become part of his everyday life.
The business found me, Kermeen said standing outside West Concord Union Church. As a stone sculptor and paver, Marty said he has created paver art around the country for more than 25 years.
The Kermeens labyrinth creations can be found in places including cathedrals, churches, hospitals, schools, museums and private homes.
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West Concord Union Church in Concord constructs stone labyrinth
NEW ORLEANS (AP) Six years after Hurricane Katrina forced a small Lakeview church to rebuild from scratch, its members have done so in a way few other congregations have matched, creating an ambitious, environmentally green building that embodies the congregation's very theology.
The members of Community Church Unitarian Universalist of New Orleans have a tight, bright church of 4,200 square feet designed from day one to consume as little fossil-fuel energy as possible.
And now comes something like a certificate of success: March's electricity bill totaled $48.83.
The Environmental Protection Agency says the Lakeview congregation's new home is the first house of worship of its kind in the country.
The Unitarian Universalist rebuilders in Lakeview are the spiritual and ethical heirs of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the 19th century New England Transcendentalists.
Famously liberal and pluralistic, big-tent Unitarian Universalism describes itself as a creedless religion devoted to seven broad ethical principles. Generally, the denomination celebrates human dignity, equality, peace, social justice, democracy, the right to conscience and each individual's search for truth.
An old joke Unitarian Universalists tell on themselves: "Why did the Unitarian Universalist cross the road?"
"To support the chicken in its search for its own path."
But another unifying principal and the underpinning for the Lakeview church is "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."
"We have in this congregation people who want to walk the way they talk," said the Rev. Jim VanderWeele, the pastor of Community Church since 2002.
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Unitarian church rebuilds with "green" building
BAYOU LA BATRE, Alabama -On Wintzell Avenue, a main thoroughfare of this waterfront town, a historic church is temporarily without a steeple. About 40 feet long, gleaming white, the steeple lies in the grass, stretching over the yard of the parsonage.
I have the largest yard ornament in Bayou La Batre, said the Rev. Clint Landry, pastor of First Baptist of Bayou La Batre, standing next to the steeple on a bright May afternoon.
Taken down after a fire that nearly consumed the church, the steeple holds fascination for all.
Children peer around it Its not a play toy, Landry tells kids and folks stop their cars to take its picture.
Its a unique thing to see, Landry agreed, walking around its perimeter. You dont realize how big it is until its on the ground.
It makes a statement, said Jerrie Ackridge, 70, the churchs historian.
When we pass by the church my great-grandbaby says, Oh, the church is broke.
To her husband, Neil Akridge, 75, whose grandfather helped build the church, it symbolizes faith, too.
That the entire church, built of heart pine in the 1890s, didnt explode into flames is nothing short, he said, of miraculous.
It was leap day, Wednesday, Feb. 29, a quiet afternoon with no one in the church, when an electrical fire erupted.
PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD - News) today reported net income for the quarter ended March 31, 2012 of $95.8 million or $0.66 per share, compared to last years reported net income of $83.6 million or $0.58 per share. This reflects an earnings per share increase of 13.8%.
First Quarter Review
Reported net sales for the first quarter increased 7.5% to $690.6 million. Organic sales increased 8.4% driven by 10.5% volume growth offset by 2.1% unfavorable product mix and pricing. Organic sales exclude the impact of an acquisition and foreign exchange rate changes, but includes an estimated 1.4% effect of sales resulting from a timing shift in customer orders from the first quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2011, in anticipation of the January 2012 U.S. information system upgrade. The Company believes such sales would have occurred in the first quarter of 2012 were it not for the timing shift.
James R. Craigie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, We are very pleased with our first quarter business results in what continues to be a difficult economic environment. The organic sales increase of 8.4% reflects strong volume growth. While category consumption continues to be weak in the U.S., we increased market share on five of our eight power brands in the quarter.
Consumer Domestic net sales were $510.6 million, a $39.5 million increase or 8.4% above the prior year first quarter sales. First quarter organic sales increased by 10.1%, primarily due to higher sales of ARM & HAMMER liquid laundry detergent. Other products that contributed to volume growth were XTRA liquid laundry detergent, ARM & HAMMER cat litter, and the introduction of ARM & HAMMER CRYSTAL BURST power pack laundry detergent. These increases were partially offset by lower sales of ARM & HAMMER SPINBRUSH battery-operated toothbrushes, TROJAN condoms and ORAJEL oral analgesic products. Volume growth contributed approximately 13.4% to sales, partially offset by the 3.3% unfavorable product mix and pricing. Organic sales reflect an estimated 1.7% effect of including sales resulting from a timing shift in customer orders in anticipation of the January 2012 U.S. information system upgrade.
Consumer International net sales were $121.4 million, an $11.8 million increase or 10.7% above the prior year first quarter sales. Organic sales increased by 7.2%, primarily due to increased sales in Canada, Australia, and France, as well as increased U.S. exports. Volume growth contributed approximately 8.7% to sales, partially offset by 1.5% unfavorable product mix and pricing. Organic sales exclude a 5.0% benefit from an acquisition and the 1.5% effect of unfavorable foreign exchange rate changes.
Specialty Products net sales were $58.6 million, a $3.0 million decrease or 4.9% below the prior year first quarter sales. Organic sales were lower by 2.5% due to softness in end markets. Lower volumes of 8.1%, were partially offset by favorable pricing of 5.6%. The positive pricing is primarily due to a pass-through of raw material increases to customers. Organic sales reflect an estimated 1.6% effect of including sales resulting from a timing shift in customer orders in anticipation of the January 2012 information system upgrade, and excludes the 0.8% effect of unfavorable foreign exchange rate changes.
Gross margin contracted to 43.8% in the first quarter compared to 44.9% in the same quarter last year. The decrease is principally due to unfavorable product mix. The unfavorable product mix reflects a 14.4% increase in net sales of lower margin consumer domestic household products compared to a 2.6% decline in net sales of higher margin consumer domestic personal care products. Gross margin is also effected by start-up costs related to the Companys new California manufacturing and distribution facility, which is scheduled to begin commercial production of liquid laundry detergent and cat litter products in May 2012 and be fully operational in July 2012. Although commodity costs were higher in the quarter, the increases were largely offset by the effect of cost reduction programs. First quarter gross margin was 50 basis points higher than the fourth quarter of 2011. We expect full year gross margin to increase to the lower end of our 25-50 basis point annual target, which reflects the impact of product mix.
Marketing expense was $68.0 million in the first quarter, a slight decrease of $1.2 million or 1.7% in comparison with the prior year first quarter. Marketing expense as a percentage of net sales was 9.8% in the quarter, a decrease of 100 basis points compared to the prior year first quarter due to timing. We expect marketing support to be approximately 13% of net sales for the full year, which is consistent with the prior year.
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Church & Dwight Reports First Quarter 2012 Results