Goals are an important part of focusing our minds to take on [undertake] difficult tasks. Goals have been important to many of us individually, and the ones we decide on at each World Conference have been important to our Community. Our goal about racism has played a major role in our work. 


Goals are not about the theory of RC. They are about where to turn our attention. They help us do work that can slip from our minds. 


There are many important topics in RC, and there is much work to be done in the world. Our goals are about a small selection of all this that we will focus on for the next four years. 


Making something a goal does not guarantee success. We have to do a certain amount of work before we can understand a goal well enough to be successful and then much work in pursuing the goal. 


Four new Community goals are proposed here. I think we’ve done enough work in all four areas to consider them. Many more were proposed, but if we have too many goals, they are all diluted. 


You get to think about these four goals. One is about class, which is vitally important. Perhaps we have done enough work to take that on. Another is about care of the environment. Things keep developing there, and we need to keep getting sharper. A third is about the work connected with Indigenous peoples. Only in the last few years, after decades of tremendous work by Marcie Rendon, the International Liberation Reference Person for Native Americans, has our awareness risen to the point where we can think about this goal. And, as is often true, the direction and speed of changes in the world have played a large part. The fourth goal is about younger people. We are trying again. We had an earlier goal about younger people, and it had good but limited effects. For this new goal, younger people have developed a program to support it [see page 48 of this Present Time]. 


[All four goals were adopted by the 2017 World Conference.]