Bonus Screening added | Signing Off | From Quickie to Long-Lasting Marriages - 6/23/07

[Smartmarriages]

- BONUS FULL-LENGTH ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP FILM SCREENING ADDED
- SIGNING OFF - NEWSLIST WILL RESUME AFTER THE CONFERENCE
- ELKTON MARYLAND SIGNS A COMMUNITY MARRIAGE POLICY
- MARRIAGE LICENSE INCENTIVE IN GEORGIA

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- BONUS FULL-LENGTH ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP FILM SCREENING ADDED

Do to popular demand, I've found a room and will add a pre-event screening
of one of the full-length films from the Tony Robbins/Cloe Madanes Ultimate
Relationship series. Back From the Edge will screen from 5-6pm in Governor's
Square 12. This is during the dinner break.  Feel free to bring a sandwich
with you and eat while you watch. No need to register, just show your
conference badge for admission. The Robbins/Madanes Sat night event begins
at 7pm.  - diane

Note: As previously announced, Song of Songs a film that explores life-long
commitment will be screened in Grand II on Friday at 5:45pm.

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- SIGNING OFF - NEWSLIST WILL RESUME AFTER THE CONFERENCE

I'm leaving for Denver.  Newslist will be down during the conference and
will resume by week of July 9th.

To reach us in Denver, call 303-893-3333 and ask for the Smart Marriages
Desk or leave a message for Diane Sollee.

Walk-in conference registration opens Monday afternoon at the Adam's Mark.

For questions about registration, fees, hotel, transportation, adding
exhibits, etc, see the website:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/conferencedetails.html

Also, see the FAQs page:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/faqs.html

 - diane 

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- ELKTON MARYLAND SIGNS A COMMUNITY MARRIAGE POLICY

Our heroes, Mike and Harriet McManus, hard at work.

> The agreement, called a Community Marriage Policy, was written by McManus and
> his wife. The Potomac couple's organization has helped create similar policies
> for 219 other counties - including Carroll and Frederick - and urban areas.

> Cecil is getting federal help, too - a $500,000 annual Healthy Marriage
> Initiative grant, to train the marriage mentors and fund relationship seminars
> in schools and community organizations, Ricciuti said. The grant has also
> funded a billboard design contest most recently won by a 9-year-old girl.

> Couples enter the left side of the courthouse to get married, and about half
> of them return to the right side to get divorced, says Mike McManus, who works
> with his wife, Harriet, to run the nonprofit organization Marriage Savers out
> of Potomac.
> 
> "We want to increase the business over here and cut it over there," he said,
> pointing to the two sides of the courthouse.

>From quickie weddings to long-lasting marriages
The Baltimore Sun 
By Alia Malik
Sun reporter
June 23, 2007

ELKTON -- The former Vegas of the East Coast is getting marriage counseling.

In a town once known for its quickie weddings, religious leaders are now
worried about too many divorces.

So representatives from 19 local churches gathered yesterday in front of the
Cecil County courthouse - just across the street from the only remaining
wedding chapel among a dozen that once dotted this town - and signed a pact
to help strengthen marriages.

These days in Elkton, according to those who joined in yesterday's event,
people are getting hitched and ditched. At least that's their perception,
even if the numbers aren't quite so definitive.

Cecil County had 300 divorces in 2005, says Nicholas Ricciuti, director of
the county's Department of Social Services. That is a slightly
disproportionate share of Maryland's 17,000 divorces that year - 2.1
percent, while the county makes up 1.7 percent of the state's population.

Couples enter the left side of the courthouse to get married, and about half
of them return to the right side to get divorced, says Mike McManus, who
works with his wife, Harriet, to run the nonprofit organization Marriage
Savers out of Potomac.

"We want to increase the business over here and cut it over there," he said,
pointing to the two sides of the courthouse.

Yesterday's signatures brought the number of participating churches in Cecil
to two dozen. By joining the pact, clergy agreed to require that engaged
couples complete months of preparatory sessions with trained mentors. They
also promised to encourage married couples to attend
relationship-strengthening retreats and seminars, and to come back for
mentoring when the going gets tough.

The agreement, called a Community Marriage Policy, was written by McManus
and his wife. The Potomac couple's organization has helped create similar
policies for 219 other counties - including Carroll and Frederick - and
urban areas.

Cecil is getting federal help, too - a $500,000 annual Healthy Marriage
Initiative grant, to train the marriage mentors and fund relationship
seminars in schools and community organizations, Ricciuti said. The grant
has also funded a billboard design contest most recently won by a 9-year-old
girl.

Such concerns about failing marriages are a far cry from Elkton's long
history in the wedding business (Unofficial motto: "Wedding capital of the
East").

Before Maryland imposed a two-day waiting period for all marriage applicants
in 1939, the town was a wedding hot spot. Its location in the northeastern
corner of the state made it easy for couples from Delaware, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania to hop the border and tie the knot in a day.

The onset of World War II only increased business, as soldiers raced to get
married against the clock of deployment, says the Rev. Frank Smith, who runs
the Little Wedding Chapel, the only speed-marriage spot still in town.
Willie Mays and Billie Holiday were married there, and the chapel says Babe
Ruth was, too.

The Little Wedding Chapel now abides by the state law, although it was not
widely enforced until after the war, Smith says. In the 1960s, he was still
marrying 2,000 couples a year. Now he marries a tenth of that. "We still get
them from all over the world," Smith said. "Some from Europe, even."

Ricciuti's figures show that these days, 1,000 couples come from out of
state each year to get married in Cecil County.

"Elkton still has a bit of a reputation," Ricciuti said - but that doesn't
necessarily contribute to the county's divorces.

"Most of those people don't live in Cecil County," he said. "They don't stay
here."

Smith did not sign the marriage pact, because he is not licensed for
marriage counseling.

The signing was organized largely by the Rev. Alan Bosmeny, the lead pastor
at First Assembly of God in Elkton. He says he has a personal stake in it.

In 1974, Bosmeny's marriage was falling apart. Three years after his
marriage at age 22 to a bride of 18, he and his wife, Donna, were suffering
a complete breakdown in communication.

He still remembers the night when their marriage was saved - Jan. 2, 1975.
The couple had separated, and Donna had come to their Georgia home to pick
up her things for a move to Florida the next day. A mutual friend invited
them to the Bible study she was attending that night so Donna could say
goodbye.

That night, they accepted Christ in their hearts, Bosmeny said. The drugs
and pornography went out the window, and the couple began to pray together.
"I will go to my grave saying this: that God instantaneously healed and put
our marriage back together," he said.

In Frederick County, a similar marriage policy was signed by 28 pastors in
2005, when the county divorce rate was 51 percent, according to Bob Donk of
Walkersville, who directs Marriage Savers of Frederick County after serving
as pastor of Calvary Assembly of God in Frederick.

Now, 55 county couples are marriage mentors, and the organization is
embarking on an effort with Head Start to reach out to single parents.

Donk doesn't have statistics, but he has heard positive things about the
program. "We know it's working," he said. "It's changing relationships and
making stronger marriages."

Bill McKenna of Westminster, who runs the Marriage Resource Center of
Carroll County with his wife, Anne, reports similar results since 22
churches signed the county policy in 2004. "Among churches that have done
this, I don't think there's 10 divorces," McKenna said.

When Mike McManus first outlined his marriage rescue strategies in his
syndicated column "Ethics & Religion," he was invited by pastors to speak
all over the country - speeches that had "no effect whatsoever," he said.

But after his 1993 book Marriage Savers attracted national attention, his
ideas gained momentum, and four years later he started the organization that
would eventually bring clerical marriage pacts to areas as large as
Louisville, Ky.; Austin, Texas; and Minnesota's Twin Cities.

The McManuses have been training marriage mentors at their church, Fourth
Presbyterian in Bethesda, since 1992. By 2000, more than 200 mentored
couples had married, with a 97 percent success rate so far.

With yesterday's policy signing, the Cecil County clergy hope to replicate
that reported success, says Stephen Hokus, pastor of First Baptist Church of
North East: "It makes a good marriage when you start off on the right foot
and build a strong foundation."

##################################
- MARRIAGE LICENSE INCENTIVE IN GEORGIA

June Weddings: Marriages hit height of season
By Johnny Jackson

Here's a clip from Clayton News, a Georgia newspaper, that mentions the
Georgia marriage education license incentive:
 
> As of Thursday ‹ the first official day of summer ‹ Henry County Probate Court
> had issued 553 marriage licenses so far this year, said Sheila Kelley, the
> court¹s clerk of vital records.
> 
> For couples who can prove they attended premarital counseling, the state
> offers a $35 discount, she said, adding that about a third of applicants have
> had premarital counseling.

>³Most of the ones we see are through the church or clergy,² she said.

**************************
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11th Annual Smart Marriages Conference, Denver Adam's Mark Hotel,
June 28-July 1, 2007
Download a brochure: http://www.smartmarriages.com/Brochure.07.pdf


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Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
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http://www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332

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