This has been an awesome month! First, some shoutouts:
- Our Sabbatical Team and Worship Associates have created some wonderful worship services. Thanks so much for the creativity, energy, and inspiration for your work. A bonus is the importance of being together in the sanctuary and having live music again.
- Our Auction Team, led by Katrina Landon, has put together an excellent, new online auction. The team has gone out of their way to make this new event accessible for the computer challenged folk. And, of course, thanks to more than 80 donors. Now, it is your turn to register to participate and open the exciting on-line catalog later this week.
- Our UU the Vote volunteers, led by Jodi Fisler, have done so much to support our 5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large. As Jodi reported last week, more than 100 of our volunteers have participated in 10 different projects by writing almost 33,000 postcards that were sent to voters who were 1) purged from the voter rolls, telling them how to check their status and re-register or 2) registered but infrequent voters, encouraging them to vote and telling them how to vote early. And our work continues with several volunteers working at the polls. Just last Saturday, two of our volunteers trained in a new role–to be peacekeepers at the polls. They will be assigned to a polling place where there is a concern that our 5th principle may be in jeopardy.
Board Decisions. Your Board met last week and addressed the following:
- Approved the Sabbatical Re-entry Plan prepared by our Sabbatical Committee. The plan recognizes that both our congregation and Rev. Laura have changed during the four-month time apart and we each need to be given time to tell our stories and share what we have learned. During this period, leaders, teams and congregants will have opportunities to share. Recognizing that December is a busy holiday period, our final event will be a Souper Lunch in early January.
- Our Membership Team led an interesting discussion about membership. We know we need better info on membership trends, dashboard metrics, and challenges we face as we attempt to gather this important information. The Board held this discussion to provide further guidance about what is needed for the report in January in support of step 2 of our 5 year evaluation of the Board, Minister, and ministries.
- We completed our discussion with a presentation, led by Linda Lane-Hamilton, on Stages of Faith Development. We came to understand that the stages also relate to our personal life cycles, membership life cycles, and even marriage. We were challenged to think of ways that we can use these concepts to do a better job of helping to develop our membership, once they sign the membership book. By the way, our current membership number is 230.
- Finally, we approved the nomination of Angela Surber to the Personnel Committee. She replaces Melissa Stump who continues to serve on the Board.
A Suggestion: The new UU World issue on Facing the Climate Crisis has a number of thoughtful articles that address the challenge, offering spiritual, religious, cultural, demographic and historical insights to ponder.
Respectfully submitted:
Les Solomon, Board President