Tidbits, 02/2004
UUA TRUSTEE TIDBITS, February 2004
Joan Lund
By the time you are reading this I will have returned from the January Board of Trustees meeting in Boston although the column is being written before this meeting. Please know I appreciate the suggestions and ideas you have presented regarding topics for my monthly writing. Hopefully over the next few months I will be able to address your requests but because of a recently received correspondence this month I will talk about the Commission on Social Witness.
The CSW’s mission is to help UUs put the Principles and Purposes into action, and to assist congregations and the Association express concern for social justice. The CSW is involved in all the steps of the 3-year process to adopt Statements of Conscience. Each year, the CSW receives proposals from congregations and districts for Study-Action Issues that they hope will be selected and eventually result in a UUA Statement of Conscience as voted upon by the delegates at General Assembly, after two years of study and action. This Study and Action Process was created to uphold our principles and engage UUs in the articulation of conscience on pressing social justice issues.
I received a letter and information sent by The Social Witness Process Review Panel, a group that has been studying our Social Witness process, particularly as it relates to General Assembly. They issued a report named “The Direction We’re Going” and it is available on-line in PDF format at: www.uua.org/uuawo/new/article.php?id=146 or you can request the report from me at jlund@uua.org or lundjb@earthlink.net and I will send it in a Word document via email. There are some thought provoking ideas in their work and until the end of March, they are inviting opinion and input from interested individuals and groups. The Panel believes that much more of the responsibility and ownership of the social witness process belongs in the hands of UU congregations. They feel that the current process is not engaged in sufficiently by congregations, either qualitatively or quantitatively. Changes are being recommended. Another belief the Panel shares is there is not sufficient attention to implementation of statements once they are created, and they have recommended adding a fourth GA (third year) to the process to take time to learn together how implementation of the statement is proceeding rather than rushing on to the next one. The Panel wants to remove amendments from the GA floor and take them into small group “mini-assemblies”, to avoid the mass “word-smithing” that sometimes occurs. Significant changes to the process for Actions of Immediate Witness have been proposed and finally they are considering a new type of witness, that would allow the staff of the Association , as well as UUs and the public generally, to know our UU policies on a given issue without searching through a many-paged book of old resolutions. Again, I strongly suggest you express your opinion to the Panel after reading the thoughts from the CSW Panel of Review.
Once more I ask that you remain in touch, contacting me at the above-listed email addresses or by phone at (813) 931-9727. And remember in this month of “love” to be mindful of the love and respect we hold for one another now and throughout the year.
Joan Lund
By the time you are reading this I will have returned from the January Board of Trustees meeting in Boston although the column is being written before this meeting. Please know I appreciate the suggestions and ideas you have presented regarding topics for my monthly writing. Hopefully over the next few months I will be able to address your requests but because of a recently received correspondence this month I will talk about the Commission on Social Witness.
The CSW’s mission is to help UUs put the Principles and Purposes into action, and to assist congregations and the Association express concern for social justice. The CSW is involved in all the steps of the 3-year process to adopt Statements of Conscience. Each year, the CSW receives proposals from congregations and districts for Study-Action Issues that they hope will be selected and eventually result in a UUA Statement of Conscience as voted upon by the delegates at General Assembly, after two years of study and action. This Study and Action Process was created to uphold our principles and engage UUs in the articulation of conscience on pressing social justice issues.
I received a letter and information sent by The Social Witness Process Review Panel, a group that has been studying our Social Witness process, particularly as it relates to General Assembly. They issued a report named “The Direction We’re Going” and it is available on-line in PDF format at: www.uua.org/uuawo/new/article.php?id=146 or you can request the report from me at jlund@uua.org or lundjb@earthlink.net and I will send it in a Word document via email. There are some thought provoking ideas in their work and until the end of March, they are inviting opinion and input from interested individuals and groups. The Panel believes that much more of the responsibility and ownership of the social witness process belongs in the hands of UU congregations. They feel that the current process is not engaged in sufficiently by congregations, either qualitatively or quantitatively. Changes are being recommended. Another belief the Panel shares is there is not sufficient attention to implementation of statements once they are created, and they have recommended adding a fourth GA (third year) to the process to take time to learn together how implementation of the statement is proceeding rather than rushing on to the next one. The Panel wants to remove amendments from the GA floor and take them into small group “mini-assemblies”, to avoid the mass “word-smithing” that sometimes occurs. Significant changes to the process for Actions of Immediate Witness have been proposed and finally they are considering a new type of witness, that would allow the staff of the Association , as well as UUs and the public generally, to know our UU policies on a given issue without searching through a many-paged book of old resolutions. Again, I strongly suggest you express your opinion to the Panel after reading the thoughts from the CSW Panel of Review.
Once more I ask that you remain in touch, contacting me at the above-listed email addresses or by phone at (813) 931-9727. And remember in this month of “love” to be mindful of the love and respect we hold for one another now and throughout the year.
