Tidbits, 01/2005

UUA TRUSTEE TIDBITS
Joan Lund, January 2005

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Now that the end-of-the year festivities are a thing of the past and we welcome 2005, may we do so with love, hope, and dedication to our liberal faith. Soon I will be traveling to Boston for the January Board of Trustees meeting where the weather will be cold but the work will be zealously done in the spirit of warmth.

Recently I received an unsolicited publication called the U.U. Small Group Ministry Quarterly. As you must know I get many U.U. newsletters, brochures, and other U.U. related information. This one sparked an interest and desire to learn more about how Small Group Ministry (SGM) ?works?, the elements of its format, and how effective this Ministry can be in our congregations. I have, in my travels and work within the Florida District, heard people say they wish to find a way to connect more deeply and spiritually in their religious community. Participating in SGM, sometimes known by other names such as Covenant Group Ministry, offers congregational members the opportunity for deep spiritual exploration. SGM provides relational groups designed to build, in the midst of our diverse memberships, centers of trust and friendship that remain closely connected to the congregation.

Briefly, the elements of SGM include a group size of about eight to ten people who meet at least once a month in someone?s home or at the church. The format should combine worshipful and/or centering readings or rituals and personal check-ins at the start and end of the meeting. The facilitator is a person chosen and trained by the minister or in societies with no minister, by someone chosen by a small steering committee. At the meetings an empty chair must be kept to symbolize those not yet reached who need the group and to suggest the expectation that a new group will be ?born from? this group when membership gets to ten or so. At the second meeting a behavioral covenant must be agreed upon, stating how members wish to be with each other.

From what I read and hear SGM continues to transform congregations and to deepen the spiritual and community life of the people who participate. Since data reveals we retain only 10% of the children raised as U.U.s perhaps keeping them might involve creating small groups in our congregations for people of all ages. Maybe instead of talking about and creating various ?classes?, change might include creating ?small groups? ministry. Just some thoughts. If you would like further information I suggest The Complete Guide to Small Group Ministry, by Robert L. Hill, an excellent guide for helping our congregations make a difference in the church, as well as individually, and in the world.

I wish you the very best in 2005 and am always interested in hearing from you. I can be reached at jlund@uua.org or (813) 931-9727.

Trustee Report, January 2005

UUA Trustee Report
Joan Lund
Boston, MA, January 20-23, 2005

Many years have passed since I have been witness to SO MUCH SNOW. As you
know the winter has been pretty harsh for Bostonians as far as being privy
to the "white stuff", and I was there to become part of a snow storm in
excess of 24 inches. Needless to say I was very happy to return to Florida
not too far off my scheduled arrival thanks to several positive
circumstances and some good people. Happily I stayed inside whenever
possible and did not venture out for the usual walks through the Boston
Commons or anywhere else, for that matter.

Your UUA Board of Trustees is very engaged in a discussion about mission,
vision, and ministry of the UUA. This is part of the exciting work we do as
the Board. These conversations are coming from all directions. To that end
we decided as part of our "big chunk" time together would be doing the work
of discussing our vision, mission, and ministry as to how these relate to
our calling as Trustees. Thursday evening we took part in worship and
reflection which drew us into further conversation on Board development for
three hours on Friday morning. We are not finished with this work, in fact
we may be just beginning, but I offer a few thoughts from our
reflection-time. I think the Board sees ourselves as needing to model what
we would like for our congregations in "right relationships". We feel called
to listen as well as act, in being able to determine how our denomination
can grow in truth as a movement while allowing ourselves to incorporate
constant change. Stay tuned for this continuing conversation, and share with
me any conversations in which you are a part that is about new ways of being
together as an Association being the most effective voice we can be.

Again, the presidents of congregations will be invited to participate at
General Assembly with their registration expense being fully paid. The
Plenary sessions will highlight "breakthrough" congregations, which have
experienced significant growth, and the Board will be sponsoring a workshop
for the second year showcasing healthy growth in different-sized
congregations. The intent is to offer congregational leaders a host of
opportunities at GA to examine effective strategies for congregational
growth that they can take home and implement. I am happy to report that the
UU Congregation of Venice has been identified as "breakthrough" in our
Florida District and hopefully will be one of the groups highlighted during
the Plenary. As always if you have questions or comments please let me know.
You can use jlund@uua.org, lundjb@verizon.net
, or call me at 813-931-9727. Below you will find my report arranged by
topics and information I think you may want to receive.

President Bill Sinkford's Report

Unfortunately Bill was trying to recover from a bout with the flu and except
for brief times we did not experience his presence. His short verbal message
with us on Saturday morning started with the news that the 2006 UUA budget
indicates reductions in expenses for the World Magazine. The number of times
the World will be published is to be reduced from six to four hard-copy
issues, but World on the web will be published weekly. This will allow for
more timeliness in our commenting effectively on UU issues.

Bill considers UU youth one of his most important concerns and after two
years of thought and conversation he will co-convene a group to re-imagine
how we envision youth ministry. There will be a February, 2005 meeting,
calling together current YRUU folks and youth who are not YRUU-involved to
begin working on our vision of youth ministry. This will be a prelude and
planning session for a larger consultation. Final planning for a GA Workshop
on Ministry to and with Youth will be done in April.

Strategies toward supporting congregational growth are changing. We are
moving away from "extension" ministry (moving small congregations into
full-time ministry which has been very successful in helping over 100
congregations in the last 10 years) to "jump starting" larger congregations.
The UUA is taking the lead from congregations or clusters of congregations
that are poised for growth and the approach now seems to be more responsive
to the imaginations in regions or areas where ideas for growth may take
different shapes.

Bill indicated he will be meeting with The Seventh Principle Project Board
of Directors. Although many individual UUs care deeply about environmental
issues he believes we need to encourage more of our congregations to take a
serious role in environmental justice.

Executive Vice-president Kay Montgomery's Report

Kay reported there is no new UUA staff but there will be some field staff
changes. Annual Program Fund Director, Mary Miles, will be retiring in
September, 2005. Personally I know Mary has done an outstanding job because
I have worked with her for almost eight years, first as the Florida District
APF chair and now as the Board liaison to the APF Committee. To say she will
be missed is way understated.

The Friends of the UUA program will be experiencing changes. For some years
the Friends program has been producing about a million dollars annual, while
declining in participants from a high of about 16,000 to a low of about
10,500. It has been decided that any new direction for Friends will have to
address declining participation and the possibility of increased revenues.
Hired consultants have suggested and researched a compelling theme, moral
values, based on President Sinkford's suggestions and desires. The
consultants are projecting significant growth in both gross and net revenue
over the next four fiscal and estimates at the end of fiscal year 2009,
Friends will have 37,000 active donors.

Secretary Rev. Wayne Arnason's Report

Wayne focused on three areas: the UUA elections, congregation certification,
and policy maintenance. There will be contested elections at GA. A new bar
code credentialing voting card will help facilitate the smooth running of
the elections process. The cards will be read by an optical scan machine.
Wayne stated congregation certification is running lower than in previous
years but he is not too worried because on-line certification went well last
year. I will be able to write more after the April Board meeting concerning
the policy handbook.

Financial Advisor Larry Ladd's Report

There was no financial report from Larry. He is at home recuperating from
knee surgery resulting from a fall early in January. We missed him and his
wonderful historical perspectives.


Working Groups

There are four working groups that always meet the Friday before the weekend
Board Meeting: Living Our Faith (formerly Justice), Our Association,
Congregations, and Growth. I serve on the Living Our Faith group. Below, the
report will be devoted to each of these groups.

LIVING OUR FAITH (LOF). In regard to the Commission on Social Witness review
there will be no by-law changes considered by the Board. LOF asked the
Moderator and CSW to work on creative plans for our Associational role in
engaging dialogue among our congregations around issues of social concern.
LOF will discuss this in October, 2005, to articulate for the CSW and the
Moderator our hopes for the results we desire in a healthy, effective, and
creative social witness process to enhance our congregations' work and our
Association's Public Witness.

The LOF working group likes the way the Public Policy statement sample
preamble is worded (see the Trustee Tidbits column for February, 2005) as it
represents the will of the GA and BOT and is not a mandated view or "creed"
of every individual UU. The LOF working group is encouraging the staff to
continue to develop other Public Policy statements, as it is felt this
product matches our vision of ways we can help our congregations in social
witness.

Judith Frediani, Director of Lifespan Faith Development, and Rev. David
Hubner, Director of Ministry and Professional Leadership, joined our meeting
for a discussion and conversation. David updated us on the Ministerial
Fellowship Committee's new expectation of ministers around LFD, the work of
the Religious Education Credentialing, and the work MPL is doing regarding
positive relations between all religious professionals. Judith engaged us in
dialogue about the subjects in her written report, submitted to us some time
before our meeting. Implementation of the eagerly awaited children's RE
program will be slower because the money coming in from the recent capital
campaign has been slower. However, the money is still coming in. The
children's program is the most expensive because it requires the most
authors. More modular parts of the Jr. High, Sr. High, and adults curriculum
project have been underway and where each project is now, and how it will be
"rolled out" will be shared with the Board in April. The Board's concerns
include not being sure that UUA curriculum development is really connected
to the expressed needs in congregations; church RE leaders don't feel in
relationship to UUA resources. In addition the Board is concerned about the
efficacy of District staff in connecting churches with UUA-produced
programs. Judith's concerns include the problems of communication; many BOT
members, ministers, congregations, and religious educators are not aware of
all the work of the LFD staff group. Also, there are problems of assumptions
that effectiveness of RE in congregations can be fixed by the UUA staff when
problems like in congregational structures and cultures. A core question is
how can the UUA (administration and BOT leadership) support the health and
excellence of RE Programs? We need to begin by broadening the BOT's
conversation of what underlies the health of LFD. This is related to radical
hospitality of congregations to all people and the growth and vitality of
the whole congregation. The LOF working group knows helping our
congregations have health LFD programs is a shared responsibility. We look
forward to an all-Board discussion in April.

GROWTH. The UUA Growth Team will be meeting in February and select the four
congregations that will be "lifted up" at GA, from the list of
"breakthrough" congregations submitted by the districts. The BOT hopes that
as many as possible congregations will be "highlighted" during GA. So we
seek to not duplicate the use of congregations in multiple events. Harlan
Limpert, Director of District Services, will send emails to other workshop
leaders to identify other congregations that may be highlighted in their
workshops. Once the Growth Team makes their selection of the four
congregations GWG will proceed to select two additional congregations for
the BOT workshop.

The Stewardship and Development staff is hosting President's Roundtables in
six geographical areas to explore growth and fund-raising capacity. The
Roundtable (RT) program entails a one-year commitment in these six areas in
which a committed group of UUs will meet with the UUA President once, and
with one of the senior advisors to Rev. Sinkford four times. Each RT group
will include some of all of the local President's Council members, major
donors, ministers, field staff, district leaders, and congregational
leaders. The southeast has not been selected this year. This may lead to
growth in existing congregations and/or formation of new or satellite
congregations. At the end of the fiscal year 2005 the success of these
meetings and determination of the next phase of the program will be
evaluated.

OUR CONGREGATIONS. They discussed ongoing work to establish a Church of the
Younger Fellowship as part of the Church of the Larger Fellowship. Both the
Young Adult community and the CLF had approached one another wondering how
CLF could serve the YA. It is believed that the need for a CYF is an
indicator that congregations are not serving young adults adequately. The YA
community seems to be a natural for the CLF. It is dispersed, mobile, not
connected because of its distance to congregations and they have a history
of their own worship. Finance and structure are being negotiated and the UUA
is fully aware of this process. Frank Wells, UUs of Clearwater Music
Director and the Young Adult Steer Committee, is one of the point persons in
this endeavor.

The District President's Association and Harlan Limpert, Director of
District Services, are involved in the planning of a summit at GA that will
involve the Board and the DPA. The purpose of the Summit is to get elected
leaders together to share energy and vision, and to develop alignment in
vision, mission, and ministry. There will be significant spiritual component
to this alignments work. Conversation will build on questions posed by the
DPA. Work will be accomplished by a task force of BOT and DPA
representatives, Moderator Gini Courter, and the Director of District
Services. The Summit will be financed by the BOT in response to the DPA
financing last year. A motion was passed by the BOT on Sunday stating: "The
Board of Trustees invite District Presidents, selected administrative staff
and others, to be determined to join them at an Alignment Summit on the
evening of June 22, 2005, (the evening preceding the start of GA) to explore
the alignment of vision, mission, and ministry related to the role of
districts".

The Moderator asked CWG to prepare a plan for pre-GA training for
congregation presidents in 2006. The training will be based on a version of
the BOT training on the spiritual practice of being a steward of the
Association. Harlan Limpert will help develop the training for congregation
presidents.

OUR ASSOCIATION. Ralph Mero, Church Staff Finances Director, presented a
Salary Range Recommendations proposal that will come up for a vote at the
April, 2005 BOT meeting. The BOT has until April to review and offer
feedback to the Compensation, Benefits, and Pension Committee before voting.



The history of the existing by-law provision which has given settled
"accredited" religious educators a vote at GA was reviewed. The current
proposal is to update the by-law to give this privilege to the settled
Masters Level Credentialed Religious Educators. Implications of passing this
by-law change for DRE attendance at GA and the implications of including
emeritus DREs as delegates. The BOT voted to recommend the by-law change
which also included having BOT liaison to the Religious Education
Credentialing Committee.

The Independent Affiliates Task Force recommended increasing the number of
workshops assigned to districts, and reducing the number assigned to
independent affiliates, consistent with the BOT's wish to increase
congregations' access to GA. The GA Planning Committee has also discussed
this and seems to be taking initiatives to reduce the number of affiliate
workshop slots and increase those of congregations. The BOT will continue to
be in conversation with both groups about the workshop slots and the right
balance of access.

The Panel on Theological Education oversees the allocation of endowed funds
to support the training or professional and lay UU leaders. The BOT approved
the allocation of the Panel's funds for fiscal year 2005.

Best Practices Committee

The Committee on Committees has appointed an Open UUA Committee. This group
has met twice by conference call, and plans to meet in person at GA in Ft.
Worth. They are maintaining an active email life on the UUA web site and
have submitted a budget request to support their GA meeting this year and
next. The request has been approved by the Finance Committee.

The BPC is aware that polices to manage the safekeeping and distribution of
such sensitive data as our email lists must be developed. There are several
questions to be answered: who can have access to them, under what
conditions, and may they to be sold to other entities? The Finance Committee
feels that any decision to share any of our mailing lists with non-UUA
organizations should be made by the BOT.

The idea of using some type of "program assessment" process to help us
better understand the "progress toward the goals" of each of our staff
working groups was discussed. Further discussion and work will be done in
this area and brought back to the BOT for further consideration.

Finance Committee

The BOT approved the fiscal year Capital Expenditure Budget dated January
20, 2005.
The BOT approved the fiscal year Operating Budget dated December 17, 2004.

The BOT set the fiscal year 2007 Annual Program Fund Fair Share ask at $53
per member with the option for congregations with 550 members or more to
alternatively contribute 4.2% of their operating budget. The BOT set the
fiscal year 2008 APF ask at %54 per member with the option for congregations
with 550 members or more to alternatively contribute 4.2% of their operating
budget.

The BOT passed a motion that a) the UUA continue to own and operate Beacon
Press, under the financial requirements established in the three year plan
and b) that the Administration maintain and report to the BOT annual and
five year "rolling average" performance for Beacon.

Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression Assessment and Monitoring Team

The history of AR/AO was reviewed as it relates to our role as process
observers. This Team's goal is to create an informal evaluation and
observation process of BOT work and the BOT appointed committees. The AR/AO
Team suggested that someone from each working group be a member of the AR/AO
Team.

The AR/AO Team has concerns about minority representation in UUA Independent
Affiliates, and how much anti-racism/anti-oppression control does the BOT
have of Affiliate organizations. The Team needs to continue asking questions
that relate to Independent Affiliates through AR/AO lens.

Other News of Note

I am ending the report with good news as it relates to our beloved Florida
District regarding grants awarded by the UU Funding Program. The Fund for
Unitarian Universalism granted $10,000 to the Florida District for Crysallis
Way, a pilot project to serve as a model within the UUA, to intentionally
structure emerging UU congregations through monthly training sessions,
weekly small groups, steering committee coaching, and an interactive
website. The F for UUism granted $4,000 to our River of Grass Congregation
for Central Park Family Outreach, an interfaith outreach program to model
Unitarian Universalism to the wider local community with which the
congregation shares space. The Fund for Unitarian Universalist Social
Responsibility (FUUSR) gave a challenge grant in the amount of $7,500 to the
UU Congregation of Venice for Forming an Interfaith Community, to establish
a broad-based interfaith community organization in the wake of the take-over
of the Venice Area Ministers' Assoc. by Christian fundamentalists which
resulted in a by-law change that excluded non-Christians from participation.
The Fund for a Just Society awarded Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida
$12,000 for Faith-based Organizing in Support of Taco Bell Boycott which
addresses the structural poverty of farm workers by putting pressure on Taco
Bell to take responsibility for the poverty of those who pick the tomatoes
it purchases. The FUUSR awarded $700 to All Souls Unitarian Church in
Washington, DC for their Tampa Voter Turnout Trip. This voter turn-out
effort and poll observation was done in conjunction with the Florida
Consumer Action Network and involved 30 members of All Souls connecting with
12 UU congregations in the effort led by the Tampa UU congregation.

There's much more I could report but in fear of over-saturation and
exhaustion I shall end by saying I look forward to hearing from you with
comments and/or questions. If I don't know the answers I will do my best to
find them for you. Happy winter to you all. Aren't we glad we live in
Florida!