President’s Report

Stewardship event is this Saturday evening.  Although attendance probably will not be as big as last year, the Stewardship committee is doing a great job.  Bill also announced that there is an upcoming “green sanctuary” effort led by Bev Prager and Edith Savage; it is a UU program leading to certification if a congregation fulfill certain requirements.  The Charette is also scheduled for this Sunday.  Board members are being asked to practice active listening and along with other co-leaders, encourage big goal thinking as opposed to attempting to articulate specific strategies. Last night Bill went to Hands on Hartford meeting, formerly known as Center City Churches.  This Thursday night, Bill will be going to an ICEJ covenanting service at the Methodist Church at Farmington and Whitney.  As a member congregation, we’re hoping to get regular reports from ICEJ.  The nominating committee including Charles Huntington, Heather Ferguson-Hull, Marye Gail Harrison, Jane Christensen and Bill LaPorte-Bryan have been meeting and getting nominations underway. Heather hopes that next year they can be pro-active about recruiting leaders in a more effective way. BTWWDA (Building the World We Dream About) – 27 people have committed to participate including five facilitators.  Everyone has been scheduled for a specific date through to 2/2009 for early Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings. The first session went well. 

Minister’s report

NVC work going splendidly.  Contacts in community are asking USH to do trainings.  Facilitators have taken hold as leaders and will be taking a big part in training in March.  An all day program is being held at Hartford Seminary and possibly at the University of Hartford.  BJ is writing to subcouncils and church groups to have NVC training for leadership and is hoping to establish among us a behavioral covenant, grievance procedures and an ombudsman role.  BJ is very pleased about the Palm Sunday Taize service which includes a liturgy written by some new members, Paul Quinn and Cer Seskevich, and Kim and Gary De Michaele.  The service will be a Unitarian Communion service which she hopes will be offered every month.  She is going with Bill LaPorte Bryan to do tutoring at Noah Webster School and will explore opportunities for broader participation of USH members in volunteer work at the school.  BJ and Bill also reported that in their trip to San Jose, they saw video of paid choir for high church music, along with a variety of bells, whistles and drums, gospel choir. BJ likened it to experimental theater and saw many examples of richly diverse worship experiences. 

DRE report

Report was submitted.  Gail recruited several new teachers as a result of sending out an email to staff second and third grade.  RE still needs teachers for spirit play.  But at least second and third grade is settled. Coming of Age is off and running; 10 are enrolled and 6-8 attend regularly.  RE is planning the  4/28 RE service.  RE has also started to think about recruitment for next year last month.  RE is also reviewing and cleaning out outdated curriculum.  Gail hopes to have the RE subcouncil and parents meet with BJ.   BJ raised the possibility of keeping the same theme for next year but more of a subset of Family. 

Treasurer’s Report

Report submitted.  Margaret is very pleased with the energy and enthusiasm of the Finance Subcouncil members. She also noted that a large proportion of the budget are non-discretionary items not within control of the council and subcouncils and thus members expressed their concern that decisions were made which affected their bottom line for which they had no input.  Margaret expressed their desire to be involved in discussions affecting their budget and they want the Board to be aware that they are being asked to deal with budget deficits that they did not create. 

Strategic discussion

Bill raised for our consideration the question of USH’s relationship with external entities.  Some relationships are aspects of our core identity, like the UUA, etc.  Our affiliations and/or membership in various organizations, like Center City Churches, ICEJ, CUREJ, Partner church, etc. implicate many issues which have not been clearly understood, including what is the nature of the relationship and what are our mutual expectations – in terms of financial resources, commitment of our members, resources of our staff and minister, accountability of the organization and oversight of that relationship.   There was some concern expressed regarding the lack of clarity regarding these issues and how to justify congregation investment of these diverse resources when congregation ownership is unclear or limited to one or two people who feel strongly about a given relationship.  Bill highlighted this area for us to consider for future conversation, specifically, how to make sense of this and ensure USH operates based on defined principles. Carolyn recalled significant work done by the Social Justice Empowerment Task Force several years ago which met for a year to establish a protocol for deciding how to prioritize our efforts and resources in the social justice arena.    Their recommendations included requiring a individual or group promoting a given entity to establish that it can meet certain criteria in order to receive official USH support including, e.g. five members who have expressed commitment, etc.  Carolyn and Margaret will try to find the draft of these proposals. 

Process check-in