TABLE OF CONTENTS UUCGL Officers, Trustees, Staff, and Pastoral
Assistants OFFICERS STAFF PASTORAL ASSISTANTS (ext. 1#) MINISTER Church officers: Board Members: Monica Day Ostrand, Judy Goth-Owens, Sue Hill,
Tammy Lemmer, Judy Olson, "To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." - Henri Bergson, French Philosopher Overview of 2006-2007 This church year has been a very positive one full of growth and change. Even though this growth is very positive for our congregation, the transition from what we know as comfortable and familiar is not an easy one. Your Board of Trustees started the year out with our fall retreat where we established our goals for the year. (See the goals at the end of this report.) This process brought together many new Board members with more seasoned ones. We made covenants with one another as to how we would relate and function with each other. These covenants are attached. This set the stage for the new church year. Our meetings were run differently, using a more informative and efficient way of laying out our meetings. I want to tell you about this format because it is indicative of the changes that we embraced throughout our year. With few exceptions, we started and ended on time, which means so much to those who dedicate time to this church but truly want it to be well spent. In our meetings, we dedicated 30 minutes of our meeting to what we called our "Think Tank." This allowed us to delve more in depth into major areas that affect the church and about which your Board needed to gain more information or grapple with larger questions. We dealt with such topics as how we live our covenants, leadership, strategic planning, our Constitution and By-laws, personnel, and fair compensation. Before each topic discussion, we had materials to read that formed a basis for our discussion. This "Think Tank" time in our meetings also let us look at the function of our Board and to examine what our congregation needs from its leadership. We looked at expanding the number of church members who are involved in leadership roles. In order to do this, we had to examine our own Board of Trustees, our effectiveness, and our purpose. Your Board of Trustees can no longer be involved in all parts of the church. Our church is too large and complex. We concluded that our focus really needed to be fiduciary and policy oriented. To that end, we, like the majority of Boards of churches our size, looked at decreasing the size of the Board to increase our effectiveness and focus. Along with this, we set a goal of including more of our congregation in leadership roles. Our first "Taste of Leadership" was held in March 2007. We not only tasted wonderful food, but 40 of our Members were able to begin to taste how they might be involved in leadership within our church. Leadership goes beyond serving as committee chairs and officers of the church. It is the many ways in which people take responsibility, influence the church, and facilitate the functioning of the church. This group focused on the individual ways they could be part of the leadership of our church in ways that fit their talents, available time, and interests. Throughout the year, your Board of Trustees, through its "Policy and Transitions Committee" and with consultation and input from various church committees and from the congregation, has worked on proposed amendments to the Constitution and By-laws of our church. It is a daunting task, and a decision was made to propose smaller changes to the congregation at our Spring Congregational Meeting. Then an ad hoc committee of the Board would be appointed for next year to look at the entire set of documents and work on the next changes. The focused changes for this year involve a smaller sized Board of Trustees (from twelve to nine), clarification of the role of church officers, consistent definition of specialized committees, and clarification of language around Spendable Endowment. Additional areas of Board focus for the year were Stewardship and Personnel. Stewardship has been reinvigorated with a broader definition of its mission and has become a year-round viable committee. (See the Stewardship report in this document.) Stewardship was identified as a critical area in part because of the gap in the funds we raise as a congregation and the amount of dollars that are needed to support our infrastructure and strategic plan and in part because we need to recognize more fully the multiple ways in which we are stewards of our church and of what it stands for. There are exciting and innovative things happening in this arena, and with continued increase of awareness and support of our congregation, we will be able to move forward toward our hopes and dreams. The Personnel Committee of the Board has worked all year in looking at fair compensation and updating and writing our Personnel policies, which were approved by the Board at their March 2007 meeting. All in all, this has been an incredible church year full of growth and change. Our Board covenants have allowed us to work productively together in right relations. Change is not easy, but when we are in right relations with one another, it can be most gratifying. After six years on the Board, I will be moving on to other areas of church involvement. I thank you for the opportunity that I have experienced in working closely with many of you. It has been a most rewarding time, and I look forward to many more years of "faith in love and hope for community ‘keeping’ us ever growing and changing together. Peace." - Judith Rowell-DeVaney, President of UUCGL Board of Trustees Covenants with Each Other as Board Members
and Staff Our meetings will begin at 7:15 p.m. the fourth Wednesday of the month, unless alternative dates and times are set in advance. We will finish our meetings no later than 9:30 p.m. We will expect to spend 30 minutes of each Board meeting for extended issue discussion and education on a designated issue; our Think Tank items. We each promise to read the materials in advance and come prepared to the meetings. We will not take time to fill in the uninformed members during the meeting. All reports from staff and committees need to be sent by e-mail to Board members by Friday noon before the Wednesday meeting. We will put uuboard at the beginning of the subject line. Judith promises to get a pre-agenda out a week prior to Board meetings. Reply with your additions or corrections as soon as possible, and Judith will send out revised agendas on Monday. Any subsequent adjustments will be reviewed at the beginning of the meeting. We will communicate with Judith if we are unable to attend a meeting. We should let her know in advance as much as possible and can reply to her advance agendas with regrets only. Staff will let Kathryn know if they won’t attend. If we are running late or have an unexpected emergency, we will call the church at line 5, and Kathryn promises to check messages just before 7:15 p.m. Kathryn and Judith will communicate about who checked in, and if someone doesn’t show up who didn’t tell them they’d be gone, Kathryn or Judith will call to see if the missing Board member is okay. Draft minutes will be distributed to the Board members and staff a week following the meeting. The Board and staff will speak with one voice. That is, we will express our disagreements in our meetings together, but after a decision has been made, we will stand behind it. We each commit to remind each other of these covenants, especially when we fail to follow them. The covenants are not permanent rules, but rather a flexible description of our practice, and we can renegotiate and revise them as we discover better ways to work together. Judy Olson will print all the reports and documents that should have been read for the Board meeting and have those available for any visitors to see. If visitors need the reports in an accessible format, we can provide them with advance notice. Goals for 2007 UUCGL Board of Trustees will:
This job continues to grow and stretch my skills in all kinds of ways I never anticipated… It’s a good thing. This year I have been learning some administrative and supervision skills. I look forward to the day when the church is adequately staffed to serve you better. You all deserve the best! With help from the Board of Trustees, I defined the following goals for improvement this year:
Helping me oversee the ministry in general is the Committee on Ministry, whose members include Tim Goth-Owens (term expires ’07), Deb Mosher (term expires ’08), and Renee Swanson (term expires ’09). I acknowledge and appreciate their dedication and support. At five years, I have served you longer than 30 of your previous ministers (which sounds impressive but includes many interim posts). Since one of our mutual goals was to establish a long-term ministry together, I take pride in that figure. I enjoy working with this congregation very much and look forward to many more years together. - Rev. Kathryn A. Bert On January 21 of this year, the voting Members of this church voted to enter into a relationship of affiliation with me. This relationship has no budgetary implications, but it does signify a relationship between you and me and is also recognized by the Unitarian Universalist Association. In the last year my ministry called Spirit Rolling has had three areas of focus: Preaching, Medical Ethics, and Publicity. In the last year I have preached on at least ten occasions. I performed one wedding. I continue to consult with individuals and groups around the country about the curriculum that I wrote in 2004, "Perspectives on Disability." Medical Ethics has been a special area of focus for my study and my ministry. I find myself alluding to it in my sermons. I also had the occasion to write about its implications. By medical ethics I mean those thorny issues around the beginning and end of life. I mean also the ways people with disabilities are routinely treated by the medical establishment in this country. I have attempted to create a brochure for Spirit Rolling. This document has gone through several drafts, and I am still perfecting it. In the coming year I hope to see a website constructed that will highlight my ministry. I continue to serve on our national UUA appointed Accessibilities Committee. In January we met over a weekend and had a very productive meeting. I continue to enjoy serving the larger church in this way. I am very ably assisted in my work by a Committee on Ministry. They are Mary Smith, (chair) Shawn Riley, Margaret Holmes-Rovner, Marcus Cheatham, and Melanie Morrison. We meet monthly. Since, at this point, I feel my ministry to be new and fledgling, discerning the future is always part of our agenda. Please feel free to contact me or any of these persons. Sprit Rolling continues to find its wings and roll on. If there is a catch phrase for my work, it is to "appreciate complexity" knowing it is important for all sides to a story or situation to be heard. In faith, Rev. Laurie Thomas ADULT RELIGIOUS EDUCATION COMMITTEE 2006 Accomplishments: In the fall of 2006, four classes were offered: World Religions: Religions of the Far East, Rise Up & Call Her Name, Coming of Sage, and Perspectives on Disability. Unfortunately, none of the classes were actually held, due to low interest and the need for rescheduling. We believe that the increase in interest in Covenant Groups may have affected our enrollments. Feedback received later does indicate that there is enough interest to try running the classes again with the hope that more people can fit them into their schedules at that time. Family movie nights were met with great enthusiasm in the summer months, but attendance waned as school resumed and through the holiday season. We made the decision to place the movie nights on hiatus, with the intention of offering them again if interest increases. In the winter and early spring of 2007, both the Adult OWL and You the Creator classes were offered and are still in progress at the time of this report. A four-week Journey Towards Wholeness seminar was offered in January. The committee jointly sponsored a Group Facilitation Skills workshop by Julica Hermann, which was a huge success. The Perspectives on Disability class is scheduled to be held later in the spring. The committee chair attended the Heartland District meeting and its Adult RE workshops. Connections made and ideas shared in the workshops will be used to help revitalize and grow our program. 2007 Goals: The committee is looking at ways to increase its membership and include new voices in the process of serving the congregation through Lifespan Faith Development. We would like four classes offered in the upcoming fall season, with at least two of them having enough interest to get them off the ground. A creative writing workshop is in the early developmental stages of planning. We remain open to resuming the family movie nights if the congregation is interested. The committee is open to exploring new ideas like offering classes during the summer months and to working with other groups such as Covenant Groups and Children's RE to reduce schedule conflicts and explore joint offerings. We look forward to meeting the needs of the adults of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing. - Martha Kuepper, Chair Activities this year: Our committee has met about once a month during the past year. We: (1) elected new co-chairs and have refocused the committee on identifying our current holdings; (2) began coordination of a church history with the help of other committees; and (3) implemented archival processes and standard forms and began accessioning of materials. Goals for the future: We plan to continue applying our hands-on experience with standard archival processes to identify, arrange, and describe the materials and information in the church archives. Our goal is to complete identification of all material in our possession, prepare procedures for new materials, and plan for access methods to the material we think useful for connecting with our church’s past and planning for its future. -Ed Busch, Cochair BUDGET
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