We will hold small group Town Hall conversations about the top choices for a new name on April 18th AFTER Sunday Service (at the same zoom link) . We will also talk to the children and adults in Chapel on that day. There is also a chance to attend a Town Hall discussion on April 20 at 7PM: Zoom link https://zoom.us/j/97080473298.
The name change survey survey had 194 participants, who, since we include children, are over half of the congregation. We find this to be a significant community response. In the PDF of the survey results, if you look at the Total Votes, you will see how many people (out of 194) voted for a particular name. The Weighted Score means that when you ranked a name as your favorite, it gets 5 points, ranking it as second gives it 4 points, etc.
These results show a huge difference between the first two (Unitarian Universalists of Charlottesville and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville) and the following three (Unitarian Universalist Community of Charlottesville, Unitarian Universalists of Greater Charlottesville, and Unitarian Universalists of Central Virginia). It is clear that there are two major preferences, Unitarian Universalist at the beginning of our name and the place name of Charlottesville. Since “Charlottesville Congregation of UU” does not have UU at the beginning, as all the others do, we chose not to include it in our consensus discussions. We also have decided not to include the 6th choice.
Both of our retired minister members, Wayne Arnason and Karen Foley, commented in our Conversations regarding our UU history . The term, “fellowship” was employed intentionally by the American Unitarian Association during the fifties when they saw an opportunity to start many new congregations during the post-WW II era, but did not have enough ministers to serve them. So rather than call them “churches” they described them instead as “fellowships”. Over the years some fellowships grew and eventually called ministers. Some changed their name and others didn’t. Also we felt it is a gendered name.
As we move forward, and in April’s Town Hall event, we will be discussing the top five which can be thought of as:
• Simply, the name, “Unitarian Universalists of Charlottesville”
• or having a greater area “Central Virginia or Greater Charlottesville.”
• or with the descriptor “Congregation or Community”