Name Task Force
Report on January Conversations
Conversation Questions:
- What about our faith community brings you joy or is essentially us?
- Should we include “Unitarian Universalist” in our name?
- What organizational structure describes us in our name? e.g. church, society, fellowship, congregation, community?
- What is the naming element that is important to you? e.g. a value, physical location, geographical feature, inspirational person?
- Do you have a suggestion for our name? *These names will be shared with the congregation to vote on their top choices*
12 conversation groups met engaging 51 people using 7 facilitators and scribes. 11 Elders were interviewed individually. The YRUU teens discussed the questions and came to some consensus with their contributions. Submissions were also received from the January 31rst Chapel and Faith Development. Read the complete notes of conversations here
The overall, nearly universal, response to what is essentially us, was the relationships with people, and after that our engagement with social justice issues. Every conversation was nearly unanimous that Unitarian Universalist should be in our name. That it is our identity. The most consistent organizational structure which folks felt was appropriate was “congregation” especially if there was one participant in the conversation who described why “church” was off putting to them, due to its Christian connotations. Those participants were universally swayed to want our name to be appealing to everyone from any hereditary faith tradition. In the two conversations where “Fellowship” came up and a retired minister was in attendance, it was explained that our UU tradition of a Fellowship, is that it insinuates that it is a small congregation without a minister, and it developed into a legacy of indicating that the congregation was opposed to having a minister. Neither of those groups proposed naming us a “Fellowship.”
In the list of 64 choices, we grouped them by the place name “Charlottesville,” and then by all of the location names suggested. It should be noted that there is already a congregation named Unitarian Universalists of the Blue Ridge in Sperryville, Virginia. Then we grouped them by the suggested name of Unitarian Universalist with different organizational identifiers. Also, it should be noted that there is an All Souls Church in Washington, DC.
The largest group of suggested names are by value. It is worthy of note that the group whose member suggested the variants of “beloved community” inspired an interesting discussion about whether that is appropriation, since it is a term strongly associated with Martin Luther King, Jr. It was thought that it might also imply that we have a significant membership of African Americans in our congregation. The last grouping are names which are two line names, with a subtext.
Many people preferred what they referred to as a “simple” name. Names like Unitarian Universalists of Charlottesville and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville were frequently mentioned. One participant explained this preference as “Our name is our signage. Clarity of the name helps give answers without raising more questions.” Another noted that “aspirational names/inspirational people might go out of date over time.”
In the spirit of brainstorming, every name suggested is listed. We plan to offer the chance to vote (5 votes from most to least) with a resulting weighted list of our favorite names using Survey Monkey, sent out during the month of February. All congregants may vote, including children, and we trust each person to be honest and vote only once. We expect a few names to rise to the top.
In March we will organize small and large group conversations to discuss and come to consensus about our name. Hopefully this will result in fewer than three names for a vote on our name at the Annual Congregational Meeting on June 6th.
