From Board President, Pam McIntire
This last month at UUCville was yet another month filled with challenges, appreciation and changes. It was very hard to say goodbye to our beloved Rev. Linda at the end of our interim ministry years. She guided us with clarity and love through one of the most difficult periods of our congregation’s life. On June 12, we said an appreciative, but very sad, goodbye to her with a lovely Celebration of Blessings service and reception.
Our hardworking Finance Committee listened carefully to our Personnel Committee, the whole congregation and the board to develop a balanced budget that reflects our goals and priorities. The Finance Committee’s excellence in not only figuring out the numbers, but in also considering the heart of our congregation, led to respectful, thoughtful conversation and support. The smooth process was both productive and healing.
On June 5, we had a successful Congregational Meeting where we elected church leaders, made some changes to the bylaws and voted to accept the budget. Organizing and running the multiplatform meeting was a huge challenge, successfully met because so many people pitched in their help. People helped with developing the script, tech, registration of members, counting votes, opening and closing words, getting pizza for lunch, taking minutes, organizing the online folks, monitoring the chat box, counting votes, including people on the phone, monitoring the time, evaluating parliamentary procedures and making presentations. Happily, the meeting had a warm and inclusive atmosphere that represented the best of our hardworking and loving community.
As usual for the last nearly 2.5 years, COVID presented challenges. In consult with the Building Use/Reopening Task Force, we decided to shift our COVID safety policy from focusing on protecting everyone against COVID, including closing down the building, to educating everyone about best practices and requiring masks to be worn indoors.
As a result, we were able to continue with multiplatform services, in person RE and other gatherings. It was difficult to continue to require that everyone mask indoors because people long to shed the masks and be able to be fully together, but we were able to gather in person at the church while protecting each other from the virus. We greatly appreciate all the hard work of our Multiplatform services crew: our hardworking ministers, Rev. Linda and Rev. Leia, our worship weavers, Debby Norton, Greg Townsend, Clarisse Repass and Breck Gastinger, our choir and Director of Music, Scott DeVaux, our pianist John Mayhood, our amazing tech crew Sean Skally, Kelly Dryden and Celia DeVeaux and all our greeters, ushers, online welcomers and hospitality folks. Many thanks to all the people who make it possible for us to continue multiplatform services. We all long for the days where we don’t need to worry about COVID and masking.
As we turn toward Developmental Ministry, we look forward to welcoming Rev. Tim Temerson, getting to know him, and working on our Developmental Ministry goals. It was wonderful to meet Rev. Tim in person when he visited us after church on May 21st.
In the next months, we will begin to work on our Developmental Ministry goals with Rev. Tim.
As a reminder, the Developmental Ministry Goals are:
We want to define a broad shared vision of our purpose for being a congregation so that we can feel energized, dedicated, and aligned in the use of our resources.
We want to be a more welcoming, inclusive, and anti-racist congregation, cultivating greater diversity in our membership and stronger engagement with the broader Charlottesville community
We want to strengthen our Stewardship Ministry to manifest passionate support of our mission with time, wisdom, and finances.
We want to strengthen our internal processes and communication skills, build trust, and become more emotionally and operationally functional than we have been historically.
At this June Board Meeting we will say goodbye to several board members and appreciate all their hard work and commitment to serving our congregation: Elizabeth Breeden, Kelsey Cowger and Beth Jaeger-Landis. I have greatly appreciated not only their excellent work and wisdom, but also how they bring fun and kindness to board activities. I look forward to welcoming our new members: Renee Brett, Chris Little and Bev Ryan.
It is good to be with all of you and I look forward to another year of challenges and successes.