President’s Report to the Congregation, September 2018
Adam Slate
With the back-to-school season, the new year of activities at TJMC has begun in earnest. Earlier this month we celebrated Balloon Sunday with a wonderful intergenerational service, and last week we hosted a table at the Cville Pride Festival for the first time in several years. Our child and youth faith development classes are now underway, with new students and teachers experiencing what many think is one of our strongest church programs.
I have begun my second year as president of the TJMC Board of Trustees. I did not expect to be serving past the end of June, and so it is probably a good time to let you know how grateful I am to be able to contribute in this capacity. In the past year I have gotten opportunities to spend time with and get to know so many of you. I consider myself very fortunate to be blessed with this ministry; I serve a great congregation.
I know many of you find the prospect of serving on the Board of Trustees to be intimidating, but I hope you get to experience it at some point during your time at TJMC. Board service is a gift made all the more special by the other dedicated church members with whom you get to work. I want to make sure you know who these generous people are this year:
Ann Salamini, Secretary Donna Baker, Vice President
Jeanine Braithwaite, Treasurer Cindy Shepard
Ian Sole Elizabeth Breeden
Beth Jaeger-Landis Kelsey Cowger
Elizabeth, Beth, and Kelsey are newly elected, and all bring important gifts to the Board. Reverend Erik Wikstrom, Director of Administration & Finance Christina Rivera, and Director of Faith Development Leia Durland-Jones serve as non-voting members of the Board.
At the same September 9th congregational meeting where we held our elections, the congregation also approved the church budget for 2018-19. The meeting was not without significant friction, ostensibly around standard meeting procedures, but really a reflection of the discomfort and frustration felt by some members of the congregation this year. This frustration manifested itself at the meeting in the form of shouting, some antagonism, and occasional lack of courtesy to each other. I know it was a challenging meeting for many people.
I have also heard from some members of congregation, both in person and second-hand from church staff, that they felt unsafe in the meeting. We all have different thresholds for feeling unsafe, and the recent climate at church has pushed some of us over that threshold.
Policing behavior is not one of my responsibilities as president; each member must decide on their own how well or badly they will behave in relation to their fellow members. However it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of the church and each member of the congregation and TJMC staff. This is a responsibility I take very seriously.
The church has a Disruptive Persons Policy that defines a Conflict Resolution Committee tasked with evaluating disruptive incidents within the church, assess the risk to congregants, and determining an appropriate response. (If you’re interested, you can read it for yourself online in our Policy Manual.) In light of the recent congregational meeting, an anonymous written attack on a church staff member earlier this year, and an anonymous act of vandalism in the church earlier this year, all of which were almost certainly perpetrated by a member(s) of the congregation, I have asked the committee to convene to address these.
While I do not relish taking this action, there are limits to what we can and cannot do as members of the congregation, and this committee is responsible for determining when that line has been crossed. I hope this will be the end of the inappropriate and unacceptable incidents we have experienced this year that have left many of us feeling concerned and unsettled, and that we can continue honoring and discussing our differences in keeping with our Unitarian Universalist values.
Faithfully,
Adam Slate