My Dear Church Community,
Today I have three topics to present to you. First, you will be reading this after our very first meeting of the new 2022-2023 Board of Directors, which consists of our annual “Board Retreat” being held, Saturday, August 20, in the auditorium of Azalea Trace, a lovely, large space, graciously arranged for us by Georgieanna Bryant, who resides there. She told me that her dear friend, Barbara Goggins was very anxious for Georgieanna to join her there, and there was a sad sweetness to the fact that Barbara waited for her friend to get settled before she passed on to her next adventure in the great beyond.
Our Retreat is a day-long gathering in which new and old board members get to know each other better to facilitate better communication, and we review or learn about the established workings of the church, while examining how things might change for the better. We also have some decisions to make about reassigning some of the ministers duties which existed outside of providing the Sunday Services.
Since this hasn’t happened yet as of this writing, this is just a preview, with more to come next month.
The second topic is to report on our Welcoming Congregation application. Although we submitted the application to UUA on May 28, just a few days after our congregational vote, the UUA website stated that we should expect to allow 60 days for a response. At the beginning of July, I emailed to check on their progress, and received no response, so I called the Boston UUA office. That office is still working remotely, but I left a voicemail, and another one a week later. I emailed again later in July, with no response. In early August I reached out to our Southern Region lead by phone, text and email, and received no response. Finally about ten days ago I emailed again and copied seven different people within UUA and the Southern Region and received a response late that night which finally resulted in the next step toward our receiving the designation: an interview by Zoom, which is scheduled for Thursday, August 18. So there’s another thing I can report on next month! (The moral of the story is “Ya gotta REALLY want it!”)
The third topic is what is probably on most of your minds already: ELECTION TIME. I hope you will all do what you can to help get our most compassionate and honest candidates into office as is in keeping with our Seven Principles and our Covenant, which ends with “help one another”. If you’re not sure how to help, there are some great suggestions on the UU Website, under UU The Vote, which you can find by clicking on this link: https://www.uuthevote.org/7-ways/. If anyone in our congregation would like to spearhead or assist in one of the congregational activities listed on the site, please let me know and I’ll help you!
Here’s hoping to see you at church (or you can see us on YouTube.)
In Love and Fellowship,
Laura KK