Technology and a Lasting Legacy

Dear friends,

This last month we’ve seen a lot going on in the church, and I wanted to highlight one thing in particular: technology. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be preparing for our annual meeting. The annual meeting is where we get together as a congregation to talk about the budget, but like many things, our budget is a reflection of our priorities. As UUCP continues to grow, we see a few areas where we need to fix— specifically in our messaging.

As you know, we’ve done a tremendous amount of work in our audiovisual “department” of the church since COVID. If you remember, our online presence prior to COVID was nearly non-existent outside of our website and Facebook page. With the help of Reverend Alice, Erin Renfroe, Laura Keith King, Bill Caplinger, and several other members, we now have a healthy presence on YouTube. Our services have been recorded and sometimes broadcast live. As a result, people who wanted to learn about the church had the ability to watch a few services in comfort of their homes or their phones, or even listen to them on their phones during a walk or while driving to pick up the kids. Considering how much we’ve grown shows two things: 1) people apparently like our message, and 2) the videos are working. That’s great! Now, here’s the issue: our technology is outdated and our volunteer crew is getting tired.

We just marked four years since COVID forced us all to learn more about technology. This has been good for many of us, but it also means we need to grow as the technology advances. Some of these advances will help our congregation grow, but to get state-of-the-art technology, we have to spend a few dollars. If the budget gets approved, we hope to use the money that was gifted to us by our late member Rob Palme to help update our audiovisual presence online and continue to grow the church. Considering the last gift by a member of the Palme family helped to give us the projector we see every week (to see the effectiveness of that, try to think of a service recently where we didn’t use the projector), we think this is fitting and our congregation would be good stewards of his donation if it went towards something that we strongly believe will enhance our church and move UUCP well into the modern era. As you know, Rob was a very generous man with a kind heart. He also loved UUCP. We have honored him by placing his name on our memorial wall, and we hope to continue to honor his memory through a major technology upgrade that will allow our message of peace and justice to resonate throughout the community and help find those folks who need to hear it.

And yes, we strongly believe that some of those people who hear our message will join us at UUCP one day. Like all investments, especially into advertising, you won’t likely see the pay offs right away. The board does believe, however, this is the time to begin these upgrades to make the work easier for our volunteers who’ve been staffing the cameras and editing the videos that you see online. Through this purchase, there will be a tangible use of Rob’s donation that we feel will be fitting and truly give Rob a lasting legacy that we hope would make him proud.