December 2021 - Page 2 of 2

REAL Team Meeting: December 15, 2021

REAL Team Meeting – Wednesday, December 15, 2021
at 7:00 – 8:30 PM

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/my/ms.crawford

Do you understand the relationship between defensiveness and fear? When faced with new or challenging ideas, why do we become defensive? Defensiveness often comes from the fear of losing power, losing face, losing comfort and losing privilege. It is this defensive behavior that creates an oppressive culture. Judy Blair’s video focuses on this characteristic of white supremacy, on what we must learn about our own defensiveness and discusses ways in which defensiveness toward new ideas get in the way of our anti-racist work.

The video “How Can We Win” is a powerful look by Kim Jones at civil unrest. She talks about protestors, rioters and looters; and the need to focus on why people are creating civil unrest not what they’re doing. Jones points out the great disparity between what black people can get and the hopelessness many feel about what is unobtainable.

Join the Real Team this Wednesday, December 15 at 7 p.m. to discuss how we can acknowledge our defensiveness and change our behavior. In addition, we’ll get a glimpse of turmoil and pain faced by the black community when white supremacy interferes with liberty and justice. Last of all, we will briefly discuss the use of light and darkness imagery, especially at this time of year, and how to keep our language mindful and anti-racist.

We ask you so join us as we move forward to fulfil the UU 8th Principle.

“We, a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

Becky Crawford, Martha Holman, Cheryl Mounts, Gail Smith

REAL Team Meeting: December 15, 2021UCE UCE2021-12-10T16:35:06+00:00

December 12, 2021

We will host an in-person and virtual worship service on Sunday, December 12th at 10:15 am.

“Joy Shall Be Yours in the Morning”
UCE’s traditional Music Sunday with a medley of musicians to help us find joy on the journey toward the longest night and the cold of winter. Worship leaders are Music Director, Vickie Hellyer, Rev. Eileen Wiviott, with guest storyteller, Graig Tertulien, and worship associates Tory Bassani, Jane Kenamore, and Robb Geiger.

A few important notes about participating in-person:

Everyone over 2 in and around the UCE building will need to be masked.
We will maintain physical distance, which means, chairs will be spaced apart and seating is limited in the sanctuary to 150. We will have overflow seating in room 3 (30) and room 6 (25), to participate in the service through the livestream.
Vaccinations are expected. We are a pro-vaccination community. For your well-being and the safety of the whole community, if you can be vaccinated, get vaccinated!
Please review our UCE Guidelines for Building Use before Sunday.

Please submit your Joys and Sorrows through this online form. If you submit a message by 9 am, we will try to read it that Sunday. Thank you for your patience as we are adapting to best serve you all! Note there will only be one service time so that we can gather together as a whole community of faith. You can still give to the shared offering through “text to give,” mail a check to the office with “shared offering” in the memo line, or go to our website and hit “give” on the upper right or click here. This Sunday’s shared offering recipient is Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC).

December 12, 2021UCE UCE2021-12-10T20:10:43+00:00

BOT Report on the Nov 18 Board Meeting: December 3, 2021

At our regular November meeting, we devoted considerable attention to Board priorities regarding the pending annual pledge drive and the 22/23 UCE budget.  We realized that this will be a challenging year, financially.  

We developed a balanced budget this year despite the loss over the last couple years of significant rental income and the loss of our largest pledge, due to changes in their circumstances. This happened with important increases in pledges and to a nonrecurring $72,000 federal PPP grant.  

The first pass for next year, which importantly aims to maintain current programs and staff, projects an operating shortfall of about $46,000. (This does not include any additions to programming or personnel.)

The Board has asked the Budget Working Group to look for new resources and to consider using existing resources in different ways to increase funds available for the budget. 

We also discussed a proposal that Endowment funds cannot be used for issue advocacy. Our research has shown that we can indeed use any of our resources to advocate for issues which support our UU values, as long as we stay within the IRS rules in this regard. Our present and past activities have stayed within federal requirements. A special Board meeting will be held December 15 for the purpose of considering the grant applications submitted by the October 31 deadline.

More routine issues included policy governance monitoring of Treatment of Staff and Compensation and Benefits, noting that some of our staff positions pay below the UUA mid-point for metropolitan congregations of our size.

The next regular Board meeting is December 16 at 7:00 PM via Zoom. All are welcome.

BOT Report on the Nov 18 Board Meeting: December 3, 2021UCE UCE2021-12-03T18:41:17+00:00

Dec WTC Reading: December 19, 2021

Widening the Circle of Concern
Reading for December 19 Faith Formation Hour

December 19th 11:30-12:30

4th Chapter – Hospitality and Inclusion

Come learn how hospitality imbues every aspect of congregational life. Congregants are encouraged to participate in small group discussions of the Report of the UUA Commission on Institutional Change, Widening the Circle of Concern. This report is a guiding document for UCE’s Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression work.

For our discussion in December, you are encouraged to read the chapter on Hospitality and Inclusion before December 19th so you are prepared for the conversation. You do not need to have participated in previous conversations to join this one! These conversations will be taking place in-person as well as on Zoom. If you hold a marginalized identity and would want an identity-based caucus space to discuss Widening the Circle of Concern, please contact Rev. Eileen Wiviott or Rev. Susan Frances by December 12th so we can arrange that space.

The UUA Commission on Institutional Change (COIC) was commissioned by the 2017 General Assembly to conduct an audit of the power structures within the UUA and analyze systemic racism and white supremacy culture within our movement. This report, issued in June 2020, is the result of three years of labor by the COIC, gathering painful stories and doing the difficult emotional labor of identifying the ways systemic racism exists within Unitarian Universalism. The purpose and goals of the report include, to “identify the aspects of [white supremacy] culture that must be dismantled to transform us into a faith for our times.” 

As the Board of Trustees, staff, and a few members have engaged with this report over the past year, we are clear that dismantling systemic racism within our institution is a shared responsibility and requires all of us to take part. Please join us in these vital conversations the 3rd Sunday of each month during the Faith Formation Hour through June 2022 (except April will be the 2nd Sunday). 

~ Rev. Eileen Wiviott and Rev. Susan Frances

Dec WTC Reading: December 19, 2021UCE UCE2021-12-03T18:37:56+00:00

From EOD: December 3, 2021

Greetings everyone,

As the holidays fast approach, I hope you and your family are well and navigating the many challenges we face each day. There has been much loss in our congregation, family and friends. May we all find peace and strength in the midst of change and heartbreak.

Your staff continues to brings the best possible service to you, our members and friends. We are in the midst currently of planning the 2022/23 Pledge Drive. Jim Strickler and Raphael Fernandez are this year’s co-chairs. We have met as a team and are continuing to add members to the team to get this important effort launched in February.

Today you will be receiving an email from Finance@ucevanston.org. Your fiscal year 2021/22 pledge statement and capital campaign statement will be included in this email. If you find that our information does not match yours, please contact Vickie Doebele, Staff Accountant in the paragraph or call 847-864-1330 x 109 and discuss with Vickie. Our hope is that members and pledging friends can respond with payments toward outstanding pledges as we approach December 31st. Thank you for your generosity and continued support of UCE and the many programs and activities that move us closer to accomplishing our mission of “Nurturing the Human Spirit for a World Made Whole”.

Your church finances continued to be managed well and Integrated Stewardship Council meets every second Thursday at 6 p.m. So far, this fiscal year we are holding our own. Expenses are monitored carefully by your EOD and Tom Carlton, Treasurer is doing an excellent job of working with our Staff Accountant Vickie Doebele to keep the books in good order. Per our by-laws we will be conducting an official “Financial Review” by an outside accounting firm by the name of ECS Financial Services. This work will be done in early January after the Audit Task Force agreed upon to hire this firm. Thank you to Vickie Doebele for juggling the many bookkeeping responsibilities she handles. In addition to our operating fund Vickie is a volunteer bookkeeper for the Capital Campaign and serves on the REALM Database Team with Rev. Susan Frances, Jessica Meis and Adam Gough. Thank you to all of you and to Tom Carlton.

The Budget Working Group of the Integrated Stewardship Council has met and will meet again today to review a second pass at the proposed budget for 2022/23 fiscal year. Next year will be a challenging year as we will not have the benefit of the PPP that helped us through the pandemic. Pledges and contributions will be all the more essential as we move forward to next year. Team members are Tom Carlton, Treasurer; Susan Comstock, Immediate Past Treasurer and ISC Member at Large; Joe Romeo, Board Chair, Rev. Eileen Wiviott and myself. Once our preliminary budget is established it will be presented to the ISC and then to the Board of Trustees. A final version will be voted on in April in preparation for the May Annual Meeting.

Next week our Lobby Refurbishment Team meets with two woodworkers who will provide quotes on our new “Welcome Center”. This project has been long in the making, but we believe you will be pleased with the outcome once complete. This will be a welcoming piece that provides a focal point for those entering our church to meet with our membership team representatives, sign in and get more information as needed. A computer will be located at that station where one can sign into REALM. Storage of membership materials and a brochure rack will be integrated into this piece of furniture.

The hallway bulletin boards and monitors are a big improvement toward getting the message out about who we are, what we are about, and how one can get involved in programs or activities. If you have not taken a moment to stop and check these out, please do.

The Sanctuary Cooling Team continues to meet weekly and do the work of getting air conditioning installed before summer. We have two contractors we are working with after much research over the past year and a half. Greg Grabowski, Michael Drennan and I are using a matrix designed to help us organize the information we have gleaned. Currently we are very close to being on track per the timeline we established and shared with the Board of Trustees.

The Intergenerational Playscape Garden has held up well. We lost only a few minor plants which will be replaced in spring. Our littles love the berm where they climb, run and play. If you have not yet checked out the mosaics in the hopscotch area or leading to the labyrinth and next to the ramp, please do so. Families, parents, children and a few of us staff had a wonderful time together making these mosaics with Artist Indira Johnson. Indira came this week to do a final step of protective coating.

We are looking forward to the spring when we can add furniture pieces, the fountain (or sculpture) and the fairy houses in the wooded area. Stay tuned for more information.

Rentals continue to return to UCE, of course, following our UCE COVID Guidelines. This is an important revenue stream for us as well as providing a welcoming environment for those from outside our doors to utilize our space.

Staff will be sending a communication out soon to all of you who helped with our annual Rummage Sale and last year’s pop-up sale. We have some preliminary ideas for how we can make this year’s budgeted event successful. If you are interested in being involved in any way, big or small, please let me know.

Please feel free to contact me with questions, ideas or concerns you may have that relate to the building/grounds, events, rentals, or finance: Srobinson@ucevanston.org or 847-864-1330 x 108

Sandra Robinson, EOD

From EOD: December 3, 2021UCE UCE2021-12-03T18:02:48+00:00

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