BOARD OF TRUSTEES ANNUAL MEETING
By Sally Parsons
The UUCE Board of Trustees (BOT) gathered this past weekend to reflect on goals set for the past year and set new ones for 2026-27.
Friday evening Rev. Eileen borrowed from Peter Block’s book Community and reminded us that the role of the BOT is to provide a special kind of leadership — one that shifts emphasis away from the corporate model relying on laws, oversight, and systems to one that centers community, focuses on the members, and practices accountability. Leadership is a quality that resides in all of us, she reminded us.
Saturday, we began by reviewing our work on the goals set for the past year: the identity/name change process and communicating across differences. (These goals came from the Big Questions discussions in 2025.) Steps have been taken to formally change our name with state agencies and the City of Evanston. References to our community have been updated in many of our documents, at Sunday services, and in informal exchanges by members as we chat with each other and with our families and friends. Work continues into 2027 under a committee led by the Board, to ensure the legal name change is completed and the marketing branding moves forward.
On the goal of communicating across differences, discussion this past year began on options for improving our ability to bridge differences with love and respect. As we move ahead, this topic will be folded in with the upcoming discussions on updating our covenant of engagement. It is a living document and thus should be revisited regularly. Since our current covenant was created 15 years ago, it is time. The BOT proposed a critical question for everyone’s input: “Does the current covenant help us to engage with one another?”
The BOT approved a process for revisiting the covenant, beginning in October and proceeding through various ways to get input from the congregation, then concluding with a final draft to be presented for vote at the annual meeting in May.
The Board moved on to a discussion and approval of the next agenda item — a written process establishing an evaluation of our shared ministry. Proposed was a three-year cycle, during which one year would focus on the ways in which the Senior Minister is enhancing our shared ministry and the ways in which more could be done. The next year would ask the same questions of the Board of Trustees, and the third year would address these questions with the congregation as a whole. Unlike corporate performance evaluations, this one consists of a more relational, transparent, honest, open, and mutually accountable process.
