Can We Talk?

Do you remember Joan Rivers, the comic many of us grew up watching on the Tonight Show?  As part of her schtick she often used the phrase, “Can We Talk?”  Audiences expected to hear it from her each time she performed even to the extent that they would shout it at her.

Now, your Board of Trustees wants to ask, “Can We Talk?”  In fact, the Board wants to hear from you so much that it made “Continual Communication” with the membership one of its primary goals for 2017-18.  The Board especially wants to know what you enjoy about your UCE experience, what you are less excited about, and what you would suggest the Board think about as they plan for the future.  It wants to know your thoughts about UCE and its involvement in our community, our denomination, in our world.

Already there are opportunities for you to share your thoughts and more are planned for the future.  Trustee and Board of Trustee Vice-President Jeanne Kerl has conducted and is planning additional “Chat with the Board” sessions that will give you an opportunity to speak with a Board member.  Participation in the upcoming “Powerful Question” sessions will present you the opportunity to answer questions such as “What kind of a church are we?” and “What should we be?”

The Board hopes you will seize the opportunity to share what you think.  UCE has a strong history and a bright future.  With your participation, the future will shine even more brightly.

Kerry Heckman

The Board of Trustees recently finalized our goals for the upcoming year. One of our goals is to “Assure that the Long-Range Plan continues towards activation.” That’s where you come in. As leaders and members of committees and teams, it’s time to update your 5 year plan.

Two years ago we started the long range planning process here at UCE. Each team and committee developed short term and long term goals with check points along the way. The start of the church year marks another check point.

So, what does that mean for your group? It means committee leaders should plan a meeting with your teams. When you meet, take out your 5 year plan and assess your progress. Review your milestones and determine if you have met your goals. Some teams will be ahead of schedule, while others will be on track or slightly behind.

You can see your overall goals on the UCE website by following this link: https://ucevanston.org/long-range-planning/

If you’re on track—good for you. Maybe spend some time talking about how you got there and how you can stay on schedule for the next milestone.  And celebrate your successes!

If not, here are some questions to ask your team:

Do we need to reevaluate our goals? Have circumstances changed and we need to refocus? Did the recent election change our goals? What are some things we’ve learned along the way that can help us improve our plan? Do we need to refocus one our goals?

Then, take some time to update your plan.

Why are we doing a long range plan? The reason is twofold. One, we are preparing for the upcoming capital campaign and this helps us understand how much money we need to raise to meet our goals. Two, long range planning helps teams take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The visioning process helps us know where we want to be in five years and then we can work backwards and develop concrete action steps.

The board wants to celebrate your successes, so email kerryheckman@gmail.com or jbannor@sbcglobal.net if there is something you want lifted up to the congregation.

We hope this has been a valuable exercise for your teams and you feel it has helped you reach for bigger and better outcomes. In the end, it is all about having the greatest impact and fulfillment possible.

The board of trustees got together on August 4-5 for our annual retreat (to Room 3!) to get to know new members Jane Bannor and Jim Clark, and get ourselves geared up for our new year.  Our new board president, Janelle Brittain, assembled an agenda that included collaborative communication, whys and hows of Policy Governance (the set of UU governance practices that we as a church having been using), selecting our board goals for the year, reviewing key aspects of our financial statements, and two guest speakers.

The most significant topic of our agenda was around taking our Policy Governance practices to the next level.  The board feels that we are working well together and we like the structure of Policy Governance, but that we perhaps spend too much time looking at staff reports instead of on our most important job of focusing on the big picture. Laura Park from Unity Consulting in St Paul, which specializes in UU Policy Governance, led us via teleconference in a 2 ½ hour workshop to help us improve on the areas where we think the board should do better.  We focused our discussion on increasing communication with the congregation (“board linkage”, in Policy Governance terminology), and on increasing attention on the congregation’s vision of ourselves and where we hope to be heading.

Our second guest speaker was Eileen Heineman, Director of Racial Justice Community Engagement at the Evanston YWCA.  Eileen spoke on sensitizing us to the sense of otherness anyone not fitting into a majority group might feel—and how best to approach situations where we want people to feel welcome and accommodated, but not singled out. Thank you to REAL for arranging this excellent talk.

Board goals for this coming year include:

• – Use a “powerful question” as a way to have deep conversation among the board and the congregation members that will help tune us into our shared vision

• – Improve board skills, especially specific skills around leadership and communication

• – Help assure that the Capital Campaign has a good start

• – Maintain good linkage with the congregation—gather information around needs and interests, and make sure relevant board information is shared with the congregation in interesting ways

 – Assure that the Long-Range Plan continues towards activation

In addition to Janelle, Jane and Jim, board members this year include Kerry Heckman, Heike Eghardt, Tom Ticknor, Susan Comstock, Gary Zachny and Jeanne Kerl.  All of us love to hear from anyone in the congregation—please grab any of us with any thoughts, ideas or concerns!

The Board members of UCE are delighted to welcome so many new members to our congregation over the last year or two. From our own experience, we know that it can be difficult to figure out how to meet a wider circle of people and fit into such a large congregation. The New Member team works hard to help new folks, but we thought we’d also do our part by sharing this:

1) Sign up to volunteer at a Soup Kitchen (email Marilyn Wroblewski at mwroblew1109@gmail.com). These happen Spring, Summer, & Fall.
2) Volunteer to work at the Rummage Sale. Lots of love goes into putting this together and it’s a huge effort and a big boost for the UCE budget.
Email Maggie Wilson at manddwilson@msn.com. Even 1 shift of a few hours helps them out!
3) Share a meal with folks from the Rainbow Alliance, Saturday, April 8 at the Celtic Knot, 12:00 pm (Please rsvp to Jeanne Kerl at figkerl@gmail.com)
4) Stick around for coffee & bagels and sit by someone new.
5) Go to a Principles & Sources discussion on April 2nd between the two services, 10:15 to 11:00am
6) Go to a movie or book discussion that is advertised in the newsletter
7) Check out the Social Action calendar for an event that interests you.
8) Volunteer to help teach Sunday School next year. Curriculum and teacher training is provided. Email Reverend Connie at cgrant@ucevanston.org.
9) Join a Covenant group, check them out at the information tables on Covenant Sunday, April 2nd or talk with Eileen Wiviott.
10) Go to a Crackerbarrel discussion.
11) Check out a Spiritual Journeys class–there is one this Sunday, March 26th, 10:15 to 11:00am in Room 12.
12) And poke around on the UCE website to learn about upcoming events, volunteer opportunities and more.

Obviously, each person at UCE would put together their own unique top 12, but we wanted to share a few of our ideas with you. In our experience, you just have to try things out to see what fits for you.

And, please, seek us out and introduce yourselves to us. We’d love to meet you

—from the Board, Barbara Ghoshal, Ann Gadzikowski, Gary Zacny, Heike Eghardt, Janelle Brittain, Kerry Heckman, Tom Ticknor, Susan Comstock, and Jeanne Kerl.

The Board Wants to Hear from You

Submitted by Kerry Heckman

This year the Board of Trustees set the following goal: “Increase Congregational Linkage Through Communications”

Our original intent was for us to communicate more to the congregation, through media such as the newsletter. Then, we realized communication goes two ways and we’d like to invite the congregation to communicate with us.

The recent Presidential election may have some of us questioning, “Who does the government actually work for?” The government is supposed to work for us. That is the purpose of the Board of Trustees. We are here to work for you. We are here to understand and bring about your vision for the church.

In October of 2014, we developed the “ends statements.” We met as a church to brainstorm what matters most to us. Then, the Board consolidated our vision into 5 short statements:

Spiritually aware: We cultivate spiritual awareness, joy and wonder through words, music, the arts and the natural world;

Intellectually excited: We foster intellectual excitement, lifelong learning, truth seeking, and respect for our traditions of reason and faith;

Community builders: We build beloved community through inclusive welcoming, compassion, care, generosity and forgiveness. We create a supportive place to take risks and grow in service to others;

Diverse in belief: We are a people of diverse beliefs united by our covenant. We develop relationships that open us to the lives of people in our congregation, community and world;

Acting for justice: We act for peace and for social, economic, and environmental justice through study, advocacy and outreach.

Each year the Board, ministers, and staff “monitor” each of the ends statements to determine whether or not we are living our vision. We evaluate based on the content of the worship services, the programming of the church, and the connections we are building outside of UCE.

The nine of us do our best to represent each and every member of the congregation, but we are only nine people. We welcome input from all of you. How are we living our “ends”? What are we doing well? What could we be doing better?

For those of you who don’t know who is on the current Board of Trustees, here is a list of our names (our contact information is listed in the church directory):

President: Barbara Ghoshal
Vice President: Janelle Brittain
Susan Comstock
Heike Eghardt
Ann Gadzikowski
Kerry Heckman
Jeanne Kerl
Tom Ticknor
Gary Zacny

Pull one of us aside after the service, request a one-on-one conversation, email us, or call us.

We are here to listen.

Following last summer’s General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, UCE’s attendees and several other interested congregational members became involved in several long e-mail conversations about the status of our Black Lives Matter sign.  At the July Board Meeting, the Trustees voted to appoint a task force to advise us on the issues raised in these conversations.  The task force submitted a report to the Board in August, and followed up with a presentation to the Board and further discussion at the October 19, 2016 meeting.

The task force consisted of Heike Eghardt, Sarah Vanderwicken, and Karen Courtright.  They were joined by Martha Holman for an edifying presentation and discussion at the October Board meeting, during which the Board accepted their report, including their recommendations.

Here is the report for your information. 

Barbara Ghoshal

The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Church of Evanston recommends that the discussion about a change to our name be concluded for the balance of the 2016-2017 church year. This does not preclude any member from filing a petition to put a name change on the ballot at a special or annual meeting in the future.

The Board of Trustees bases its recommendation on the response forms which members turned in to the Board. From October 2 through November 13 the Board provided twenty-two circle opportunities, for open and empathetic discussion of the issue. Fifty-five response forms were turned in over the course of those forty-three days. The breakdown of those fifty-five responses was: twenty against going forward, twenty-three for going forward with a commitment to a name change, ten for going forward without a commitment to a name change, and two with no choice marked.  More than three hundred sixty members did not respond at all.

The Board has accepted a staff recommendation to add “A Unitarian Universalist Congregation” to “The Unitarian Church of Evanston” on our sign on Ridge Avenue.

We would like to thank all those who participated in this discussion in whatever way they felt was appropriate. We are particularly grateful to Brian Meister, who facilitated the circle process with loving concern for the well-being of all members of the congregation.

Barbara Ghoshal, for the Board of Trustees

Scheduling Changes: Circles opportunities will be extended to November 13 meeting on Sundays only at 12:30. Those dates include Oct 16, 23, 30 and Nov 6, 13. The response forms will be accepted until Nov 13. The Board meets for our regularly scheduled meeting on Nov 16 where we will discuss a recommendation for next steps.

Response forms are available on the UCE bulletin board and will be available after Sunday services at the back of the sanctuary. Response forms can be returned to the UCE office in a mail slot dedicated to the Name Change Circles or a marked envelope at the same table the response forms will be after Sunday services.

You do not need to attend a circle to be able to return a response form.

We want to thank the members who have shared their thoughts/feelings on a name change with us through circles and in response forms. Remember, the data on your response forms is what we will use to decide our recommendation.

We want to acknowledge those members who might not attend a circle or turn in a form. Your silence on the issue of a name change is information we will take into account when deciding our recommendation.

There is a tension for us as we facilitate this process between wanting to hear your voices and seeming to over-promote the process. We will err a touch on the side of promoting the process to best give you an opportunity to be heard either in your participation or with your silence. We have been invited to facilitate a circle for Crackerbarrel (last week) and the Men’s Group (this week). We are willing to facilitate a circle if requested. We will share our Circle Process Agenda with you if you want to facilitate your own circle or you can use the Circle Process Agenda to engender discussion in your existing groups such as covenant groups.

For those who are curious about the numbers so far we have met with not quite 30 members as of this Wednesday with 15 forms turned in.

In peace and love,

Brian Meister, Board Member

The Importance of Feedback

We have received two important bits of feedback this week from our Beloved Community on the Name Change Discussion Circle Process. One was that we were not loud enough in introducing the Circle Process which we hope was answered by the blast that went out Monday to our members.

The other bit of feedback was that our silence on the history of past name change discussions and why we chose this time to have another discussion might seem to some that the Circle Process is inside politics. The feedback we received was that the Circle Process blast might not engage members who might be more engaged with details about the past and the present.

Our members come from many different religious backgrounds and experiences. For some of us this might be our first religious community. As a pluralistic religious community it is sometimes difficult to find language that fits all of us. The name of our religious home is often the first contact people have with us. The name might draw people in, might send a message that we are not a fit with other’s needs in a religious community, or might be benign in one’s search for a religious community. The name change discussions seem to derive from our personal stories of finding and living in such a pluralistic community along with how we present ourselves to the world around us.

The discussions through the years, I know of many from my 30 years of attending our Beloved Community, have led to at least one membership vote that failed to make a change and to a proposal for a name change at the 2015-2016 Annual Meeting. That proposal was taken off the ballot based on concerns that there were not enough opportunities for discussion on a name change. The discussions were lay led. The Board did not participate in a leadership role in the process.

The proposal was pulled with the understanding that there would be a process for discussion during the 2016-2017 year. The Board has taken a leadership role in this discussion process. We chose a circle process as we believe that circles give our Beloved Community members an opportunity to share their thoughts/feelings on a name change along with sharing empathy with other’s thoughts/feelings in a deep listening, covenant group style setting which fits well with our Covenant of Engagement.

Please keep the feedback coming. I promise the feedback will always be thoughtfully reflected upon and not always answered in a long written response.

Brian Meister Board Member