A Message From the President of the Board of Trustees

I have started my first month as board president, and the air is full of good news. We have a new Director of Religious Education, Kathy Underwood, starting in a couple of weeks; Eileen will be back from vacation 8/1 and fully take up her role as Acting Senior Minister; Adam Gough is working as Sound Person and as Congregational Life Assistant now and helping us tremendously; our new interim minister, Karen Gustafson, is planning with us before officially starting in September; we have a strong staff and volunteer team; the Capital Campaign has reached over 70% of goal and still climbing; and the summer weather is beautiful this week! Joyful to have all these good things working well at and for UCE!

And in answer to your questions…

Over the past many weeks, questions continue to come to some members of the Board and Search Committee about consideration of Eileen Wiviott as a candidate for the position of Settled Senior Minister. Eileen has signed a contract with UCE for this current year, ending June 30, 2020. We are pleased that she is working with us as Acting Senior Minister for this year.

However, it is important to continue our interim work of integrating our past and our future in a way that will hopefully form a solid and realistic foundation for whomever fills this position for the foreseeable future. The success of any candidate rests on our doing that work well with open minds and open hearts as we define more clearly who we are and who we want to be. Ideally the call will be a meeting of that vision with someone who is uniquely able to help us fulfill it. There is much to consider in this process. This can be an exciting and challenging time and we hope that you will all participate in ways that will lead to the best possible result.

Our new interim minister, Karen Gustafson is working closely with Eileen and the lay leadership of the congregation, making plans for this work ahead of us. We will be having an all-congregation event on September 8 (see below) for dialogue and information sharing around the remaining interim process.

As my mother used to say (yours too I imagine), patience is a virtue.

Yours in patience and collaboration,

Martha Holman

President, Board of Trustees