Seeking UCE Congregational Leaders

Do you know how we choose congregational leaders at UCE? Do you think the leadership selection process should be more equitable and more transparent? Do you have opinions about who our future leaders should be? Do you want to join the UCE board or one of the UCE leadership committees yourself? Read on to understand our leadership selection process, and to make your voice heard about how it works or who our leaders should be.

Per the UCE bylaws, our congregational leaders are elected at each Annual Meeting in May, when the voting membership selects a third of each of the Board of Trustees, the Endowment Committee, and the Nominating and Recruiting Committee. Trustees and committee members each serve a 3-year term, starting and ending a third at a time, on a staggered basis, so that a third of each group has their terms expire and their replacements elected each year. (Members often drop off for personal reasons before their 3-year term ends, resulting in more than 1/3 turnover most years.)

The Nominating & Recruiting (N&R) Committee identifies and nominates qualified candidates from the congregation to serve on each of these committees. Through a process that starts each fall, the N&R team conducts one-on-one conversations across the congregation to find members who are interested in and whose skill sets match the needs of the positions opening in the spring.

The N&R team recruits broadly and aspires to find diverse, previously unidentified candidates. This article is penned by the N&R team to spread the word about recruiting, in hopes of finding leadership candidates who may not be known to N&R, or who may not be aware of UCE leadership opportunities.

What can you do to help shape our future UCE leadership? You can:

• Talk with any of the 2018-2019 N&R team: John LaPlante (co-chair), Shirley Adams (co-chair), Vicki Doebele, Alice Swan, Sarah Iles, Ruth Orme-Johnson, Woody Haynes, Beth Thompson and Maggie Wilson.
• Help recruit your fellow UCE members as volunteers, especially people the N&R team may not know.
• Share your thoughts with N&R through the feedback forms we will have set up at bulletin boards, or look for us at the back of the sanctuary on first Sundays of each month.
• Email the N&R co-chairs with questions, thoughts and feedback: shirley@comeoutdancing.com, johnlaplante73@gmail.com.
• Suggest a UCE member as a potential leadership candidate.
• Let us know that you’re interested in being considered for leadership!

Stay tuned for a follow up article about the current N&R team’s aspirations for 2018-2019.