Dear UUSS Community,

This past weekend your Board of Trustees (BoT), (President: Sara Meixner, Vice- President: Eric Dahl, Treasurer: Pat Lilquist, Secretary: Bridget Almas, Trustees: Lisa Temoshok, Carol Conyers, Dan Leonard, and your Co-ministers (as non-voting ex-officio Board members,) met for a working retreat on Friday and Saturday.

We created a draft covenant for the ‘how’ we want to be together, per our Board Policy book, board norms for the ‘what’ we want as we work together, an Annual Focus of Ministry (AFoM), to guide the work of the Staff and Ministry Teams, and three new Open Questions to seek input from the Congregation.

This Board of Trustees (BoT), (like past Boards,) is a group of committed, caring, and intentional people, who take seriously the trust that has been placed in us to lead. We talked about the importance of communication, of accountability, and continuing to get clear on roles and authority in this third year of policy based governance. We, the BoT, will continue to work hard to follow our procedures, to develop policies, to adhere to the bylaws and to make recommendations throughout the year when those are not serving the Congregation to be its best.

The Board, with assistance from the Strategy Advisory Committee (StrAC) will bring the Open Questions to the congregation for conversation throughout the year. The results of these conversations help inform next year’s focus of ministry. We hope you will participate when the requests for input happen, throughout the year. Your thoughtful insights help shape our congregation.

The Annual Focus of Ministry (AFoM) is delegated to the Head of Staff, the Minister, or in this case the Co-ministers. The AFoM is a set of top-priorities identified by the Board to guide the ministry of the congregation. It is a lens through which to view the Ministers’ as well as each Ministry Team’s part of living out the mission and vision of the congregation.

It is created after reflecting on reports from each of the Ministry Teams last year, on observations of needs within the congregation, as well as on what is happening in the larger world in which we find ourselves. We look forward to sharing this coming year’s focus soon once the finishing touches are completed!

In faith~
Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn