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THE CANDLE When
this issue reaches your fingertips, “for all that is our life”
may be humming through your days. We’re in the very midst of our 2004
stewardship campaign. A handsome letter will have reached
you from campaign co-chairs, Redge and Sara Campbell, and next,
an invitation to the evening gala that will tie Celebration Sunday,
March 14,
into a bow. Still to arrive in your mailbox: a “FAQS” flyer,
with ‘frequently asked questions’ about pledging; and then a
Celebration Sunday packet.
It will have your pledge form inside and something new: a
“golden page” for describing your interests and skills and favorite
ways of giving your time. Every way that members and friends
contribute to the life of this Fellowship enlivens its future, and helps
us—all together—serve a world that dearly needs the embodied values
we hold dear. As
promised, this year’s pledge drive is turning around the way we
approach funding KUUF’s future. We’re not asking you to pledge to
meet a projected budget, but rather to give what feels true and good and
possible for you. Emphasize the good. Give until it feels good,
not until it hurts. The
budget for this next fiscal year will be written after pledges
are in, with a reliable idea of the funding the Fellowship can count on.
A “budget summit”, convening Board and Finance committee and staff
and all lay leaders interested, will then collaborate on deciding
what’s do-able this coming year. (That’s on schedule for April 5, at
6:30.) Meanwhile,
let me highlight the yearnings in hand from the Finance committee’s
appeal for budget proposals for the forthcoming year:
All
these, possibly more, will come to the table on April 5, with the
success of the stewardship drive in hand, too. From there a fiscal
design for next year, in its real possibilities, will come to you
at the annual congregational meeting on Sunday, May 2. We begin with yearnings and dreams; they lead us forward; we accomplish what’s possible, and they lead us on. It’s a microcosm of life, truly lived, through up times and down.
Gig Harbor Neighborhood Soups It Up
February 29, 2004, 9:30 and 11:15
am March 7, 2004, 9:30 and
11:15 am If you received a “Celebration Sunday” packet in
your mail this week, bring it with you. & then — return in the evening at 6:30 for the Dessert
& Champagne Gala and cheer the results of the day. March 21, 2004, 9:30
service SPIRITUAL
BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP PRESIDENT’S
CORNER On January 24 the Board of Trustees and
Reverend Margaret met for a long overdue retreat to reflect on the
larger matters facing the congregation.
We spent the day working with the following subjects:
(1) Training that four Board members received at their expense in
La Conner to be able to anticipate challenges that will occur as the
Fellowship grows: (2) the summarization and conclusions to be drawn from
the December 6, 2003 Mission/Visioning Day that the congregation gave
input to; (3) Long Range Planning issues; and (4) the “structure”
needed for governance of the Fellowship in the face of growth issues. These are definitely weighty matters and
central to the well being of the Fellowship’s future.
This is the “stuff” that Boards of Trustees for fellowships
the size of ours deal with.
This is the “stuff” that Board meetings on a monthly basis
must be dealing with. As a
result, you will be hearing much in future months about the need for the
Church Council (which is by Bylaw made up of the Chairs of Committees,
along with the Board Vice President) to take an active role in running
the Fellowship and in making the many day to day (now month to month)
decisions. The standing committees thus
take responsibility, within general Board determined guidelines and policies, for making good
decisions for their particular functions, with the best interests of the
Fellowship in mind.
In months ahead, the Board will be developing and reducing
to writing these policies and guidelines and publishing them to the
Fellowship and to the Committee Chairs. During the retreat, the Board adopted the
following summary of the congregation’s vision input:
“The vision of the
congregation expressed during its Visioning Day is one of growth.
Growth may encompass deepening spiritual connections, increased
participation in social justice, personal care for one another, and the
space needed to accommodate these activities.”
The Board supports KUUF’s vision of continuing growth
within the Fellowship and interfacing with the larger community. The Board agreed to create a Visioning Task
Force (commonly called the Special Team for Unitarian Fellowship’s
Future – or STUFF). The
charge will be to prioritize and categorize various elements of the
Visioning Day results, to participate in research and training around
size transition and long range planning issues and to report to the
Board and the new Minister in about October 2004.
I have agreed to chair this task force until it can elect a
chair. If you are
interested in participating please let me know. The issue of Long Range Planning is seen by
the Board to be dependent upon the output of the STUFF task force, and
is therefore tabled until later in 2004. Paul D. Flemm Due to the vacation of the President and
subsequent vacation of the Secretary, minutes of the February 5
meeting will be reviewed next month. Meanwhile, this question has come
to the Board: If
I have experienced the proposed new minister in person and have heard
him or her preach, but can not attend the “Call” meeting of the
congregation, can I vote by proxy? The answer to this question is contained in
several sections of the KUUF BY-LAWS.
Article V, Section 1.
states that a person must be a full member and must be a member
for at least 60 days for voting privileges. Article XIII, Section 1, states that the
Minister shall be called by a ninety (90) percent majority of the
members voting at a meeting duly called for that purpose provided that
fifty (50) percent of the eligible voting members are in attendance. Section 7 of Article V states that eligible
members may vote by absentee ballot or by written proxy if unable to
attend a meeting. Such
absentee voters (including proxies) shall
not be counted in determining the existence of a quorum.
Proxies or absentee ballots if provided must be filed with the
Secretary of the Fellowship [Ed Ramey] prior to the beginning
of the meeting. Proxies
may be specific or general in instructing the person holding it in how
to vote. More details are
contained in Section 7 in the By-Laws. Because the “call” vote requires
attendance of at least 50% of the members and requires that 90% vote
for the “call” it is strongly urged that everyone attend that can
possibly attend to hear the discussion and to vote.
This is one time that proxies are not encouraged.
If you have any questions please read the By-Laws (get a copy
from the office if you don’t already have one) or talk to a Board
Member, especially Ed Ramey, the Secretary. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Again, thank you to all who are keeping up with your pledges. By the time you read this you will have received the statement of your pledges thru Jan 31, 2004, so you will know if you are current. If your situation has changed and you wish to have that reflected in your pledge, please contact Sherry Attaway at the office on Wednesdays or Fridays at 360-377-4724. FYI — Included in the above income amount is $4,000 transferred from our Safeco unallocated reserve account. Many of you will remember that in order to balance the budget last spring we voted to take money from the reserve account to help defray the cost of searching for a new minister and we have now reached the point in the search where there are a lot of expenses and therefore the transfer of funds. Lene Hajek,
Treasurer KUUF Ministerial Search Committee Your
Ministerial Search Committee is in the middle of a very exciting and
interesting period. For
two weekends in February and three weekends in March we have been and
are spending entire weekends with ministerial pre-candidates, one per
weekend. We pick up the
minister from the airport or ferry on Friday afternoon or evening,
take them to a hotel, show them around Bremerton, including KUUF,
break bread with them several times, interview and are interviewed by
them, and then, on Sunday morning, we take them to a UU church
elsewhere in the area for them to do a worship service in a
"neutral pulpit." Then,
on Sunday evening or Monday morning, the minister leaves Kitsap County
to go home, These
ministers are all wonderful people and our task is to get to know each
of them well enough for us to determine which one to present to you as
our candidate. You can
imagine that we feel some joy and some pressure, both at the same
time! The joy for us is that we get to know these wonderful people
even better than we did by telephone interview, packet reading and
email. The pressure, of
course, is to do the best that we can at matching a minister to KUUF,
and, of course, to present KUUF, Bremerton and Kitsap County in the
best possible light. The
minister who will be the best fit for our Fellowship should become
apparent to us sometime in early April, after our last pre-candidate
weekend. Our April article for the Candle will not have this
information, as the Candle deadline is before we will be through with
our pre-candidating process. But we’ll get information and the
schedule for candidating week out to you as soon as we have a final
candidate to present to you! As
these ministers expect, and as we have learned is the best practice,
the names of the pre-candidates (this current stage) are kept secret,
known only to us, a few people at UUA headquarters, their references
and their District Executive. There
are many reasons for this, but one important one is that the
pre-candidate probably has not revealed to the home congregation that
she or he is in the search process. So, while you are out and about in Bremerton on these
weekends, if you run into your Ministerial Search Committee in the
company of a stranger to you, please pretend, if that's possible, that
you don't know us. The better the
job that we can do keeping the identities of these ministers secret
from all who do not need to know them, the more grateful they will be
to us.
We are setting up a trust relationship with (probably) our
eventual candidate minister. Your Ministerial Search Committee: Beth Wilson, Ginger Younie, Leif Bentsen, Marlene DiMauro, Dianne Boatwright-Frost and Linda Gabriel
KUUF
& UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST To
get to know UU and KUUF… Gallons of bottled water sold (in year 2000): 22.3 billion Tons of plastics consumed to package them: 1.5 million Figures from Yew magazine , winter 2003 Communities becoming aware of how
corporations are devastating their water supply when they are fortunate
enough to have good water are beginning to fight back in spite of the
financial gain. Buy a bottle of water, then keep refilling it with our
own tap water which is most likely as good or better since the industry
is unregulated. A
word to the enthusiastic and sometimes forgetful
v
Catholic Community
Services screens the men who will participate, and provides a paid
staff member to supervise them during the overnights. v
Catholic Community
Services buses the men in between 7:30 & 8:00 p.m. every evening
and buses them out at 7 a.m. the next morning. v
KUUF, St. Paul’s and
Congregation Beth Hatikvah volunteers will provide and serve evening
meals, bagged lunches, and a "continental breakfast." Last
year over 80 fellowship members and friends participated in HOST and
found an opportunity to put their UU values of welcoming the stranger
into action. ¨
I would like to provide a meal or meals during May. ¨
I can donate funds to help this project succeed. ¨
I can help with cleaning or laundry or minor repairs. ¨
Other ________________________________________________ HOST
Committee members will contact you in April for detailed scheduling. Download HOST form as a Word document. Meeting
our NEW MEMBERS On
February 1st, we formally welcomed nine members who joined
KUUF since autumn. We’ll have more new members to welcome on Sunday,
April 4. (To join, contact Rev. Margaret.)
Meanwhile, please grow to know the following fine folks: Jo
Walter is mom to
5-year-old Eleni and 3-year-old Clare, and enjoys growing things,
including little minds at her “Little Sprouts” school. She’s
grateful to have her own mom living with her, who makes it possible to
have free time to dedicate to peace and justice work. Nina
Cuic—Nina’s
current career here in Kitsap County is in vocational rehabilitation,
but she’s well traveled, and has taught school in Europe. She’s
widowed, with 3 adult daughters, and hopes to return with one of them
soon to visit her mother-in-law in Belgrade. Jill
Clarridge moved
here from Texas, landing in Bremerton in June, near one of her three
grown daughters. A UU for two decades, she promptly found KUUF and is
active on the Worship committee. Weekdays this UW professor commutes
to Seattle, where directs the microbiology lab at Veterans Hospital. Terry Mallory is a native Bremertonian who found a warm welcome here from her very first visit, and promptly joined the choir. She also cherishes KUUF’s social activism, and has become involved with ‘Results”. Stephanie
Anderson is a new-mom-to-be with a deep love for gardening. She describes
herself as spiritually eclectic and politically progressive,
personally shy, but one who cherishes community. Husband Dan is
already a KUUF member.
Robin Clark has lived here in Kitsap County with her husband, Pat Ong, and Mara and Dillon, their 2 adopted children from China (with another expected soon). Robin has a grown son of her own, and grandkids as well. Selene Patterson joins us now that she knows they’ve experienced their last Navy move. (Husband Nate will return from Okinawa in August.) When not caring for her aging parents or 13-year-old twins, Jacob and Sarah, she works partptime as librarian’s assistant at Cougar Valley Elementary School. Lejanna
(“LJ”) Bayha
has an Olympia mailing address, though she lives in Port Orchard,
where she’s a stay-at-home mom with two children, Gabrielle and
Gerrit.
Sheila Burns also joined us in the fall, but we’re missing a brief bio for her at the moment.
Annual
General Meeting Prior to AGM were two LREDA (Liberal Religious Educators Association) professional days. One of these days was spent meeting with ministers. During our joint meeting, the topic was the spiritual development of children and youth. Sue Williams, DRE at University Unitarian Church in Seattle, guided us through an exercise looking at faith development. One of the resources she used was Faith Development and Implications for Unitarian Universalist Children and Youth Religious Exploration: A Synthesis of the work of James Fowler, Thomas Groome and Rev. Eugene B. Navias prepared by Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan. (2003) It was engaging and enlightening. If you are interested in learning more about this work, please stop by my office, email me or give me a call. I’d enjoy the opportunity to talk about it further.
Looking for Youth and Young Adult Anti-Racism Trainers Locally District Level Our
religious education classes and programs for children and youth meet
during the 9:30 AM service on Sunday, concluding at 10:45, when
parents are requested to pick-up their children at the Learning Tree
uphill. During the second service, from 11:15 AM till
12:30, childcare is provided for children of crawling age through 5th
grade. Watch
for “T Talk” ! Have you ever asked yourself any of the following questions? What does the "T" stand for in GLBT? What is gender identity and how is it different from sexual orientation? How do those drag queens walk in five-inch heels? If so, then you need to get yourself to a performance of Pride Foundation's fabulous T Talk! T Talk was created by Spokane drag diva Auntie Bijou (Pride Foundation's regional outreach manager Kevan Gardner) and Seattle transgender activist Marsha Botzer, founder of the Ingersoll Gender Center. T Talk is part education, part entertainment and is based partially on our Unitarian Universalist sexuality education curriculua. The Pride Foundation has sponsored performances in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, even Vermont! You won’t want to miss Auntie Bijou and Seth Kirby discussing the "T" word! As this issue goes to press we are seeking a date to book them here. Watch for the announcement. For more information contact Marcie Stilwell. The Candle is a publication of the: BOARD OF TRUSTEES —
2003-2004 |
4418 Perry Ave NE |
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