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Wy'east UUC Board Meeting November 04, 2021

W’east UUWyC Board Meeting :Monday October 4,2021 via Zoom

Attendance: Lana Q. Moderator, Ruth J. Vice Moderator, Ari L. Treasurer, Linda B Secretary, Eme A. At large, Rev. Craig Moro

September 7,2021 Minutes: Reviewed and Approved

Standard Reports:

Minister’s Report: See below. Craig stated that the Wednesday morning class was going well. They are utilizing Harper Collins Study Bible

Worship Committee and Social Justice Committees: See below

RE Committee: See below

Membership Committee: See below

Treasurer’s report: . Ari stated that more contributions came in this month. 

Approval of Chair Committees:

Board approved the chairs of the following committees:
- Worship: Linda Macpherson
- Nominating: Ron Thurston
- Membership: Ron Thurston
- Social Justice: Chandra Ivy
- Religious Education:  Matthias Quackenbush (Matt Lynch when Matthias' term ends)
- Committee on Ministry:  Lana Aburto, Karl Arruda, Matt Lynch (no chair - per Craig)
- Finance: Arianna Lambie
- Endowment:  Karl Arruda

Musical License Follow up: Linda Jo rescinded this request until Covid restrictions are lifted.

Return to In person service planning
Lana is working with Kate, Anders, and Ron on this.

Bruce M is communicating with Amber at the HSC. No definite plans for reopening HSC at this time. Amber is waiting for Wy’east’s decision. The renovations at the HSC will be completed in a few weeks. 

Craig is willing to begin in person services at HSC by November 7,2021. Lana will take this info to the worship committee to determine what is a comfortable timeline for them. 

Craig would continue to utilize his lap top to provide the sermon on Zoom as well. 

Craig suggested a visit to the hybrid service at the UU Church in Salem 

The board agreed that participating members and friends will need proof of vaccination, other covid precautions and RSVP. No walk-ins will be permitted.

There are many Things to Consider: 
- Opening of HSC
- Worship Committee has to be prepared
- Possible new space for the children. 
- Training of the ushers 
- Limited capacity of the volunteers.
- Policy for live speakers. 
- Frequency of in-person services


Ministerial Search Committee
Ari plans to talk with them about a budget for this search. 
Hank has sent a report of their first meeting. 

Future agenda item:  The board is responsible for hiring an interim minister if there is a gap between Craig’s last month and choosing a new minister. 

Board Retreat: Ruth J volunteered her home for a 4-hour retreat. Date and time to be determined. 

Next Board Meeting: Monday November 1, 2021 at 7:30 pm via zoom.

Respectfully Submitted
Linda Burk, Secretary

 

Committee Reports

Ministers Report—10-21

1) Sermon preparation, newsletter columns, etc.  

2) Phone calls,  e-mails.  Pastoral calls, Zoom meetings with congregational members/leaders.  

3) Colleague consultation.

4) Martial arts and Spanish language study 

5)  UUMUAC meetings

Following our most recent meeting,  I will have a Zoom conversation with Kim King, Assistant Director of the Malcolm X. Institute of Black Studies at Wabash College in Indiana.  I also plan to invite him to speak to us on a Sunday.

UUMUAC has also begun hosting Wednesday worship services at 5 p.m. PST.  I will deliver the sermon on October 20 and will share a link with the congregation.  Please attend if you have time!

6) 5th Principle Project meetings.  The project has posted video of my response to the proposed “8th Principle” on its website which has drawn a wide range of comments.

7) Attended all September services

8)  Wednesday morning scripture class started on 9-26.  We have met twice.  The second session had more participants than the first and a good time was had by all!  I expect that we will continue throughout the fall and pick up again in the winter and spring of 2022.

9) Ministerial search

Reading member comments about ministry at Wy’east has been quite an exercise.  It’s good to see that a strong majority support continued ministry and seem to appreciate my own work.  I notice that the small group expressing preference for no minister include folks who over the past six years have made comments to me that range from casually cruel to actively humiliating.   (One even attacked me when I thanked some members for sharing their experiences with getting Covid-19 vaccinations and encouraging us to hang in there until we could get ours.  From this person's perspective, I was "promoting quack medicine" by simply thanking these other members for their encouragement.)  

I’ve done my best to take the negativity of these few individuals in stride.

I would advise all who support ongoing ministry to also take heart. These few individuals’ real discomfort is probably with this particular minister, not ministers in general. Hopefully they will be more supportive when another person comes.  I always encourage people to think of a congregation as a “house built in Eternity” and to understand that the pulpit is a bit like a pool in a river, stable in some ways but in other ways constantly changing.  If you don’t like what you see in the pool right now, just wait. Perhaps what you find there next will seem more familiar, flattering, or otherwise pleasing—at least at the beginning. Then things change again. 

10) Friday morning Zoom conversations continue going strong


Social Justice Committee

Our next Examining Economic Inequality focus speaker is Kaia Sand, the Executive Director of Street Roots, on October 24th.  We have two other speakers already scheduled for January and March, which puts us in good shape to come through with five total by the end of the church year in June, which is our programmatic goal. The Special Collections are also on track, including those for our two sustained partnerships, the Q Center and Girl Scouts Beyond Bars. And on Linda Burk's advice, we're working on taking a collection for Human Solutions itself, rather than the Lilac Meadows family shelter which it operates and to which we already contribute one home-cooked meal a month. 
One nice thing about having a pretty solid half a dozen people of this committee (and sometimes more), is that the workload can get spread around, with different people picking up the commitment to bring a speaker's service or Special Collection to life. And likewise, with more people involved, there's wider input and knowledge about different organizations and individuals in the community. This is a huge asset to Wy'east, as it brings on board people's experience of and passion for good work.


Worship Committee

Everything is pretty steady as you go for our Sunday morning services, with some interesting variations brought on by Covid limitations. So we are going to have a Water Communion and Ingathering this coming Sunday via Zoom, thanks to Linda Macpherson's creativity. We've also got two other lay-lead services coming up, one each in October and November, and this is even before the holiday season, when that's a bunch of what we specialize in. There are two collaborations with churches in our Mt. Hood Cluster that are being planned for between now and the end of this calendar year, which months we have pretty well figured out.
In terms of person power on this Committee, we're kind of bare bones, so if anyone knows of a Wy'easter who could pick up a committee or Sunday morning assignment, that would be a big plus.  

M.A.~  

Here are the high lights for Membership activities during September:


1. On 9/19 we held a New Member welcoming ceremony for Anne Wagner and Mariah Springstead during our virtual worship service and that went very well. This brings the total number of New Members we have added since we begin our Zoom services to 9. These members still need to sign the Membership book and receive their New Member gift so hopefully in the near future we can have this ceremony when the Senior Center will allow it.

2. During the past week Diane I. reported that Savannah Roberts had suffered a serious accident while riding her scooter requiring medical assistance and recovery time. Wy'east had gotten involved with Savannah in 2015 thru the Village Support Network and she had been doing well until this incident. With input from the Board and Craig, Ari sent a $300 check to me which I enclosed in a card and got in the mail to Savannah. It was wonderful to see how quickly our church can respond when a need arises.

3. It was reported that Helen Feeney is recovering from her hip surgery and is getting the help she needs. A card was sent to her last month.

4. Weekly attendance is holding in the 35-45 range per Sunday.

5. Our Chalice Circle and Friday morning coffee hour Zoom meetings are healthy and remain and important part of keeping us connected to one another.

6. Craig has started a class studying biblical scriptures which began meeting on Wednesday, 9/22 continuing for four sessions with a possible extension depending on the interest of the class. The first class was well attended so the class is off to a good start.

7. Our monthly Path to Membership class which I offered after the 9/26 service attracted no visitors with only Craig and I attending. I was having computer problems so we quickly closed the meeting. I send out email invitations to new visitors on the Friday before a scheduled PTM class hoping to get some attendance and I'll continue to reach out monthly.

Happy Fall to all!

Ron

  


 

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