Submitted by Peter Livant
With this offering, appearing every month, the Board tries to convey to the whole Fellowship what issues the Board is thinking about and what all that thinking and discussing adds up to so far.
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The Board’s radar is unlike the radar in an airport control tower. It’s magic! Air traffic controllers know that each blip on their radar screen represents in actual airplane carrying actual people which must be brought safely to earth, without delay. Like the air traffic control blips, the Board’s radar has blips that demand immediate action: nearby blips. But the Board’s radar also has distant blips for planes that might never land, or at least might land next year, or the year after that. Sometimes the Board, in a paroxysm of visionary thought, thinks up a blip that it feels ought to be on the radar and just hauls off and puts it there. Then the Board must eventually decide either, alas, it’s a plane with no wings and removes it from the screen, or it’s a plane capable of a smooth landing and the Board keeps it on an approach path.
What blips stand out this time?
Distant blips
blip Electric vehicle charging station at AUUF
As we’ve come to learn more about the ins and outs of the world of public EV charging stations, we realize that this plane will probably be up in the air for a considerable time. Still on the radar though.
blip Fellowship Retreat at The Mountain
This one also has a long time horizon. We are still gathering data. Retreat in 2024?
blip AUUF at CityFest? AUUF everywhere??
Another distant blip, but closer than the two above is to begin planning to have an AUUF presence at CityFest (late April, 2023). Thinking about CityFest led us to think about equipping ourselves to participate in any public festival or celebration with minimum fuss. We should be ready to go at the drop of a hat. if you have an idea about either a CityFest booth, or booths in general, talk to Jim Newton, Emily Livant, or CJ Marbutt.
blip AUUF grocery bags
How’s this for a crazy idea? We make canvas grocery bags and offer them to the public free in exchange for a donation. I hear you ask…
…do the bags have to be canvas? No. Maybe we could collect old unwanted clothes and use those as a source of fabric.
…will the bags have our name on it? I hope so! If not our name, at least our url.
…who would make these bags? Maybe everyone at AUUF could pitch in. Luckily, we will have no deadlines, so amateur stitchers could turn out a bag or two in their spare time, at their convenience. No sweat shops at AUUF!
The Board has taken on this crazy idea to ponder. Do you have an idea (crazy or otherwise) about AUUF “green” shopping bags? Speak to Peter Livant or Kristen Starr. This is a POVT* blip (*paroxysm of visionary thought).
Nearby blips
The nearby blips at our September Board meeting were a wee bit less pie-in-the-sky, but important. A sampling:
Blip Safer Congregations committee
We met with representatives of the SCC and discussed (a) portions of the RE program’s policy that impact the safety of the kids, (b) the types of training needed to deal with the possibility of an active shooter incident, (c) training on the use of the defibrillator (“AED” in the Sanctuary kitchen), and (d) fostering safer congregations.
Blip Committees, redux
The Board, only last month patting itself on the back for figuring out a system of providing new committee chairs when needed, realized that many of the committee descriptions in “How To Do UU” are not up-to-date. So all the Board members will be contacting all the committee chairs before the October Board meeting to discuss how to revise committee descriptions to reflect current reality.
Blip Board retreat
The Board chose a date for the Board Retreat. Shazam! The Retreat will occur on October 8. To go forward, we retreat.
Here’s blipping at you, kid.
~Over and out.