Blips On the Board’s Radar, Volume 1, Number 6, January, 2023

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.

  • blip  •  blip blip •  blip            blip! 

Unlike the radar in an airport control tower, the Board’s radar is magic! Air traffic controllers know that each blip on their screen is an actual airplane carrying actual people which must be brought safely to earth without delay. So, too, the Board’s radar has blips that demand immediate action: nearby blips. But unlike the air traffic controller’s radar, the Board’s radar also has distant blips for planes that might never land, or maybe 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

The distant blips got pushed off the screen by a profusion of nearby blips, some of which are discussed below.

 

Nearby blips

  • Annual UUA certification
    Every year the UUA (aka the Mother Ship) requires every UU congregation to submit membership figures, financial details, and to answer a bunch of other questions. It’s a big deal, with harsh consequences for not complying. The worst consequence is getting kicked out of the UUA! Then we would be AF instead of AUUF. So the Board sprang into action, with Emily Livant leading the charge. In some past years, we flirted dangerously with the deadline. Not so this year! Everything was submitted with weeks to spare. Hooray!
  • Consulting the calendar
    We discussed scheduling the Annual Canvass. Does kicking the Canvass off on March 5 sound good to you? It did to us.
  • Committees galore
    Committees were on our radar at the last Board meeting. Why think about committees in the middle of the year? Not many years ago the bylaws were changed to have the Board appoint committee chairs rather than have the congregation elect chairs at the Business meeting. (Actually the congregation will still elect a few chairs). So now, a committee chair’s term starts on April 1 and concludes the following March 31. To manage the whole committee-chair-appointing thingy, the Board needs to know which current chairs want to stay on as chairs and which don’t. So we divided up all the committees among all the Boardsters, each of whom will contact their chairs and pop the question. We will also ask our stalwart committee chairs whether they need more money allocated to their committee in next year’s budget.
  • Mission statement in the home stretch
    Tech companies involved in getting everyone connected even if they live out in the boonies complain about the problem of the “last mile.” We want to connect everyone in the process of coming up with a better mission statement than the one we have now. We want to hear from all who want to contribute ideas and opinions. It’s a slog, but it’s an absolutely necessary slog. The Committee on Ministry (CoM) is leading this, and the Board met with some of the CoM members at the last Board meeting. We tossed around ideas. Although we didn’t come right out and state it, we all believe that in the end everyone in the Fellowship should feel that the new mission statement belongs to them, and that they had a hand in crafting it. That’s hard to achieve, but we’re doing our best.

Here’s blipping at you, kid.

~Over and out

Peter

P.S. Have you ever thought about volunteering to work on a committee, or to be the chair of one? Hint, hint.