Feb 12, 2014 | News 4 Leaders
We’re gearing up to officially begin the Annual Budget Drive on February 16. Gene Lambirth is the chair this year. Here are a few things we really want every UUCA Member to know. If you can help distribute this information informally, that would be a big help.
The How’s
- This campaign will be more low-key than normal. No kick-off sermon, no weekly appeals, although you may hear stories about changing lives.
- The campaign’s theme is “We Change Lives.” We hope that hearing how this congregation and/or denomination has a role in directly changing the lives of people you know will inspire all of us to increase our giving.
- Beginning this year, we are establishing the Sustained Commitment. We will assume that if we do not receive a commitment form from a member/friend, the commitment they made for 2013-14 will continue as their commitment during 2014-15. This stops the madness of tracking down people for a completed form(!), allows us to redeploy volunteers and acknowledges that we estimate our next year’s income and budget on good guesses by a few key volunteers.
Why We Ask People to Increase Their Commitments Each Year
This short video by the Eau Clare, WI UU congregation explains the basics of an annual budget drive in a great way. Although we have no big wish list this year, we are asking people to increase their giving to UUCA. Below are a few reasons why:
- First, though the US inflation rate is a manageable 2 or less percent per year, it still means that every year we need to raise at least 2 percent more to keep “even.”
- Second, and far more significantly, we have been purposefully spending more money than we “earn” (from commitment payments) as part of a 5-year plan adopted by the Board 3 years ago. This plan enabled us to take on a full-time second minister and an experienced DLRE. Every year, the subsidy we allocated ourselves gets smaller and smaller meaning we need more money than last year just to keep “even.”
- Unfortunately, “even” isn’t good enough. Some of our expenses are going up. They go up annually because:
- Cost-of-living increases (at the Social Security rate) are granted each year for all staff to keep up with inflation.
- Health insurance increases at least 6 percent a year for all eligible staff
- The Asheville Living Wage (http://justeconomicswnc.org/what-we-do/) went up substantially last year.
- Technology costs go up as we add, repair and replace computers and other electronic equipment for staff and congregation uses (ever use a UUCA-owned computer or projector or TV for a meeting?)
- Buildings and grounds costs have historically been held too low, thereby deferring necessary maintenance. We use and maintain 3 buildings with the newest building more than 40 years old.
If you have any questions about this information, please ask. If your friends are asking questions, please supply correct answers or ask for more information if you need it. This is important to the life of the congregation. As our congregation’s covenant says, “Our life together declares that the future of each depends on the good of all and the future of all depends on the good of each.” We need the contributions of each of us, at whatever level we can manage, to support the very reason we exist: to nurture our individual searches for meaning through worship, education and interaction while we work together for freedom, justice and love among ourselves and out in the world.
Jan 30, 2014 | News 4 Leaders
It may be true that I am a church governance geek, but I don’t think it affects my perception that the use of policy governance at UUCA has done just as it was hoped—it has provided vision, clarity and accountability in the work of the congregation. Here are a few key advantages.
I’ve been on the Board and I can say with absolute certainty that the boards that have been in place since we began using policy governance (just about a year and a half) are getting substantially more useful information from staff about what is going on in the life of the congregation than they have ever had before. And since this information comes to them in the form of written reports from the Executive, they have more meeting time to devote to matters other than program and staff management.
For each board meeting, the Executive (Mark) submits a “What’s Happening Now” report that briefly describes what’s going on in the organization that the board members ought to know about. It requires no action but gives board members information they might need when speaking with congregants, everything from changes in staff responsibilities (e.g., Benette’s illness-induced change to part-time status and Nick’s subsequent increase to full-time status) to the status of the Annual Budget Drive.
By way of the Board’s Governance Document, the Executive is required to report on various aspects of the congregation’s management each month. Therefore unlike any previous Board, the board members not only receive monthly financial data as they did prior to policy governance, but they also get a written document from the Executive describing the compliance of every “The Executive shall not” sentence in the Executive Limitations section of the Governance Document. Over the course of a year, the Board receives a report about every part of the Governance Document that affects the Executive.
For example, for the Board’s February 4 meeting, Mark will provide a report on Executive Limitation H which has to do with communications to the board and the congregation along with a few other miscellaneous items that can loosely be in this category. For each item, we provide evidence of our compliance or an explanation of why we are not in compliance. I assure you that no previous boards ever got a yearly report on whether we maintain an accurate membership record or whether there has been a statement of the assets and liabilities presented to the Congregation each year. It may have always been done, but if it were missed, there was no systematic way to “remember” it.
The Executive reports on every single Limitation and Ends Statement at least once a year. I’m quite certain no previous Board has ever been so well informed and then freed to do visioning and planning work rather than management. Upon receiving the report, the Board determines if what we are reporting is the direction they want the congregation to be moving. If not, they are free to change the Governance Document to get what they want.
Jan 24, 2014 | News 4 Leaders
This is the time of year when Unitarian Universalist job searches and changes happen. In order to be included in this cycle, Mark has worked quickly to assemble a very able DLRE Search Committee. Because this information should have been in yesterday’s e-news (not Jules’ fault, she would want me to say), we thought getting it out to you now would at least be helpful. Please feel free to tell anyone who asks. The information is public and will be published next week.
Committee Members: Louise Anderson, Ben Fleming, Lisa Horak, Susan Kitson and Pat Morell
Jan 15, 2014 | News 4 Leaders
It seems that the first posting of UUCA News4Leaders was well-received. We even got a few comments. We like comments. We like it even better when a conversation develops among our readers through the comments. So, feel free to comment on a comment. We really want to hear from our leaders on all kinds of topics.
How about a little discussion about communications? As you know, we’ve been experimenting with our publications, trying to give our congregants the information they want while 1) keeping our Communications Specialist’s work time to 40 hours per week, 2) dramatically reducing postal mailing, 3) reducing copying costs when we can and 4) trying to protect members from too much email. We know we don’t have it right yet.
One of the things we struggle with is the tension between every leader’s desire to get their word out and the tolerance/attention level of our congregants for our messages. Here are some of the things we talk about in staff meetings:
In worship
If a person comes to UUCA to worship as a religious community, do they really want to hear 15 minutes of announcements and skits each week? Well, OK, maybe not 15. Five? Well, who will get the 5 minutes? How do we choose? And WHEN will that five minutes happen? Five minutes BEFORE the official start of the service? At the end? Shall we reduce the sermon to 15 minutes to fit in announcements? We’ve chosen the most conservative option we can which is to RARELY have a special announcement and keep the number of announcements mentioned by the worship leader to a minimum. Does that feel about right?
In the order of service
All the information about all the upcoming events of the church show up in the Thursday enews. The enews gets sent to more than 900 people. Do we really need to print on Sundays the very thing everyone received on Thursday? (Yes, we need to accommodate the 20 people we know do not receive email.) Why do leaders WANT inserts in the Order of Service? Do our congregants actually respond better when they get a separate sheet of paper in their order of service? Who gets inserts? Anyone that asks? How do we prioritize?
In the newsletter
In addition to all the information that appears in the Thursday enews, we include a complete schedule for children’s religious education, “columns” by the lead minister, assistant minister, LRE director and board chair. Is this redundant? Why do we duplicate information in the monthly newsletter and the Thursday enews?
At the present time, the newsletter is laid out for printing. It would be more logical for the newsletter to be laid out for easier reading on a computer. How might that feel? And then what would we send to the 20 or so non-email members/friends? We are thinking about changing the monthly newsletter columns by paid staff and the board chair to a website blog and then creating a website-based “newsletter” of all the upcoming events that would be updated weekly. How might that feel?
Overall philosophy
Are these the right questions?
1) What do our congregants want to know and how do we make that information easily accessible for them?
2) How do we gain our congregants’ attention and move them to act on what we’re offering or asking?
Dec 30, 2013 | News 4 Leaders
As a staff, we’re feeling as though we aren’t doing a good job of communicating even though we now use more communications outlets than ever before. But somehow a great new website, a monthly newsletter, a weekly enews blast, and a Facebook page are still not helping us help you. So, we’re trying an additional outlet.
This is the first edition of a “memo” to the lay leaders of the congregation. It is being sent to all folks listed in the Leaders’ List as well as all leaders of Small Groups. The plan is that this will come out 1 or 2 times per month, on an irregular schedule. We want you to respond when you feel so moved. Sometimes we, as staff, feel as though we are operating in a vacuum, despite the fact that our only reason for being here is to help the congregation become what it wants to be. So, if there is something in this edition that sparks a suggestion or response, go ahead and send it. We are happy to hear from our leaders!
Unless otherwise noted, these news memos are written by Linda Topp.
As a leader of a small group or a committee you have learned that the office staff is trying to keep track of the participants in your group. We keep saying that we need the information for our database. “But why?” you ask. Here’s the story.
Three years ago the members of the Board of Trustees were trying to determine who exactly at UUCA are active participants in the life of the congregation. We certainly don’t take attendance on Sunday mornings and aside from knowing which people are paying on their annual commitments, we could not say whether 50 or 500 people were actively engaged in adult RE programs, small groups, choir, committees or anything else.
So, the Board allocated $25,000 to establish a fund called “Technology Upgrade” which would give the congregation the capability to identify and track participation. The Board charged the Executive with coming up with a way of answering the question, “How many UUCA members and friends are actively participating?” Using the funding allocated by the Board, we purchased additional software and training in order to enhance the database system we were already using to track membership status and giving history.
We now have an upgraded database (you know it as MY INFO) but that is only half the picture. Without leaders letting us know who their active participants are, we still have no idea if we are serving 50 or 500 different people.
The database has other cool features, too. We have the capability right now to have an online photo directory. All we need is for individuals or families to upload their own photos into their own record in MY INFO. When we need to recruit people for special projects, we can search on various interests or skills fields to find folks. But of course, we need to input these interests and skills into the database first, and we haven’t even tried to make that happen because of the resistance we are getting for all things computer-related.
So, here are some of the questions that the staff is mulling:
- Is there another way to find the answer to the question, “How many UUCA members and friends are actively participating in the life of the congregation?” Or, how can we get our leaders to input data to track participation in their groups?
- “Attendance” isn’t exactly what we are tracking, so is there some other way to find out who is “active” in any group or committee and if there is, how could we enter that in our database? (We don’t want our computer program to dictate how we do things, but if we can’t figure out how to capture and sort data that we’ve collected, it doesn’t really help us.)
- Is “number of people actively participating” even an important question? (I think so because without that sort of feedback we don’t know where to best allocate our resources—but I could be wrong.)
- Why are many congregants so resistant (or oblivious?) to using MY INFO? For building a database of interests and skills, instead of asking people to use MY INFO, what if we asked members/friends to fill out either online or paper forms similar to those that new members fill out and have volunteers input the data? Could we find volunteers to do that? Are people resistant to the computer, to the MY INFO user interface, or to the idea of being “tracked?”
- How can we find volunteers to take photos and upload them to the database instead of asking individual members to do it themselves? Seems like having a photo directory would be incredibly useful to more people than me!
