Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Making Progress -- April 2011 UUA Board meeting

Second in a series of posts about the April 2011 UUA Board meeting

There was a lot I liked about this board meeting. It was still our version of the Boston marathon, but at least there were fewer 7:00 am meetings. More importantly, it felt like some of the changes we have been attempting to make in governance over the past few years were finally starting to happen:
  • the Shared Vision, or Ends, of the Association moved from esoteric rhetoric to something alive and guiding our efforts
  • we considered new ways of looking at old issues, such as the Ministerial Fellowship credentialing process
  • financial processes put in place to protect us when things are not so great, such as the policies of the Endowment Committee, and the formula used for the payout, are working
  • a Justice GA that was exciting and truly different was taking shape in front of our eyes
  • we were able to come to agreement on the grubby part of by-laws changes that would downsize the board while strengthening democracy
  • we began tackling something we had been admiring from afar since the Summit on Excellence in Ministry: is there mutual accountability between the Association and our two "identify schools", Meadville Lombard and Starr King?
I will be posting on these -- and more -- over the next few weeks.

2 comments:

Markate Daly said...

I would love to see a copy of the non-esoteric Ends statements the UUA Board has constructed. UUCB just adopted a new set of Ends, and I fear they may also be esoteric rather than functional.

Markate Daly
Berkeley

Linda Laskowski said...

What is interesting about this shift is that the ends didn't change -- what changed is that we (Board and staff) are looking at these with new eyes -- thinking "how do I make this real?" The stakes are even higher now that 12 districts have decided (or are in the process of deciding) to use the same set of ends.