November 2023 Splinters

The Board held two meetings in November, one after the Senior Minister and Finance Team’s town hall where a draft of the 2024 financial plan and budget were discussed, and the second after the church’s annual meeting of November 19th. At the first meeting, the Board accepted a revised Financial Plan from the Finance Team. The Finance Team made revisions to this financial plan after hearing concerns from several congregants regarding the future of the church’s programs for youth during the town hall and previous Board meeting. We accepted a revised budget plan that included provision for a part-time Youth Faith Development manager. The Board continued to emphasize the need to increase income, specifically pledges. Using income from restricted funds was acknowledged as an unreliable long-term solution. This revised plan was ultimately approved by a vote of the congregation at our November annual meeting.

On other matters, we set the agenda for the annual meeting and began discussion on the results of the April 2023 congregational survey on how we, as a congregation and church, are meeting the Ends to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves in 2021.

At our November 29th Board meeting, we began the meeting in closed session to review Senior Minister’s year-end performance appraisal. This comprised a cumulative summary of monitoring assessments conducted through the year. We continued our discussion of the congregational survey and how to interpret the results in terms of how the congregation is meeting its Ends (outcome goals).

If you have any questions regarding Splinters from the Board or the work of your Board, please reach out to us. We look forward to future engagement on these and other topics.

Deb Feltz, President
president@uulansing.org

Tom Nicholas, President-Elect
president-elect@uulansing.org