UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONS 2003 BOARD OF TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT

The Board of Trustees is the governing body of the UUA. The 2002-03 Board was comprised of nineteen District Trustees selected by the various Districts and three at-large trustees who are elected by delegates to the General Assembly. The GA also elects the Moderator, who chairs the Board, and the Financial Advisor. This year we welcomed one new Trustee: Lyda McHugh Adair of the Mountain Desert District , and a new Youth Observer, Matt Moore.

Due to the withdrawal of the Canadian Unitarian Council from the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Trustee-At-Large position from Canada was eliminated from the Board. The fourth at-large Trustee position will now be a position held by a youth member elected by the General Assembly, beginning in 2003. This year the Board had two Youth Observers elected by their peers at GA Youth Caucus; in the future there will be one Observer.

The Board meets four times each year, three times in Boston and at General Assembly. Full reports of each Board of Trustees meeting this year are available on-line at the Board of Trustees link at uua.org. Some of the Board’s work this year is described in other reports and business items before you, and is therefore only briefly described in this report.

The Board As A Religious Community
The members of your Board function not only as a deliberative body but as a religious community. We worship together every Sunday that we are in session, and we engage with each other around the spiritual practice of our work. We honor and support each other in all the changes of our lives. We mourned the loss of beloved partners to three members of our Board: Connie Wilde, Dorrie Senghas, and Virginia Rickter. We also said our goodbyes and thanks to a group of eight Trustees and a Youth Observer who finish their service at the 2003 General Assembly.

Our time together and our tasks are rooted in a covenant we reviewed and renewed in 2001. The Board covenant states: “Inspired by the dynamism and principles of our faith, we, the members of the UUA Board of Trustees, covenant to cultivate and practice mutual respect; to employ the democratic process in our collaborative work; to act out of personal integrity, honesty and trust; and to demonstrate leadership that is caring and nurturing, open and transparent, visionary and empowering. We are committed to champion excellence as we work towards the realization of a healing and transforming, justice-making, anti-oppressive, anti-racist Association and world community.” The Board’s mission statement is: “We assemble as a joyful, energetic, spiritual community, agents for anti-oppression, open to transformation, proclaiming the values of our liberal faith.”

One way in which we functioned as a religious community can be understood by the Board’s response to the imminent war against Iraq. In January 03, we drafted a letter to elected leaders of congregations to encourage lively and respectful engagement with issues, mindful of differing views among us. As with any position the Board takes, we disappointed some of our members and congregational leaders by not making a Board statement opposing the war. Others found the statement just right and respectful of congregational prerogatives in deciding how UU opinion should be represented in their own communities.

At the April 03 meeting, we continued the conversation about the Board’s role in public witness through a letter we drafted in response to a communication from one of our ministers questioning the approach we had taken. Our letter emphasized our support for public witness residing in the office of the President and rooted in the voted resolutions and statements of conscience of our General Assemblies. We also believe that the most effective voices for public witness are often our congregations in their local communities, supported by resources available from our Advocacy and Witness staff.

The Board’s Process
Board Working Groups are an integral part of Board/staff strategy, through which much reporting, discussion and interaction is completed in small groups at the beginning of each 3-day Board meeting. Working Groups have been designed to conform [with] to the current staff structure. At the January 03 meeting, we devoted six hours to discussion of our governance systems and what we could learn from “policy governance” theory and practice. At the April 03 Board meeting, we reached consensus on undertaking a two year study of the theory and tools of policy governance. In both April 04 and April 05, we will assess the results and consider any actions that we might take.

As part of these conversations, we were drawn to the four purposes of the UUA described in the by-laws as a structure for our Working Groups. They are:

• To serve the needs of its member congregations
• To organize new congregations
• To extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions
• To implement its principles

Following the January 03 Board meeting, we continued to work on reconfiguring the working groups to reflect these four broad areas of mission, rather than having them defined by UUA staff groups. The administrative structure which best implements programs to meet the mission may not be the best structure for a Board to adopt for ongoing mission and vision work. Our purpose in reconfiguring working groups is to better claim the Board’s unique role of accountability for the mission and vision of our Association as articulated by the delegates from the congregations.

Growth Strategies
The Board continued to hear regular reports on follow-up to the work of the New Congregation Formation Task Force—the first large church metropolitan strategy start-up in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. We also heard updates on the pilot publicity campaign in Kansas City, MO. The Board enthusiastically supports these promising programs, which are fully described in the staff reports.

Financial Issues
The Board commended staff on keeping the FY 02 Budget in balance despite losses in investment income. Our FY 02 audit was clean, and Treasurer Jerry Gabert and his staff were recognized for their effective work. The FY 03 budget was adjusted in October 03 to keep up with changing economic circumstances, mostly due to endowment performance. A full financial report will be offered in writing and verbally during GA.

This was the first year of a multi-year financial plan for Beacon Press, designed to result in an loss of no more than $600,000 over the next three years, with no annual loss greater than $300,000 in that same period. At the end of FY 02, the Beacon Press deficit was less than expected, and we continue to be hopeful that financial adjustments they have made will continue to support financial stability at Beacon. By April 03, it was projected that this goal was attainable within FY 03 as well. While giving time for this plan to work, the Board also knows that it must discern over this three-year period whether we have a future in book publishing, and at what cost to the Association’s overall program resources.

The FY 04 budget was presented to the Board in April rather in January because of difficulties involved in predicting income in the declining stock market. It had been adjusted downward from the first 04 Budget we received a year earlier. The Board was grateful for the work of the Administration and Finance Committee in dealing with difficult decisions about limited resources in a ways that are consistent with our mission and stated goals.

Agents For Anti-Oppression
Our mission statement says we want to be “agents for anti-oppression” work. Towards that end, we renewed the charge of our Anti-Racism Assessment and Monitoring Team, comprised of members of the Board, to help us work with internal Board process and accountability of outcomes. We continue to take time at the end of each day’s Board session for a process observation of this missional objective.

The UUA Administration is seeking to make anti-racism and anti-oppression work a part of every staff group’s goals. On the Board as well, we are finding that there are few issues where this lens cannot be used to suggest new insights and policies. A few specific areas of work require a fuller report, however.

1) After the 2002 General Assembly, the Board voted to recommend to the General Assembly that all GA elected Committees (Commission on Social Witness, Nominating Committee, Commission on Appraisal and Board of Review) engage in anti-racism consultation. We are engaged with our appointed committees about ways that they might do likewise. The Board also voted to require this of ourselves at least every two years. We received and affirmed a report from Board member Tamara Payne-Alex on an anti-racism learning model that could inform the kinds of consultations we might require for different kinds of volunteer leaders.

2) We asked the Administration to include in its growth strategies specific and intentional plans for building systems and institutions that support our anti-racist and anti-oppression imperative. At the April 03 meeting, we received reports on how the Administration was responding to this imperative.

3) In June 02 we asked our Journey Towards Wholeness Transformation Committee to undertake a survey of the GA experience of people of color compared with other groups. The results of this survey were reported to us in January 03. The survey revealed that a majority of GA attendees from both Euro-American/White and non-Euro-American/White felt strongly positive about the UUA’s movement towards becoming an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization, and the ways they experienced that at GA. However, there was a secondary finding that a quarter of those surveyed from both groups had concerns about the direction we are going, concerns that were frequently expressed in opposite ways (e.g., not far enough vs. too far).

4) In January 03, the Board met with Paula Cole Jones, president of the Diverse and Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM). DRUUMM provides a community of support and advocacy for people of color within the UUA and works on accountability to communities of color. Ms. Jones described DRUUMM’s priorities and worked with us on our understanding of what the UUA would look like if it had a culture of accountability to people of color.

5) In 2001, the Board received a commissioned independent study of the UUA’s By-laws and Rules through an anti-racist anti-oppression lens. One outcome of that study was a by-law amendment which we have placed on the [agenda for this] 2003 General Assembly agenda.

Ministry & Professional Leadership
The new credentialing process for Religious Educators was a major focus for us. The Board reviewed plans and acted to implement the beginning of the credentialing process, which will include proposed by-law changes on the agenda of the 2004 General Assembly.

We dealt with ongoing discussion regarding proposals for redesign of the preliminary fellowship process for ministry. We worked with both the Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) and the UU Ministers Association to develop a process for continued planning over the next year on changes in the preliminary fellowship renewal process, leading to recognition of the current ministry “tracks,” or categories of ministry. We affirmed that this process is not intended to discourage or abolish ministers’ credentialed identities as Community Ministers, Ministers of Religious Education or Parish Ministers. The Board urged the MFC to move ahead with their plans to effect this change.

Campaign for Unitarian Universalism/Youth and Young Adult Sunday
The Campaign for Unitarian Universalism is entering its final stages. The Board enthusiastically supported and participated in the Youth/Young Adult “Mind the Gap” Sundays held in the fall of 03. A full report will be available at GA. Thanks to all congregations that participated.

Fair Compensation Standards
The Board passed, with thanks to the Compensation, Pension, and Benefits Committee, the updated Fair Compensation Standards to go into effect on January 1, 2004. These standards will be available and workshops on their use will be offered at GA.

General Assembly
The Board has a considerable amount of routine work to prepare for each GA’s business and program agenda. We also approve future sites and registration fees. Portland, Oregon was approved as the site of GA 2007. A chart of registration fees for GA 2004 was approved. Adult full time registration was increased by $10.00.

International Issues
In April 03 we discussed a major review of our international policy, and scheduled further discussion and a vote at our pre-GA meeting in June.

As always, we appreciate the excellent support we receive from Executive Vice President Kay Montgomery and Nancy Lawrence, Assistant to the Executive Vice President.

This brief report does not encompass all of our work, but gives you an overview of major issues. We welcome your comments and questions, both at General Assembly and throughout the year.

The Rev. Wayne B. Arnason, Secretary
Patricia C. Solomon, Asst. Secretary

Unitarian Universalist Association
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