UUFP From the Sandra Engelhardt
Denominational Affairs Committee Annual Report
July 1 2007 through Jun 30, 2008
Activities:
·
This year brought more UUFP participation in this committee than any
previous year. We had eleven members attend one of the Thomas
Jefferson (TJ) Fall Leadership Conferences in Richmond, three drove
to the TJ Spring Annual Meeting in Asheville, North Carolina and
three flew to be delegates to the General Assembly in Portland,
Oregon.
·
The 46th General Assembly (GA) was 20-24 June 2007 in Portland,
Oregon was the second largest ever meeting of the congregations of
our faith with over 5700 attendees. It was a unique one as well,
with the group helping to decide the future mission of the
denomination through small group meetings. Many attendees believed
the best presentation and certainly the most well-attended one was
"Pentagon Papers Then and Now: UU's Confronting Government Secrecy".
The three men behind the story, Daniel Ellsberg, former senator,
Mike Gravel and former UUA Pres and editor of Beacon Press, Robert
West, were great at remembering the details and comparing them to
today's world.
The three UUFP delegates were: Judy and Ellis Remsberg and Sandra
Engelhardt. The 2008 GA is in
·
The TJ Fall Leadership Conference was Sept 14-15 at the First UU
Church of Richmond, VA. It was one of three held in the TJ district
which resulted in over 200 attendees learning about
"Transformational Stewardship" - a guide to growth, giving and
gratitude. Most board members and finance committee members
attended. The Friday evening activity focused on the "Appreciative
Inquiry Process".
· TJ Annual Meeting was April 25-26 at the UU church of Asheville, NC
The theme was "Are we ready?" This was in connecting to the growth
our faith is having and is expected to have after the national
advertising campaign is done. The workshops were all connected to
this theme and were well done. The delegates for this meeting were:
Sandra Engelhardt, Donna Sprock and Joanne Dingus.
Some facts from the Thomas Jefferson District Meeting:
- We are the 4th fastest growing district, the top district in terms
of actual new members, (3% in 2006-2007)
- Rev. Sue Sinnamon added to TJ staff as Director of Faith
Development
- Dues are $21. per church member for 2008-9, $22 for 2009-10
- Membership for district now over 10,390 in 63 congregations
- New President -Jim Key, from
- New Vice President -Denise Rimes, from
-
Ad campaign in Time magazine and Google offering free DVD to
visitors
- Chalice lighter rules changed, flexibility and creativity are the
new bywords
- TJ Board developing a plan to move toward another vote on the
district name by April 2009
-New congregation of