Kate Sloan, Board Member
Good morning, Happy Yule! My name is Kate Sloan. For visual accessibility, I am a cisgender, stout like Santa Claus, blue haired woman nearing 70, who is occasionally merry, often jolly and who loves Christmas cookies & mince pies, like the big man himself. I am wearing a black shirt decorated with Christmas trees & black pants. My pronouns are she/her & in support my gender fluid friends, they.
Though you’ll hear a lot more from me as an episca-pagan (as I like to call my personal theology) in this service, right now I’m presenting as the Second Vice-President of the Board of Trustees here at UUCCH.
There are a lot of things I love about this church. The pluralism of our worship is high on that list. We have atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, a whole host of various beliefs & practices. This service, designed in collaboration with the Earth Centered Practices Team, is a perfect representation of that. At any one of our meetings, we learn about the beliefs & practices of some of our members, New Age, Celtic, Egyptian, Norse, Native American – you name it. And we are all curious & fascinated about those practices. It’s a no-judgment zone, more like a “how cool is that” zone.
When you have such safe spaces, such a curious, non-judgmental & loving congregation, you need to take care of that beloved community. And that’s the mission & goal of the Board of Trustees. We’ve been working hard for the last few years, on re-designing our governance structure, clarifying our church policies and trying to empower the Teams (formerly committees) and affinity groups to make decisions on their own, within the boundaries of policy. After years of being asked, “do we need Board permission for this” on pretty much any idea, we’re finally giving the Teams the freedom to implement their own ideas – as long as it doesn’t violate church policy. And slowly, but surely, every policy is being examined, clarified, updated or deleted (those are the strange ones. For example, we used to have a policy on the Christmas tree, size, shape, decorations, etc. – it’s more practical to let Arts & Aesthetics make their own decision – in conjunction with the Lifespan Faith Engagement Team – on that one. And thus, we have a beautiful tree out in the Commons, decorated by our kids, without the need for Board involvement or constraints on creativity.) That’s much better, if I do say so myself.
The Board meets with the Governance Advisory Committee each month – the GAC/BOT meeting – to examine a policy (or two or three) and talk it through, explore all the effects, good or bad, that policy engenders and then, because we are Unitarian-Universalists, we wordsmith the hell out of it until it says precisely what we need it to say and has the effect we need it to have. Once the policy is ready to be implemented, it is presented at the monthly Board meeting, where it is voted upon. We’re working on more accessible ways to make sure the congregation knows about each policy change. But for right now, the Board Policy Book is available on the church website. Look under Member Resources, then Governance. There you can see what’s been finalized & what’s still in draft form. Currently, we are wrestling with multiple Communication issues and I have to say, I have never encountered such careful, thoughtful, dedicated people in my life. No one on this Board takes anything lightly or for granted. It’s an honor for me to work with all of them.
We understand how precious & rare this congregation is. We are the church that rebuilt its sanctuary in the middle of a pandemic, after all! So we are deeply aware of the responsibility we hold to ensure our church’s resources – people, buildings, grounds & bank accounts – are treated with the utmost care and, understanding also that this community has a right to know exactly what their leaders are doing, we strive to be available for questions & to be as transparent in our work as possible.
Thank you for your trust in us. We won’t let you down. And, have a happy Yule!