September Board Report

Lead Minister’s Report to the Board of Trustees
September 12, 2008

My goals have been to: (1) Assure worship services are meaningful and challenging; (2) Administer Chapel business (including staff); (3) regular social & pastoral contact.

Worship Services

Sunday Services. I preached twice last month, and I am set to preach three times in September, with Rev. Bonnie preaching on 9/21. I will be preaching in Mt Vernon, IL that day. I am still working on getting the rest of the fall scheduled. Last Sunday service produced several dozen responses to the question: when did you first know you were white? I have been able to use transcription software to get all those handwritten notes into electronic form. While I won’t be able to use all of the responses in the upcoming sermon, I will post them all on my blog: http://revdanielsblog.blogspot.com.

Chapel Business

Adult religious education. This month I began teaching a four session class called, “articulating your theology.” It will meet for four Wednesday night, and participants will produce a short statement about Unitarian universalism and their religious beliefs.

Board Stewardship Committee. I participated in this meeting. We discussed raising the pledge base, cultivating large gifts, expanding the script program, and moving Eliot more fully into e-commerce. Charlie Lewis and I are making progress in this area. Bill Miller and I meeting later this month to discuss the same topics.

Bookkeeper. Our bookkeeper is back on the job and doing well.

Building and Grounds. I called a meeting to try and get everyone on the same page as far as our grounds keeping and landscape plan goes. Besides myself, Marge Bergfeld (an Eliot member who owns a landscaping business), Charlie Lewis (Office Manager), Karen Rose (Eliot’s landscape contractor) attended, along with Larry Reuter and Curtis Kristofitz of the Building and Grounds (B&G) Committee. There has been some tension as the guys from B&G have been denied access to work orders, invoices, and even contact with Karen Rose by the previous Business Administrator. We discussed the work Ms Rose was doing, had done, her general plan and approach to the grounds. Larry & Curtis had a variety of saved up, pointed questions, which were answered satisfactorily. Marge Bergfeld was able to provide a professional perspective that was most helpful. Our group toured the grounds and made on the spot decisions about particular plants. Charlie will come up with a proposed annual calendar and grounds plan which we will then take back to the group. There is some tension between ‘old school’ and ‘new school’ of thought here. The old school apparently thinks there should be as few plants as possible with as much lawn grass as possible. The new school favors more native plants with reduced water, chemical, and maintenance inputs.

Canvass. The staff and I are eager to begin to work with the new canvass team. Hopefully we will receive some information soon.

Chapel Calendar. We have been making tweaks to the online CalendarWiz program we use for our calendaring. It is working well, and is available as a link from our new web site.

Disaster Preparedness. I distributed kits for families for disaster preparedness last Sunday, as part of the Sunday service. I also asked for volunteers for a Disaster Preparedness Task Force. I have since received about a half dozen inquiries. I plan to convene the group in two weeks, after returning from Boston. I also convened a telephone conference call among ministers from large UU churches in our district. We discussed what we were doing (if anything) and best practices.

Membership Coordinator. After an extensive interview, I have brought on Tracey Howe Koch as “Volunteer Membership Coordinator.” This is essentially, a staff position, but unpaid for this year. Tracey will work with me initially, and then I plan on handing off the membership area to Rev. Bonnie, due to the civic activity I have taken up in Kirkwood.

Our Neighbors. Our lawyer for the property line dispute has advised us to get another survey done to see if our neighbor has complied with the court order. Charlie is working on facilitating this. Our lawyer has been on vacation, but I will be communicating with him regarding the sign posted on the neighbor’s RV. It continues to be an eyesore.

Information guide. We are in the process of a total overhaul of the information guide. Previously, all of the religious education material was published in separate booklets and pamphlets. While some material for RE will still be published separately, the new information guide will be a comprehensive resource for all the activities and programs of Eliot Unitarian Chapel.

Web Site. The board let me know last spring that a more functional web site was a priority. Brent Vaughn and Charlie Lewis have been working tirelessly to get this up and running. They have even installed a major upgrade of the software. I have been doing some testing and updating.

Social & Pastoral contact

Community for Understanding and Healing. I participated in the last meeting where we saw a short video on white privilege and then broke out into discussion groups. I will continue to participate in that group as part of my plan to be active in the civic life of Kirkwood.

Pastoral Activities. I had two office visits, and a phone call, along with the usual coffee hour discussions. I plan on two in home visits in the next month.

Picnic at Des Peres Park. We had an Eliot picnic at Des Peres Park (8/24). Bonnie, and I and our girls spent a couple hours there with parishioners in a relaxed environment.

Police Chaplain program. I have been in several meetings at the police department with other Kirkwood area ministers to discuss and implement the chaplain program. I took my “ride-a-long” in an 8 hour shift. It was illuminating. You can read more about the ride along on my blog which is at: http://revdanielsblog.blogspot.com. I plan on doing this about once per month as a way of meeting more neighbors and interacting with our public officials.

Upcoming.

I will be in Boston from September 14 through the 17th for a UUA task force.
On September 18 I will be introduced with the chaplain team to the Kirkwood city Council.
On September 19 and 20th I will be in Chicago for a district board meeting.
On September 21 I will be preaching in Mount Vernon, Illinois, and Rev. Bonnie will be doing the service here.