Dear UUCM Community,
I want to start by thanking you all for your investment in our wonderful church community. We are only going strong now because of the level of involvement you have shown. It has truly been uplifting.
I have been reflecting on our Congregational Conversation last Sunday and thinking about what it means to be a part of this community. In many traditional faith communities decisions are made from the top down. In some ways it can be easier to be a member of those communities. What is required is to go to services and obey the dictates of the religion and its leaders. Obviously that doesn't work for all of us, which is why we are members of a UU congregation. But there is a price to be paid for this freedom. It means we have to be actively involved in decisions, discussions, and sometimes disagreements about how to proceed. Sometimes this is difficult. But I think we do it well.
I count my blessings often. One of my blessings is that I have this church community. I am truly grateful for all of you.
On Sunday April 16th we had a meeting that was very important. Not everyone got to read the draft Bylaws before the meeting. I understand this. I could have seen myself doing the same thing if I hadn't worked on it and realized just how complex a process this would be. We learned today that if we were going to do a line by line review of the draft Bylaws in a congregational meeting it would mean bringing a sleeping bag and planning to sleep over. This obviously is not a doable plan. So we will continue this process next Sunday. We are scheduled already for a budget hearing. Hopefully we will be able to complete that quickly and move on to finish our review of the new draft Bylaws. To accomplish all of this we will need to come prepared. There are several attachments I ask that everyone try to review before this coming Sunday's conversation. Trish has a link to the proposed budget. Janet sent her notes from today's conversation right away and Jeff prepared three handouts which show the changes we have proposed for our Bylaws. Please take the time, if at all possible, to review all of these and perhaps have written notes and questions with you for discussion. This way we won't need to be there with our sleeping bags.
One thing I also want to clarify. To vote on church business you need to be a member. However you do not need to be a member to participate in discussion or share your thoughts or opinions. We want to hear from everybody.
Again thank you for being such a wonderful group of people. We are blessed to have each other.
In Community,
Nancy Burton
Co-President
DRAFT BYLAWS REVISIONS WITH CHANGES HIGHLIGHTED: https://www.uumeriden.org/files/draft-changes.pdf
LIST OF PROPOSED CHANGES: https://www.uumeriden.org/files/changes-list.pdf
EXISTING BYLAWS WITH CHANGED PASSAGES MARKED: https://www.uumeriden.org/files/existing-marked.pdf
DRAFT BUDGET: uucentralct.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FY24-Draft-UUCM-Budget.xlsx.pdf
