The President's Perspective

As we enter November, let’s hear it for Thanksgiving! You remember that holiday sandwiched in-between the retail bombardment of Halloween and Christmas. And we have so much to be grateful for as a congregation — it’s so exciting to see the dream of our sanctuary take shape, our congregation continues to grow and we have an outstanding staff who keep our services and programs vibrant and relevant. Also, I would encourage you to think of each of our visitors as…

Traditionally, your Board utilized their August meeting to conduct a retreat during which they participated in team building exercises and determined specific goals to guide their activities for the coming year. This year the Retreat was broadened to include Chairs of standing committees, past Board presidents and OCUUC staff; in all, we had 30 church leaders participate. The September Board meeting processed the input from this half-day Retreat in order to determine our annual goals. These two meetings have illuminated…

September brings a special event to OCUUC and you’ll want to mark your calendar and make sure you don’t miss out. UU congregations across our country will be involved in the Climate Justice Revival developed by the UUA in order to renew our commitment to the planet, and we’re now “on the map” as a participating congregation which you can see at the Revival home page: https://www.uuclimatejustice.org/ I am proud to share that a strong team at OCUUC has come…

I know that we are all eager to hear the latest news on the sanctuary construction, and for that reason I asked Craig Spery, Chair of our Construction Committee, to give us an update. – Kathleen McFarlin As your Sanctuary Construction Committee Chair, I’m happy to give you a heads up about construction happenings that are on the immediate horizon for the beautiful new sanctuary we’ve all been waiting for. Since we signed and celebrated our con-tract last month with…

As your newly elected President of the Board, I want to thank you for your confidence in me. Although I served on the Board some years ago, I haven’t been recently involved in the Board’s work, so I ask for your patience and understanding as I get up to speed. As you may know, your Board meets each month; these meetings are typically conducted via Zoom, although once each quarter, we meet in person at the church on a Saturday…

When Rev. Sian was recruiting me in 2021 for President, she said, “Just get the sanctuary built, we really need you for that.” Huh. Just get it built, right? The sanctuary has been the focus of all my terms and will continue to be so for the future, apparently. While working with the architect and the City has definitely had its trying moments, working with all of you has been wonderful. We have kept in communication and relationship, and I…

Once again, a busy time at OCUUC. We are apporoaching the end of our fiscal year. The pledge drive is mostly done, although we are still waiting to hear from some members. The Pacific Regional and deBenneville meetings are behind us, and preparations for General Assembly are under way. Please see the information on Article 2 in the REACH. Those things happen every year. In addition, we have two staff members who will be leaving us – Karen Magoon Pearson…

Getting to a building permit is an exercise in patience and is full of frustration for me. We continue to make progress at a snail’s pace. At this point, there have been so many missed expectations by both the city and our architect, I truly don’t feel confident in any promises. I do know the ball is back in the city’s court. We are waiting for a response to our fourth submission. I am committed to keeping everyone informed and…

March promises to be a busy month again with the kickoff of our annual operating pledge drive and hopefully some great progress on getting to construction. It is a great time to contemplate what it means to be in community and traveling our paths together. Our operating pledges are the annual commitments we make to the programs and impact of our congregation. It funds our staff salaries, routine building costs and all the programs we create and support. It only…

We had a growth spurt in December with eight new members. That is eleven since July. Welcome! We held a membership and engagement workshop January 20th with 14 people to talk about how we grow, and not just in numbers of members. Many great ideas and volunteers came out of the workshop. Specifically, Melanie Malaviya and Craig Preston are the new co-chairs of the (perhaps to be renamed) Membership Committee. They have great ideas; give them your support when they…

I have been reflecting on our Special Congregation meeting all month and want to say again how much I feel we are a great congregation together. I get too much credit for our actions – it is all of us that make it happen. When the Sanctuary Construction Committee decided to challenge everyone to pledge again for the new Sanctuary, we knew full well that we would collectively determine the outcome. We did! I know it seems like we are…

Our Special Congregation Meeting is Sunday, December 3rd after church. I am deep in the “sausage making” of preparing the information we will all need to make a good decision. We are all in this together, and I’m certain Sunday will be a great example of our democracy. Many of you have complimented me on my leadership style, but it is because we are a great congregation and we complement each other that it works. Regardless of the outcome of…