I have been on the job now for three months. I look out my window to see the leaves changing color and then falling on the ground. Fall is a time where Mother Nature starts her process of regeneration by shedding what isn’t needed to make room for something new. UURMAPA has a new board as of July and we have been working to continue the success of the previous board under the leadership of Susan Rak.
We had a retreat in August that allowed us to focus on the longer term of UURMAPA. We will report what we have been up to at the Fall Conference in just a few weeks. You may have noticed that we are still in the transition to the new membership system. We are still working out some kinks to allow people to securely find other members of UURMAPA. But to do this, we will need everyone to authorize others finding them. We sent out instructions earlier but will refine them and send them out again.
Our upcoming conference will focus on our stories about freedom. The theme for the fall conference is “Stories of the Faith behind Freedom.” I hope that you will register and attend via Zoom or gather with others in a Pod to participate in what is shaping up to be another deeply meaningful conference for us.
We have also welcomed in newly retired ministers and partners in September. If you missed the presentation, we recorded it and will have it hopefully available on our website soon. We had 44 ministers who retired and 23 partners were listed with them. We hope they will bring their energy and commitment to join with us in continuing to build our association. Some have already jumped into activities such as our connection groups and the fall conference.
We are establishing a small chaplain group to be available to all members including partners should the need arise. We are being pro-active to address potential conflicts when ministers and their partners seek to join congregations where they have not served before. We hope that the settled or contract ministers will welcome retired colleagues and partners to those congregations. But if conflicts arise, we want to be able to support our members appropriately.
We are looking at new ways to reach out to each of you with special programs throughout the year. We are planning a webinar with the Office of Church Staff Finance to address any questions we might have about our retirement plans. We also are looking at a program that might involve the UUA Vice President to talk about the UUA and its plans for the future.
We are looking at other ways to strengthen connections among us. We now have over 1400 people as members of UURMAPA. These include those who have been retired for a while as well as the newest who have just joined. As we move more into a technical future with our programming, we don’t want to leave people behind. We want to create a small group of tech savvy members who would be available to work with those who need help with our technology. If you would like to be one of those people, contact me.
The bottom line is we are working for you. Let us know where we can meet your needs. We will do our best to create something for you. Happy Fall.
Richard Speck, UURMAPA President