January and February 2024 Splinters
In 2024 your UU Lansing Board of Trustees (BoT) has been governing on your behalf through two regular monthly BoT meetings, an Emergency Executive Committee meeting, and a Special Congregational Meeting.
During our January regular BoT meeting:
Updated documents were provided to Dart Bank, authorizing the recently elected President and Treasurer to sign documents on behalf of the Church when requested.
A survey summary was produced for possible publication to the congregation. This survey was conducted in April 2023 to gauge the congregation’s understanding of its progress toward its Ends. The summary report can be viewed by following this link: Summary Report.
Work began on the revision and consolidation of several existing versions of BoT covenant and codes of conduct. This work will provide a current and concise description of a board member’s expected behavior and covenantal agreement for working together, and a board member’s engagement with the congregation.
Shortly after the January Board meeting adjourned, the BoT received a letter of resignation from Chris Clampitt. Chris had been elected as Treasurer in the most recent election at the end of 2023. In order to appoint a replacement, in accordance with our Bylaws, the Executive Committee of the BoT convened an emergency meeting. During this emergency meeting of the Executive Committee, Ralph Putnam was appointed to the office of Treasurer. Ralph’s term runs through the end of 2025.
In early February 2024, our congregation gathered for a special meeting. This meeting was held to select delegates to represent UU Lansing at the upcoming 2024 Mid-America Regional and UUA General Assemblies. Delegates selected for the Regional Assembly are: Bob Lovell, Kathy Lovell, John-Marc Ormechea, Callen Latz, Alysandra Ganem-Redd, and Sonya Schryer Norris. This regional Assembly will be held April 19-21, 2024.
Delegates selected for the General Assembly are: Bob Lovell, Kathy Lovell, Carol Nicholas, Sonya Schryer Norris, Tammy Lemer, Barbara Stoddard, Gene Mellen, and Cheryl Overly. The General Assembly will be held Jun 20-23, 2024.
Immediately following the adjournment of this Special Congregational Meeting, an informal information update session was provided. This hour-long session included an update on the current financial plan, a message from the Senior Minister, and a presentation of the results from the April 2023 Congregational Survey. Each presentation was followed by questions and answers among the attendees and presenters.
At the February meeting of your BoT:
The Board appointed Kelsea Hector to the BoT, filling a vacancy created when Ralph Putnam was appointed Treasurer.
A summary report from the 2023 survey of the Congregation was recommended for publication. The summary report can be viewed by following this link: insert link here
Your BoT established some small working groups to focus efforts throughout 2024, in the following areas:
Monitoring the policy limitations agreed upon by the Board and Senior Minister, as well as monitoring the BoT itself regarding its practices and performance.
A Linkage group will develop a plan for, and practice various methods of engagement between the Board and the Congregation focusing on the Ends.
A Survey group will begin work on our Second Annual Survey of the Congregation.
If you have any questions regarding Splinters from the Board or the work of your Board, please reach out to us. We look forward to future engagement on these and other topics.
Tom Nicholas, President
December 2023 Splinters
The Board held its last meeting of the 2023-year on December 27th. We thanked outgoing board members, Rob Mack (Treasurer) and Margo Smith (appointed to fill vacancy) and welcome newly elected members, Callen Latz, Cindy Lemkuhle, Michael McClellan, Ralph Putnam, Laura Ray, and Chris Clampitt (incoming Treasurer). Michael McClellan was re-elected secretary of the church. Election for president-elect was tabled. We also discussed our own compliance with Board Governance Process (Board self-evaluation) in the areas of Individual effectiveness, Board effectiveness, and Board mechanics. This may have been the first time a Board of Trustees from UU Lansing has ever conducted a formal self-evaluation. However, it is an important aspect of our shared governance policies to identify areas of board functioning that are working well and those that may need improvement. Areas we identified that need improvement include being better prepared for meetings, better understanding of policy governance for new board members; and spending more time on planning for the future. The board has mainly been focused on current issues as we have worked on governance practices.
As we reflect on 2023, we continued to build on the milestones in our multi-year project to modernize UU Lansing’s governance.
We conducted a baseline congregational survey on the Ends (an “understanding” survey).
We established written governance policies for Congregational committees.
We approved a complaint process for when disagreements and complaints with the Board’s governing policies occur: 1.10 of the UU Lansing Board Policy Document:
We posted a guide for how congregational members can attend a board meeting to be posted on the website.
We moved our Annual meeting of the Congregation to November (based on our newly approved By-Laws), where we presented 1) slates of candidates for all appropriate positions on the Board of Trustees, the Treasurer, and Congregational Committees and 2) the church’s annual financial plan for 2024.
We completed the first full year of monitoring assessments of Rev. Neal’s limitation policies (there are 8 Limitation policies in our shared-leadership governance). As part of these policies, we accepted Rev. Neal’s Operational Policies on Gift Acceptance; Living Our Values Team (which includes a process for feedback on congregational relationships and congregational operations); and an updated policy on membership removal.
We reviewed the cumulative summary of monitoring assessments which comprised Rev. Neal’s year-end performance appraisal.
We established a perpetual calendar for assessing policy compliance to help the board stay aligned with its governance system into the future.
We will have another Congregational meeting on Sunday, February 4, 2024, to vote on approval of the slate of General Assembly and Regional Assembly delegates and to present findings from the April 2023 congregational survey on how we, as a congregation and church, are meeting the Ends to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves in 2021.
If you have any questions regarding Splinters from the Board or the work of your Board, please reach out to us. We look forward to future engagement on these and other topics.
Tom Nicholas, President
president@uulansing.org