Hello, Beloved Community,

We have another great update in our progress to bring our called minister, Rev. Christopher Wulff, to us from Canada! Our R-1 Immigration Visa application has been assigned a case number through USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services)!

Also, our 2019-2020 Board has met for one trust-building and planning retreat, and two regular monthly meetings.

R-1 Visa Update  

With our R-1 Visa case number assigned, we are now in a holding period waiting for a site visit from our USCIS case manager. This pre-adjudication visit will not be announced. The purpose will be to affirm that we are what we have portrayed in our application. Shannon Day is working closely with the Transition Working Group and the Board to ensure that we are ready for this visit and that we have an idea about what to expect. Thank you to Shannon!

Board Meeting Updates

• Covenanting – This year’s board has six new members, and one anchoring member from last year. We dedicated our July retreat to building a depth of trust between us that will allow us to work together in right relationship. Since then, we have been working on some foundational pieces to help us to live into that trust, including –

o   developing our covenant;

o   implementing a process observer role in our meetings; and

o   integrating an “ouch/oops” procedure into our interactions to allow us to acknowledge and resolve micro-aggressions and conflicts in a productive and caring way.

We have a draft covenant in place now that we are still revising. We plan to make it a living document, and we will share it with the congregation in September. Please ask any board members about our processes if you have questions.

• Goals – We have developed a draft set of goals for this year, and we are working on solidifying these, and determining how we will implement them and what our indicators of success will be. We will share these in September as well.
• Board Meeting Minutes – It is Westside’s practice to post board minutes and reports on our web site, and we will continue to do this. In addition, we will add a print copy of our minutes to a notebook that we will keep at our board table during each Social Hour after services on Sundays. You will find us and the Transition Working Group together at a table in the Social Hall each Sunday – please stop by to visit!

All the best,

Jade Lowry, Board President  president@wsuu.org

Roseanne Lorenzana, Board Vice President   vp@wsuu.org