04/10/2023 by Shannon Day

Investing in our Spiritual Home

The Westside UU Congregation has been through some hard times over the past few years. The pandemic, being without a fully-present minister, and the difficult conversations associated with the 8th principle have tested us. Inability to gather together frequently as a community has led to isolation for many, serious misunderstandings, and limited capacity to address all of the needs of our members. Our children and youth, along with many adults, have filled their Sunday mornings with other pursuits. We are not alone in needing to rebuild our congregation. Churches in the US have lost an average of 36% of in-person worship

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02/23/2023 by Shannon Day

Westside Welcomes Carter Smith, Our New Contract Minister

The Board and the Search Committee are extremely pleased to introduce Carter Smith (she, her pronouns) as our half time contract minister beginning March 1. Carter has been granted Preliminary Fellowship by the UUA and will be ordained by her home congregation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in May. At that time, she will formally take on the title of Reverend. We were impressed with Carter’s integrity, her curiosity about all things WSUU, her ability to problem solve, to connect with people of all ages and backgrounds, her love of Unitarian Universalism,  her actions that demonstrate a real commitment to

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08/24/2022 by Shannon Day

Board Update August 2022

Dear Westside Community, As the fall approaches, your Board of Trustees is hopeful and excited about what is coming for Westside. We had the opportunity to come together for a retreat on Saturday, July 30, and set priorities for the coming year.  We will soon have an action plan available, but here is a preview: This year, our overarching principles guiding our work are equity, joy, and service.  Our priority areas of focus are community building (including right relations and racial justice work), selection of a part-time contract minister, and sustainable operations. We will also continue our ongoing commitments to

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03/09/2022 by Shannon Day

Board Update 3.11.22

Beloved Community, As promised in our discussions this weekend, the Board would like to provide more context around the mutual agreement of Rev. Christopher’s transition out of his ministry with Westside UU. We will focus on the Board of Trustees ministerial supervision process in this communication.  In the fall, the Board designated Laura Pierce and Marco Deppe as leads to work regularly with Rev. Christopher in a supervisory capacity with the goal of nurturing the health of our congregation, building collaboration, supporting effective leadership, responding to issues or concerns together and mutual respect of open communication. Supervision of our minister

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12/07/2021 by Shannon Day

Congregational Survey on the Proposal for an 8th Principle

The WSUU Board strongly encourages each of you to engage in the upcoming opportunities within our congregation to learn about and reflect on the proposed 8th Principle of Unitarian Universalism addressing racism and other oppressions. This work began in September, when Westside’s Racial Justice Change Team (RJCT) worked with Rev. Christopher to organize a workshop entitled “Building a Culture of Inclusion,” led by PaulaCole Jones, a lifelong UU and leader in advancing the proposed 8th Principle. As part of the workshop, participants broke into small groups to discuss the relationship of the 8th Principle to the current Seven Principles of

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12/01/2021 by Shannon Day

Board Update for November 2021

Hello friends. You read the subject correctly – although it is now early December, I (Kristina) am writing to provide a November update from the WSUU Board of Trustees. This is often a busy time of year even in normal circumstances; so much has been happening that this month we thought the most sensible thing to communicate would be a summary of the various things we’ve been working on the past few months. Because I am a librarian and I can’t pass up a chance to share resources, I will take this opportunity to remind everyone (or let you know if you didn’t

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11/11/2021 by Shannon Day

Evaluation of Rev. Christopher

Last month, we indicated that the board is working to establish a supervisory relationship with Rev. Christopher and will implement an annual performance review. Here is some more information about the process and how you can participate if you wish to provide input. Approach to Ministerial Supervision & Evaluation Since Rev. Christopher is in a period of preliminary fellowship, there is a process in place which requires annual evaluations to support Rev. Christopher’s ministry. The board is working with the Committee on Ministry to provide Rev. Christopher with feedback that will allow him to grow as a minister and better

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10/27/2021 by Shannon Day

Board Update for October 2021

Dear WSUU Friends, The board continues to be busy with several different projects and we are pleased to provide an update. We met this past Thursday and talked about many things, include revisiting COVID policies and discussing the future of RE programs in light of staff changes. As you probably read in last week’s Westside Week, we agreed to plan for in-person worship at WSUU beginning on December 5.  We are deeply grateful for the work of the COVID Task Force (Liz Berggren, Jill Jackson, Amanda Maier, and Chris Hollinger), who have spent many hours reviewing safety guidelines and public

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09/21/2021 by Shannon Day

September Update from Board of Trustees

Dear Westside Community, We are writing to update you regarding one aspect of our board work.  The board is responsible for supervision of our minister, Reverend Christopher. As we self-organize to cover the different board roles and responsibilities, we have designated two board members to be the leads for this function: Laura Pierce and Marco Deppe. We recognize that it may not be obvious how concerns related to staff should be handled, and that without formal channels for feedback, concerns can fester or lead to gossip rather than resolution. The managerial structure of our congregation is that Rev. Christopher is

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08/25/2021 by Shannon Day

WSUU Board Retreat Update

by Jim Schlough, Board Treasurer August 22, 2021 The recently elected Board of Trustees of our church got together last Sunday for a daylong retreat. We have an entirely new board of five people this year and, although many of us have served previously on other non-profit boards, we want to determine how we can best serve the specific needs and hopes of our beloved WSUU community. We also want to express gratitude for the guidance we have already received from last year’s board members.Let me remind you who we are: Kristina Darnell, president; Marco Deppe, vice-president; Laura White, secretary; Jim Schlough,

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