Board President's Message, July 10, 2016

Message from the President

I was sorry to miss the weekend’s events at 1stUUPB. I hope everyone had a great time whether painting, welcoming our new intern minister, attending News Talk, or listening to our Treasurer’s service. Pat Knight and I -- Vice president and President of the Board of Trustees -- were in Orlando for the weekend attending the UUA Southern Region Presidents Convocation. We enjoyed meeting and conversing with other board members from 10 of the 50 plus congregations in Florida. Many familiar issues were discussed.

Growing a Beloved Community, a book written by Tom Owen-Towle, was the text used for us to explore Unitarian Unitarianism in small groups. A theme of Joy ran through much of the weekend. We were introduced to the UUA General Assembly Sunday Service. If you have not found this on the UUA website yet, you can find it here:
http://www.uuworld.org/articles/uuaga16-sunday-morning-worship.  If you have time, listen to the entire session. If not, begin at 1:11:50 to hear a wonderful sermon delivered by the Rev. Nancy Ladd.

Leadership Development was one of the items that had to excluded from our 1stUUPB 2016-17 budget. Financial costs of our attendance at the Convocation were met appreciatively from sources outside of the congregation’s funds. Looking forward, we will be forming a Leadership Development Team. If you are interested in serving on the Leadership Development Team, please let me know.

Board meetings are not scheduled for July and August but the Board of Trustees will be convening a second Board Retreat in September followed by the September board meeting. Following on from these events, we will be scheduling open forums to provide the opportunity to engage members of the congregation in conversations about our goals and our financial gap. Look for announcements soon.

I would like end with the words of Rabindranath Tagore:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. 
I awoke and saw that life was service. 
I acted and behold, service was joy.

Joyfully,
Paul G. Ward
President, Board of Trustees