From Our President Archive
In the seasonal spirit of sharing and receiving gifts, your Board of Directors and your Minister have made the decision to accept a ministerial intern for the 2014-2015 year. Our congregation has a long history of helping to train future UU ministers, but it has been a decade since we participated in this process, which is critical to the health of our denomination. A ministerial intern is a student who contracts with a congregation to receive practical experience and supervision as they seek to develop the personal and professional skills of ministry.
An intern provides ministerial services to a congregation including preaching, teaching, counseling, administration, and rites of passage ceremonies. An intern also has other educational and supervisory requirements as they work towards becoming eligible for ministerial placement. After a person completes an internship, they are expected to refrain from contact with the internship congregation for one year, and the position should not be seen as any commitment to ongoing professional involvement.
An intern receives a stipend for their work. Just this week, we received the news that the UUA has awarded us
$7,500 dollars as a stipend grant to fund half the stipend for a ministerial intern for the 2014-2015 year. The Board has agreed to allocate $10,000 from our unrestricted savings to match this grant and pay taxes and related expenses.
The selection process can now proceed. The intern is supervised by the minister and meets with the minister
weekly. The intern also receives support and evaluation from an internship committee, which meets with the intern monthly and offers guidance; the intern has the responsibility to choose how to respond to the committee’s guidance.
The congregation also has an important role to play. The congregation is expected to give the intern direct ministerial responsibilities in a wide range of duties. The UUA states that a good teaching site:
• Is dedicated to excellence in ministry
• Perceives the formation of ministerial interns as part of its mission
• Gives an intern the opportunity to make a significant contribution
• Enables an intern to pursue learning goals in a supportive atmosphere
• Provides opportunities for a variety of professional experiences
• Understands the value of Unitarian Universalism in the larger community
Your Board and your Minister look forward with excitement to sharing the rich experiences our congregation can provide. We also anticipate the new energy and perspective and the deepened interaction with our denomination that a ministerial intern can bring. We will keep you posted as this process evolves.
With warm greetings for the holidays,
— Cynthia Cottam
Since last month was the month to share your dreams, this month is the month to share your money. Sometimes we can move from imagination to reality pretty quickly around here. We are now in the heart of our pledge drive. This is the time for each of us to decide how much the church really matters in our lives and to make a commitment to keep the doors open and to pay our staff. We have a budget of $541,000 for this fiscal year. We need to raise 76% of that from pledges, which is $410,000. 75% of the budget is used for expenses directly related to paying people — wages, benefits, payroll taxes, and fees. Our pledges are really a statement about how much we appreciate the people we employ and about our intentions to pay them fairly.
I urge each of you to turn in your pledge card promptly. The great majority of people do not want to be called about their pledge. I can tell you from my experience last year, that the great majority of people don’t even answer their phone. The great majority of us don’t want to call people about their pledges either. Thankfully, there are some among us who are good at this work and understand that it is absolutely vital to our very existence. You can make their jobs much easier. Please do so. There is no point in living in denial. This vibrant community requires money, and there is no one to pay for it but us.
I would like to encourage everyone to consider having your bank electronically transfer your pledge directly to the church each month. Of course, we are happy to have your money any way you want to send it. But direct transfer avoids the 3% fee that credit cards incur, and it requires the least amount of time and effort from our administrative staff. It provides a predictable and dependable income stream. It also requires the least amount of time and effort from you.
Pledging should be fun and meaningful. It supports everything the church does for you, for the other people in our community, and for the wider community in which we live. It supports our liberal faith; it makes a statement about our liberal religious values. It also turns out that generosity makes us happy. Let’s erase our budget deficit entirely and move forward into a future full of possibility.
Generously,
— Cynthia Cottam
September signals the end of summer and the start of a new school year. Even if you haven’t been to school in a very long time, it’s hard not to feel a twinge of that old anticipation: dread and excitement and complicated imaginings about the future year. At church, September is also the time of beginnings, when the activity level rises noticeably, beginning its slow crescendo into the holidays. It is the beginning of the fourth year of Rev. Rebecca Bijur’s ministry with us, and your Board has some exciting plans for you. We have been through
three seasons of change, and we are ready to focus some of the wonderful energy we feel at church these days to shape the path we are walking. We are going to hold a series of visioning meetings, and we hope you will all participate. Meetings will be held after church on Sundays and also in the evenings at members’ homes. Watch for announcements and sign-up sheets at the end of this month.
These meetings are a time to celebrate our vibrant community and to spend some time imagining its future. e
will consider our purpose, our mission, and our core values. Speaking these things out loud gives direction and meaning to our actions. We will think about growing our church and our faith and what that might mean. We will think about the ways we wish to walk together and how we can best create lifeaffirming relationships among us. We will acknowledge the remarkable legacy gifts we have received this past year and consider the various ways we might honor them.
You can begin to think about where you want the church to be in 5, 10, and 50 years. If money were not a barrier, what would you do differently? What does the Unitarian Universalist Church of your imagination look like? How is it staffed? How do its members care for one another? How does it support our wider community, our UU faith, life on earth?
As we brainstorm these ideas, we know that we will always have limitations, but we also know that a vision of our purpose and our long-range plan can help us make better decisions about opportunities that arise. Come and share your thoughts and dreams with the other members of our community. Together, we make a difference in one another's lives and in the world around us.
See you at a meeting,
— Cynthia Cottam
Summer is a special time at church. We get to see some people who are usually hidden away in a different service from our own. Our minister takes study leave and vacation, so we have different people in the pulpit.
Our DRE also takes vacation (this year it’s family leave), and the RE children participate in a multi-age curriculum. Summer seems to be a popular time for visiting, and we see new people in our midst. The choir takes a break, and we welcome a variety of musical guests. The warmer weather makes our garden grow, and our lovely patio becomes especially inviting.
Our one service has been quite full this summer. Often, we have to squeeze together a little to find everyone a seat. Our membership is stable, but it feels as if we are growing. We hear babies in our pews and see families with young children. We welcomed twenty-five new members last year. Over the course of the year there were one thousand more people sitting in the pews than there were the previous year. Have you thought about the growth of our congregation? Some people have thought a great deal about this, through the ups and downs of many years. Some are really anxious for us to grow. Some are not so sure. Next fall we will have a visioning process, and growth will be one of the topics we hope to explore in some depth.
What are the reasons for growing a congregation? Some parents would like a larger group of children in the RE classes. More members could bring more diversity, new ideas, and new energy. We would have more people to put to work — there would be more singers for the choir, more teachers for our classes, more people to serve on committees. We might eventually come up with new board members, new treasurers, new presidents. (You can see where I am going with this.) Some people believe that we can grow ourselves
out of our deficit budgets.
It is important to realize that none of these things is necessarily true. Focusing on what we need from new people carries the danger that we might communicate that need to them: we want you for your money; we want you to come here and work hard. This may not be an attractive message. Perhaps it is more important to focus on what we have to give. The ideas of religious tolerance and religious pluralism are sorely needed in our world today. We might want to share the experience of an accepting community, which honors free thought and the validity of individual belief, while holding its members accountable for furthering the common good. We might want to share the democratic process we use to govern ourselves, to make decisions, and to share our passions. We might want to share our struggles as we explore and practice what it means to be human.
If we want to grow, we may need to commit to growing. Think about it. Your thoughts are important, and you will have a chance to share them.
See you in church.
— Cynthia Cottam
On May 19, at the Annual Meeting, the congregation voted to go forward with the proposed facility renovations. They also voted to build the wall, which will complete the perimeter of the campus and ultimately surround our imagined memorial garden. I was glad to see that these projects are supported by a large majority of members, because I feel we have a special opportunity now to complete them. Due to the generosity of Drew Still, we have the money. We also have an expert team on hand with energy to lead us through these projects, fueled by the love they hold for our community. I think we often tend to value people less when they are volunteering their time, and to value people more when we are paying them. The reality is that we could never afford to pay for most of our volunteer leaders. Bryan Oakes and Beth Brownlie are the leaders of our renovation team, and I want to introduce you to them as professionals.
Bryan is a Senior Associate and Technical Director at Gensler, a leading global architecture and design firm. Bryan studied architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago with a full scholarship. While at University, studying the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan and Mies van der Rohe had a profound impact on his respect for preservation as well as the beauty of modernism. After university, Bryan spent 3 years working in small architecture firms until joining Gensler's Chicago office in 2000. During his time in the Chicago office, Bryan focused on adaptive re-use projects, hotels and retail. In 2003 Bryan transferred to the hospitality studio of the Gensler Los Angeles office to focus on hotel renovation and interior architecture projects. Some of Bryan's completed projects include the renovation and restoration of the Beverly Hilton, the project where he met his wife Beth Brownlie, Hotel Palomar in Westwood, the public areas of the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton at LA Live, the Hilton Los Cabos renovation, and construction oversight of the Shore Hotel in Santa Monica. As a Technical Director for the Gensler Los Angeles office, Bryan reviews the quality of the construction documents in the hospitality studio, mentors junior staff in both architecture and interior design and also teaches classes on the architectural administration of construction projects. Bryan is passionate about giving back to the community and finds great joy in sharing his knowledge and expertise for his church community.
Beth has over 22 years of experience in Interior Design, including four years as a purchasing agent in hospitality and commercial interiors. She brings invaluable talents to a design team. She is able to handle overall project coordination, and to work directly with the other members of the design team in planning, detailing, and interior coordination, as well as design and selection of fixtures and furnishings.
She obtained her BA from Arizona State University and did graduate studies at UCLA’s Environmental and Interior Design School. She began her career at James Northcutt Associates, a leader in Hospitality Design, and moved on to HBA/Hirsch Bedner Associates, the definitive leader in this field, where she worked for 11 years. In 2007, after experiencing a moving lecture on Sustainability, she decided to quit Hospitality design and move into Community and Healthcare Design with the firm Pickett Design Associates, where she worked for 4 years. During those years she learned Sustainable and Green Design from the principal, Christine Hardin, and became a LEED accredited Designer. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). In 2009, with Pickett, she became involved with UUCCSM Forbes Hall Renovation, purely as a volunteer, and saw that project to completion. Currently she is an independent designer working with firms such as Gensler and John Zinner & Associates. She is Super Mom of three wonderful sons.
She makes the following statement about her work in design: I want to change the world through design. I want to show my commitment to the Earth in everything I do professionally. People want a better experience when they enter an interior space. I feel it is my significant contribution to the world, as a designer, to make these places more sustainable, high-performance and more healthful places to be.
We’ll all be seeing you in our renovating church,
— Cynthia Cottam
If you attended the Annual Meeting, you have already heard about the remarkable bequests our congregation has received this past year. You have voted on the use of some of these funds. Since I am writing before the Meeting, I do not know the outcome of the votes. Regardless of that outcome, however, we will have some important decisions to make regarding money in the upcoming months.
Bequests create both joy and sadness, because their existence means that we have lost people who are dear to us. They do, however, provide us with an opportunity to remember the people we have lost and to honor their memories. Judy Federick died in September of last year. She left half her estate to the church. We have already received an IRA worth $134,000. We also own an interest, worth somewhat more than $100,000, in a Santa Monica apartment building. I want to acknowledge the help of Phyllis and Robert Kory in handling the negotiations involved in finalizing the disposition of this bequest.
Andrew Still died in February of 2012. He left his entire estate to the church. I want to thank Joe Engleman for
serving as administrator for this estate. The total funds come to $640,000, and will be diminished somewhat by taxes and the expenses involved in finalizing disposition. Drew was an engineer and stipulated in his will that his initial bequest of $210,000 be used for a building project. The remainder of the money, around $440,000, came to us within the past month. It represents Drew’s retirement account, including interest and employer contributions, and life insurance. Drew was still working when he died. The listed beneficiary of the retirement
accounts was his mother, who died many years ago. These monies came to the church through the probate process, because the estate was left entirely to the church. Since Drew did not leave these monies to us directly, he did not stipulate a use for them.
I consider these gifts both a blessing and a great responsibility. As a congregation, we will be having conversations about the most constructive use of all these monies. Your Board plans to conduct a visioning process this fall, where every member will have an opportunity to discuss our core beliefs, our core purposes, our goals, and our description of the organization we envision. We will also plan some informational meetings on financial issues. I will be writing more about this in the future.
We have many reasons to be grateful. This is a good time for everyone to check their own beneficiaries, and to
bring their estate plans up to date. Consider including your church in your estate plans. These gifts create wonderful opportunities for our community. With gratitude for all the gifts we are given,
— Cynthia Cottam
Our 86th Annual Congregational Meeting is May 19
The time is here for our Annual Meeting, which will take place on May 19 after the second service. We need a quorum of 62 members to conduct business, so please plan on attending. This is our UU democracy in action; don’t miss it.
One of the most important issues on the agenda is a congregational vote to authorize the board to expend funds to complete the next phases of our building renovation project. The roof replacement is complete. The next plans involve projects that have been talked about for years, and your board unanimously feels that they are becoming urgent and that this is the time to address them. All the projects require the professional removal of lead and asbestos. The first project is to replace the windows in the office and the high windows in the sanctuary. The windows contain lead and are held in place with rotten, peeling wood. Bugs come into the office, and the windows provide no security. The new windows will be similar to the lower sanctuary windows we are currently enjoying.
A second safety issue is the electrical wiring. We are currently working on disaster preparedness for our community. By far the most likely disaster we could face is fire. Our wiring is old, complicated, and a little scary. It turns on by itself at times, and the outlets frequently contain a maze of wires. We need to completely replace the office and sanctuary wiring.
The third project is the renovation of the office and the restrooms in the sanctuary and office. Lead and asbestos will be removed from the walls, ceiling, and cabinetry. The floor will be refinished, now that the roof no longer leaks. New cabinets and work counters will be placed in the front office, and attention will be paid to making these spaces more functional. The bathrooms will receive new tiles, fixtures, paint, and hardware.
The fourth project is new lighting. If you look closely (which you may find difficult), you will notice that the lighting in the sanctuary is not good and that the lighting in the offices looks like that in a dangerous warehouse. Lighting will be replaced with LED energy efficient lighting, which will be beautiful and will reduce our energy cost to approximately 1/6 of the present amount.
At the start of the roof replacement project, the board, in consultation with Bryan Oakes, decided to break
this work into separate projects and forego the supervisory services of a general contractor. This has created
a great deal more work for Bryan, who is aided by his wife, Beth Brownlie, but has saved the congregation
$50,000. This is a generous gift they are giving us. The roof project proceeded seamlessly under Bryan’s direction. He is excited about helping the church complete the rest of this work.
We propose to complete this work through use of the Drew Still building fund. Andrew Still, a longtime and
well-known member of the church, died a little over a year ago and left his estate to the church. We do not have
firm bids on the projects yet, but estimates have been obtained. The Board asks that you authorize the expenditure of up to $200,000 from this fund. If you or your family would like to contribute additional funds for these projects, the church office is glad to accept them. Your generosity will stretch Drew’s gift even further. Drew was an engineer, and he stipulated that his money be used for the building; it cannot be used for program expenses. His gift to us was very generous, and we believe these projects will honor his memory. Our sanctuary and offices are the center of our church life; let’s make them safe and livable.
On May 5 we will hold a meeting in the front of the sanctuary for anyone who would like to discuss these plans in more detail. The meeting will start promptly at 12:15 p.m. and end at 1 p.m.
See you at the meetings,
— Cynthia Cottam
Your Board of Directors is currently at work preparing materials to present to you at the Annual Meeting, which will take place on May 19. All materials will be posted on the office door 30 days before the meeting, and the final versions will be mailed to you two weeks prior to the meeting. The Nominating Committee prepares a slate of officers for your vote. The Finance Committee hears presentations from church departments and major committees and works with the Church Administrator to create and approve a budget for the 2013/2014 fiscal year. This budget is reviewed and approved by the Board and then submitted to you for approval at the Annual Meeting. Church committees present resolutions for your approval. Any proposed amendments to the Bylaws are placed on the agenda and must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the votes cast by the congregation.
The Bylaws are a document that has served the church for many years. They establish and define the authority
of the Board of Directors. They establish key policies and procedures that may be changed only by the Congregation, not by the Board alone. Last year we made a major amendment to the Bylaws by decreasing the size of the Board from 12 members to 9 members. Your Board feels that this has worked out well. It allows for more direct participation by each member. As your President and Chairperson of the Board, I feel there is a minor adjustment that needs to be made in the duties of the officers, as they are currently stated. When the size of the Board was decreased, the number of officers was decreased from 5 to 4. The duties of the First Vice-President were combined with the duties of the Secretary and the position of Secretary was eliminated. The First Vice-President is to act in place of the President when the President is unavailable. The Secretary is responsible for recording the minutes of all Board meetings and Church business meetings in addition to activities associated with maintaining the Church membership list and certifying the status of members, for the purpose of voting or presenting petitions. The Secretary does not have to personally perform all these duties, but must supervise them and certify that they are done correctly. Some of the duties of the Secretary are legal requirements for the functioning of our corporation.
Our current officers include a President, a First Vice-President, a Second Vice-President and a Treasurer. The only duty of the Second Vice-President is to act in place of the President when both the President and First Vice-President are unavailable. This circumstance virtually never occurs, and could be covered by either the Secretary or the Treasurer.
To my mind, the First Vice-President should serve as a potential helpmate to the president. He or she should pay attention to the discussion at meetings, noticing the tenor of the room and other nuances that the Chair may not be attending to, on account of being Chair. He or she should assist in the work of the presidency when needed. The skill set of a vice president is somewhat different than that of a secretary. The Secretary must pay attention to recording the details of the meeting, even if he or she does not physically record the minutes. The Secretary must agree at the outset to perform the work assigned to the position; otherwise there is a tendency for this work to fall to the President.
The Board is proposing a Bylaw amendment to eliminate the position of Second Vice-President and reinstate the position of Secretary. If you approve the amendment, the Second- VP has agreed to become the Secretary. If you do not approve, the First-VP will assume the secretarial duties. The text of this amendment will come to you in the mail with the Annual Meeting materials in early May. If all of this has stimulated your interest in the Bylaws, you may read them on our website. Don’t become too much of an expert. This will be my first Annual Meeting, and I’m bound to make a mistake or two.
Looking forward to your participation in the meeting,
— Cynthia Cottam
The 2013 pledge drive is almost over, and planning for the 2014 pledge drive has already begun. The pledge drive is an absolutely essential process that sustains everything we do. As a community, we are entirely self-supporting. Every day, every week, and every month of the year, the money we give pays the salaries and benefits for our staff and supports the programs we enjoy.
Despite challenges that were not of their own making (an understaffed committee and a late start due to difficulty finding a chair) the pledge committee conducted a successful drive. As of this writing, $395,814 has been pledged, which is near our goal.
We will continue to run a deficit budget, and we will be looking for ways to increase our income as well as increase pledges in the future. The projected total expenses for the current year are $522,000. We raise about $100,000 through fundraising, rentals, Sunday morning donations, and special contributions.
If the money we must raise from pledges were divided equally among the pledging units in our congregation, the amount would come to about $1,600 per unit per year. Expenses will undoubtedly be higher for the 2013/2014 year; we are working on that budget now. This is how the pledge levels break down for this year’s drive (a unit can be a person, couple, or family):
Under $200 - 31 units
$200-$499 - 52
$500-$1199 - 79
$1200-$1800 - 39
$1801-$2999 - 24
$3000 and up - 33
One of the challenges of the pledge drive is to make it life-enhancing, not only for the church, but also for the people who work on the drive. One way to do that is to eliminate the need for nagging — send in your pledge when the pledge drive starts. Failing that, at least answer the pledge caller cheerfully. Do not treat your fellow church members like unwelcome telemarketers. Remember that they are working for you in support of the community you care about. And in fulfilling your commitment, we encourage you to have your bank automatically
transmit your pledged amount monthly. This lessens the work for staff, adds predictability to the budget, and generally calms the chaos that can accompany our many different styles of contributing.
We will also be working to help you figure out how to make your giving life-enhancing for you.
Give until it feels good. Help others to do this. To me it is exciting to even imagine that we can create a community all on our own. We give, and our giving nurtures us and also others. We give, and our giving nurtures our wider community. Thank you to Abby Arnold, Natalie Kahn, Amy Lacombe and Lucy Hahn. Thank you to our wonderful office staff, Nurit Gordon and Nancy Thompson. Thank you to everyone who made a call or helped at a reception.
Thank you to each of us for our sustaining commitment to our values and our relationships.
See you in church,
— Cynthia Cottam
The 2013 pledge drive is almost over, and planning for the 2014 pledge drive has already begun. The pledge drive is an absolutely essential process that sustains everything we do. As a community, we are entirely self-supporting. Every day, every week, and every month of the year, the money we give pays the salaries and benefits for our staff and supports the programs we enjoy.
Despite challenges that were not of their own making (an understaffed committee and a late start due to difficulty finding a chair) the pledge committee conducted a successful drive. As of this writing, $395,814 has been pledged, which is near our goal.
We will continue to run a deficit budget, and we will be looking for ways to increase our income as well as increase pledges in the future. The projected total expenses for the current year are $522,000. We raise about $100,000 through fundraising, rentals, Sunday morning donations, and special contributions.
If the money we must raise from pledges were divided equally among the pledging units in our congregation, the amount would come to about $1,600 per unit per year. Expenses will undoubtedly be higher for the 2013/2014 year; we are working on that budget now. This is how the pledge levels break down for this year’s drive (a unit can be a person, couple, or family):
Under $200 - 31 units
$200-$499 - 52
$500-$1199 - 79
$1200-$1800 - 39
$1801-$2999 - 24
$3000 and up - 33
One of the challenges of the pledge drive is to make it life-enhancing, not only for the church, but also for the people who work on the drive. One way to do that is to eliminate the need for nagging — send in your pledge when the pledge drive starts. Failing that, at least answer the pledge caller cheerfully. Do not treat your fellow church members like unwelcome telemarketers. Remember that they are working for you in support of the community you care about. And in fulfilling your commitment, we encourage you to have your bank automatically
transmit your pledged amount monthly. This lessens the work for staff, adds predictability to the budget, and generally calms the chaos that can accompany our many different styles of contributing.
We will also be working to help you figure out how to make your giving life-enhancing for you.
Give until it feels good. Help others to do this. To me it is exciting to even imagine that we can create a community all on our own. We give, and our giving nurtures us and also others. We give, and our giving nurtures our wider community. Thank you to Abby Arnold, Natalie Kahn, Amy Lacombe and Lucy Hahn. Thank you to our wonderful office staff, Nurit Gordon and Nancy Thompson. Thank you to everyone who made a call or helped at a reception.
Thank you to each of us for our sustaining commitment to our values and our relationships.
See you in church,
— Cynthia Cottam