Here is a link to a list of the committees of the church and their members. It is very out of date. Please make corrections. The link is to a Google Doc so nothing can be erased permanently. If you need more room, right-click on a column and add a row. This is something of a test of our use of Google Docs, so the list is very simple and does not include email addresses and other information. If you have trouble, send an email to nomcon@uusm.org

Link to: List of board and committee members

Meet Your Nominating Committee  

As a congregation in transition, we are learning that it takes our whole spiritual community to make things work well, which means that the more members who find opportunities to get involved, the more successful our church will be. This year, the Nominating Committee (Nom Com) is working on a couple of ideas to make the process more accessible and inspire greater congregation participation.

Nom Com’s main function is to nominate church members to run for the Board of Directors and Nom Com. Additionally, we appoint members to the Finance, Personnel, and Investment Committees (and the occasional Ministerial Search Committee) for ratification by the Board.Our committee is aware that the nominating process has seemed mysterious or secretive in the past to some members. While no big mystery or secrets prevail, explicitly detailing the process in an open forum affords us the kind of procedural visibility our Board of Directors is striving for. We are working on ways to give members avenues to express directly to the committee their interest in serving on one of the positions mentioned above. We call this self-expressed interest. Furthermore, if you think a member might be a good addition to one of these posts, you can recommend them to Nom Com for follow-up and consideration.

There are many details to work out, many of which are in the works as you are reading this! We will use church media to inform the congregation when one of these positions becomes open, to explicitly outline job requirements and expectations to ensure  members understand what is needed of them and can make an informed decision  if offered a slot on the ballot or a position on a committee. In conjunction, we are working on revising our webpage, making it relevant with up-to-date info, FAQs, job descriptions for the nominated positions, criteria for getting nominated, and we want the congregation to know who we, the Nom Com, are.  

Nom Com is researching other similarly sized UU congregations for ideas about how to best help members express their interest in a position, what members need to know about the job itself, how/where to guide members into acquiring leadership skills, and other ideas to make our process run smoothly. It's turning out to be a very informative inquiry and fun to boot as we are discovering more things than we expected! So far, the most unexpected idea was “Showcase Sundays” at the UU Congregation of Phoenix. (It turns out our church has done this in the past.)

On a Showcase Sunday, every committee sets up a table and members roam the room. This allows every committee, every member, and each friend of the church, opportunities to find each other and to ask and answer questions directly. It completely removes the mystery of how to get involved...for both longtime and new members. The Nom Com is teaming up with the Membership Committee to organize a “Showcase Sunday” on January 28, 2018. Stay tuned for details.

Also in January, watch for the “Nom Nom with the Nom Com” invitation by Liza and plan to join us after either service for a coffee, a doughnut, and an informal drop-in chat with the committee. We encourage you to attend and get to know us, and our committee a bit better. If you have a question now you can send it to the entire committee at nomcom@uusm.org, or you are welcomed to reach out to any one of us individually.