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Board of Directors Meeting April 4 – 5, 2008 Highlights Your Board of Directors met in Framingham on the evening of April 4th through the afternoon of the 5th. This Board meeting continued to focus primarily on the work of A Still More Excellent Way and its implementation throughout the Conference.
Conversations with Staff The Board invited members of the executive and program staff to meet with us Friday evening to discuss the roles and functions of Association Boards and Program Commissions as they relate to the core functions and processes outlined in A Still More Excellent Way. Interviews were conducted by pairs of Board members speaking with one or two staff members about the Boards or Commissions they supported. The group then came back together to share the most surprising thing they heard in their interviews. We then brainstormed possible benchmarks that would help us measure progress with regard to the directions outlined in A Still More Excellent Way. Many ideas were generated and referred to the Board task team working on measurement and evaluation.
Saturday Morning
The Board reconvened Saturday morning and was invited to reflect on the previous evening’s conversation. Several points were articulated:
A proposal was made for Board members to travel to Association Boards not their own and use the same interview questions used Friday evening with our staff. This is one way to invite the Associations to pay attention to particular strategic priorities. This proposal was endorsed by the Board.
Ms. Farrell-Jones, Board chair, presented draft performance goals for the Board of Directors. After some discussion three board members agreed to review the suggested goals, make any revisions they felt appropriate and report back to the next Board meeting.
Saturday Afternoon
After lunch the Board tackled regular business items. Minister and President Dr. Jim Antal reported on the search for settled Associate Conference Ministers. With regard to the wider church he showed the Board a copy of the UCC advertisement in the New York Times and noted another ad would soon be placed in USA Today. Mr. Walter Kreil, Treasurer reported a pre-audit operating surplus for 2007 despite the camp and conference center being $90,000 behind budget. The personnel budget was $67,000 under spent due to staff vacancies and unused appropriations. Mr. Richard Harter and Rev. Peter Kakos will meet soon with several persons interested in Warner Farm to discuss a proposal by a UCC pastor to purchase the property for use as a retreat center. Mr. Harter expressed a preference for seeking Annual Meeting approval to sell Warner Farm and some of the Conference’s Ashland property, with the timing of the sale left to the discretion of the Board of Directors.
The afternoon concluded with Dr. Antal lifting up the recent controversy about Trinity Church UCC in Chicago. He asked the board to consider what a “sacred conversation” about race might look like. He suggested it would be characterized by transparency, honesty and compassion. He reported on one such conversation he had recently and invited Board members to share their personal experiences and struggles with racism. Sunday May 18th many UCC churches nationwide will engage in this “sacred conversation”.
We concluded with a hymn and the meeting was adjourned at 2:40 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Stephen Peck |
