SmorgasBoard: A message from your Board of Trustees

Welcome to the inaugural “SmorgasBoard” column. Once or twice a month, a member of the Board of Trustees will use this space in the Liberal to share some of what we are up to, and other items of importance. (Thanks to Emily Wallace for the clever title!)

As we begin the 2025-26 church year, we bid a fond goodbye to Cathy Geist, who has decided to step down from her service on the Board for personal reasons. I speak for the entire Board when I express my gratitude to Cathy for her wonderful work on the Board over the past four years, in particular for her role as our environmental conscience. While she has stepped away from her formal leadership position, she will continue to bring her passion for our interconnected web of existence to First Universalist in other ways.

We also welcomed our newest Board member, Jeanne Guignon. Per the bylaws, she was appointed by the Board to fill the remainder of Cathy’s term; this appointment is subject to ratification at the annual meeting next June. I am deeply thankful to Jeanne for her willingness to bring her many talents to bear on the Board. She has already hit the ground running!

We have used the summer to focus on how we will work together as a Board in the service of this congregation, and what our priorities for the coming year will be. While the Board does not typically meet in July, we had a dinner meeting dedicated to community building. On August 31, in lieu of our regular monthly meeting, the Board held a retreat at the church. A good part of our time was spent reviewing the results of the congregational survey we sent out earlier in August. 87 of you responded – thank you! –  providing us with rich and valuable insights into the health of the congregation. As we noted in the cover note to the survey, our primary aim was to use the results as one input – along with our Visionary Goals and the theological themes for the year – to inform the Board’s 2025-26 priorities. Rev. David Pyle, regional lead of the MidAmerica Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association, joined us in processing the information. You will hear more about what we learned in later columns. While we will finalize our annual goals at our September meeting, we made great progress at the retreat. I think I speak for everyone when I say we left feeling energized and excited about the work ahead.

Finally, a reminder that anyone is welcome to attend our Board meetings. They are held the third Thursday of each month (our next meeting is September 18) at First Universalist. The Board meets in executive session for grounding and spiritual community building from 6:30-7, and the public portion of the meeting begins at 7:00. You can join in person or via Zoom. Board packets with the agenda and Zoom link are posted on our website – go to the About Us link, then Board of Trustees.