by Rev. Dave Dunn
We held our November Congregational Meeting on November 23, 2025.
Vice-President Rachel Osborne convened the meeting and reviewed the Board’s Strategic Themes for the 2025-2026 congregational year. These themes include:
- Information security / privacy (Breeze, website)
- Leadership development & succession planning
- Planning for growth
- Governance: Bylaws review (It was noted that an ad hoc Standing Committee would likely need to be constituted to take this on)
Director of Religious Exploration Lexie T. Brown reported that this year’s Children’s Chapel, under the direction of newly hired Lora Brown, has been a wonderful success. UUMAN is also hoping to add badly needed Nursery staff that will cover both Worship and 2nd Hour programming. Both of these staff positions significantly reduce reliance on weekly volunteers.
Joe Lamb, the UUMAN Board’s Special Projects Trustee, reported that the two principal projects that he is working on are Breeze security/privacy and Internet/WiFi upgrades. These should be completed by April.
Treasurer Seth Pratt reported that our building’s balloon mortgage had to be refinanced reflecting a new 6.75% interest rate (up from 2.9%). That said, the church finances are healthy and sound.
Program Council Chair Sarah Hunter, and representatives of some of the PC committees (Membership, Social Justice, Operations, Partner Church) issued their reports. Some noteworthy items included that UUMAN’s membership is at 196 (highest in over a decade), that our highest recorded Sunday service attendance is 148 (a number that we achieved twice) and that through our 50/50 Share-the-Plate initiative, we have donated over $12K to non-profit organizations in our community. Well done!!!
Past-President Martin Polteralski then recognized and thanked the many UUMAN volunteers who make everything happen. He especially recognized two important volunteers who selflessly went over and above in their efforts. Meredith McCaskey served as a guest pianist and musician while our Music Director recovered from neck surgery. MCY Chair Kassie Love got our Children’s Programming year off to a great start (a very difficult task!), while our DRE was on maternity leave. THANK YOU Meredith and Kassie!!!
Also, our relatively new (1 year) church Administrator/Bookkeeper, Beth Harris, was in attendance and specifically recognized. She was officially introduced as, using the words of our Treasurer Seth Pratt, “…the best employee that UUMAN has ever had.” 😊 All who’ve worked with Beth know that she is an extremely capable and highly skilled employee on many fronts.
THANK YOU ALL for making this vibrant community what it is. It wouldn’t be the same without you.
Nurture our spirit. Strive for Justice. Transform the world.
Dave
