Saturday, May 16, 2009

Moderator's Musings - Governance, Part 1

On my To Do list is the task “post a blog” and the task is five weeks overdue. Ouch. I’ve had a lot to say, but haven’t made time to say it. Thanks for waiting. (The three of you know who you are…)

In my spare time, I've been reflecting about Unitarian Universalist governance. Maybe it's just the election, but there seems to be a great deal of confusion about Association governance. Maybe it's just the stresses caused by economic downturn, but there seems to be even more confusion about governance in some of our congregations. I'm beginning to form some opinions about the relationship between the two confusions, but it's the second confused realm that's weighing most heavily. This week, I've spoken with leaders of three congregations who are working mightily -- and under great pressure -- to define roles and responsibilities of boards, committees, staff, and ministers. If your congregation has governance firing on all cylinders, please spare a moment to send compassionate and loving thoughts in the direction of those who are struggling.

This week’s blog continues with a PowerPoint presentation posted on slideshare. Here’s the URL: http://www.slideshare.net/gcourter/uu-governance-part-1

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. More next week. Really.

2 comments:

  1. Compassionate and loving thoughts. We're still tuning... but we seem to have found our model (for now) and have all the pistons firing pretty well. (Where does the muffler go through?)

    Hybrids seem to work well, and be vigorous--our Carver-influenced (but only) model seems to be an example. Don't get obsessed with governance orthodoxy, and remember;

    It's only a model/accent

    (word verification is amusing; "frote"--which looks to me to be a tense of "fraught" -- past? subjunctive pluperfect?)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really appreciate your slides. I was only able to skim for now, but could see passing this along to folks in my congregation. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete