Submitted by Bart Solomon, President, UUCC Board of Trustees

There is significant news from the Board this month as it voted in November to begin the process to search for a called minister.  For those of you who are unaware of our recent ministerial history, our last called minister was Jeff Briere whose service with our church ended in May, 2012.  Following Rev. Brier, UUCC had an interim minister, Rev. Pamela Rumancik, for the two year period of 2012-2014. Following a brief Search Committee formed in July of 2013 that was unable to complete its work, Rev. Cathy Harrington came to us as a developmental minister in August of 2014. Developmental ministers usually serve longer than interim ministers, typically four to seven years.  

Cathy has done wonderful work helping to revitalize and focus our congregation, leading us in many areas including (among many other things) facility improvements (especially downstairs), membership team reorganization, stewardship, and the establishment of a new covenant and new mission statement. With Cathy’s help the Board is presently working on one of the last goals of the developmental ministry, analyzing our governance structure. With this progress, the transition team recommended in October that the Board meet with our UUA Transitions office director for advice on whether UUCC was ready to begin our search for a called minister. The advice: Yes we are!

By starting now we are ahead of schedule to be ready for the January 2019 ministerial search process.  Ministers searching in January for new churches, if called, will begin their service at a new congregation in August of the same year. Thus, our present goal for this ministerial search is to have a newly called minister who will begin at UUCC in August of 2019.

The calendar for our search process is roughly as follows:

Dec. 2017 – Apr. 2018       

Nominating Committee works to propose a slate of members for the Search Committee.

April 22, 2018           

Special called congregational meeting to elect Search Committee. Nominations accepted from the floor.

May – Nov. 2018

Search Committee forms, polls congregation, establishes financial packet and completes Congregational Record.

Nov. 30, 2018

On-line Congregational Record due to UUA.

Jan. – Feb. 2019

Search Committee hears from interested Ministerial candidates.

Feb. – March 2019

Search Committee selects top candidates and arranges for pre-candidating weekends including neutral pulpit sermons.

April – May 2019

Search Committee finds top candidate to accept call.

August 2019

Our new minister arrives