MDD News Blog

Reports from the UUA Board

Mountain Desert District’s UUA Trustee, Lew Phinney, has written a couple of posts about the most recent UUA Board meeting over on his blog, lewphinneyuuatrustee.blogspot.com.

The first issue they tackled was the implementation of Policy Governance:

The transition to Policy Governance is at once frustrating and empowering. This was the first board meeting in which the board tried to operate completely under the PG model. We found that there are a mere 2.7 million details to be worked out as we go forward.

For Lew’s play-by-play of his first Board meeting as a Trustee, check out “First Board Meeting:”

Wow, or, WOW ! Described it to a friend, “Long, intense and frustrating.” It was also rewarding, challenging and, well, actually fun (at times).

The board meeting is really almost a week of working group and committee meetings leading up to the day and a half of actual board meeting. The most impressive part was working closely with an outstanding group of truly dedicated UUs – everyone doing everything possible to make our association stronger and further the movement. They (oops, we) must be pretty dedicated – six days of twelve to-fourteen hour days of meetings.

One of the things we decided to do is share our perspectives on what the board did or plans to do. So, some of what you read below is my re-working of other trustee’s points. In some cases, I just used their sentences – and added my twist. However, all of this is unofficial. The official voice of the board will come out in the approved minutes. Everything you read here is strictly Lew Phinney’s take on things (with a little help of some of my fellow trustees).

Posted Monday, 09 November 2009 15:17 Written by Jess Cullinan

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Chalice Lighters Calendar Change

We are changing the calendar for Chalice Lighters in order to bring the program into alignment with the fiscal year of the district. This transition will allow more exact accounting and align with our program year.

Therefore, Chalice Lighter applications for the two calls needed to bring the program into alignment are due on November 15, 2009. Two worthy congregational projects will be identified for January and March funding requests.

In the spring another solicitation of applications will be made to identify the three congregational projects for fiscal year 2010-11.

More information on the Chalice Lighters program is here.

Posted Wednesday, 04 November 2009 14:53 Written by Jess Cullinan

Become a Fan of the MDD!

The Mountain Desert District is now on Facebook!

Become a fan, and follow our updates, including newly posted pictures from District Assembly. We look forward to connecting with you!

Mountain Desert District of the Unitarian Universalist Association on Facebook

Posted Monday, 26 October 2009 14:31 Written by Jess Cullinan

Tell Your Stories

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lsirtosky/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Our keynote speaker, Holly Near, challenged all those present at the District Conference to tell our stories.

What stories do you have to share, about your experiences at the conference, your work in your congregation, social justice, or sharing the good news of Unitarian Universalism?

Please post them in the comments below, or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . We want to hear from you!

More detailed notes on workshops and our business meeting are on the way — just trying to catch my breath after a whirlwind weekend!

Posted Wednesday, 21 October 2009 14:32 Written by Jess Cullinan

Saturday Workshops: MDD Youth Ministry

I took copious notes at the workshop devoted to youth ministry, presented by a panel from across the district who have been working on a new model due for implementation over the next year. I am still distilling the various ideas and discussion that was presented, but offer a brief summary here of what is currently happening in youth ministry.

After a period of Appreciative Inquiry, involving individuals at all levels of programming across the district, it was discovered that the things that district youth express longing for in programming are the same things that adults also want to create: deeper worship experiences, connecting the dots to create truly multi-generational congregations, more meaningful and localized social justice work, developing spiritual resiliance, and thinking about “the way we gather” in order to include more people.The question becomes, how to put it all together on a district level, a cluster level, and in our congregations.

The current vision for the new model of youth ministry includes emphasis on creating more geographical clusters of youth programming, rather than centering on the lines drawn by congregational clusters: for example, instead of a Denver cluster encompassing all of Colorado, reorganizing into Northern and Southern Colorado. The team envisions that events that are not as intensive as the traditional three-day Con, such as a one-day social action project, or a social evening, could happen more easily in these geographical clusters, where participants would not be expected to drive more than an hour or two to get together.

The current structure of YRUU will need to rewrite their bylaws in order to implement a new governance structure to support these clusters, including creating more leadership positions to facilitate communication between congregations. This process would conclude at the Bridging Con to be held in April.

District wide Cons would still be a big part of District youth programming, but much more emphasis will be placed on networking individual congregations.

Concretely speaking for right now, while this transition is still in the planning and process stages, it falls to individual congregations to reach out to one another to plan events for their youth. District resources are available for building congregational programs, and individual congregations are encouraged to ask for help as they need it.

Voting on a new name for the District youth ministry program will take place this weekend as well.

I’ll post more later as I get through my notes — this workshop was packed with good information and good ideas for moving forward.

Posted Saturday, 17 October 2009 12:58 Written by Jess Cullinan