Governance

Dear friends, fellow congregants, and supporters of UUCB –

We are doing a lot of wonderful work towards our future. When I open the newspaper, I am reminded of what a fortunate circumstance it is to have the grants we’ve been able to receive, the fundraising towards maintaining our beautiful building, our absolutely magnetic music ministry, and our vibrant community. We are alive. I am filled with gratitude when I think about who we are and what we are doing. There’s never been a perfect group of people, and we’re unlikely to be the first. We do not have to be. We have almost two hundred years of collective labor that shows how people working together can create a very beautiful community.

The Board’s recent work has been focused on creating some clarity in processes that we think may serve the church better in the future. Policy is one such effort. The Caring For People task force is looking at safety policies – talk to Bill Parke for more. We have clarified a building use policy that didn’t make it clear who had ultimate decision-making (now: the minister). The Governance committee is looking into creating a cash-handling policy. The Governance Committee has been extremely helpful in finding solutions that work with our values and governance, and the Board is very grateful!

Music is part of the mission of this church. Our relationship with Sotto Voce reached a point that younger people would recognize as “define the relationship” – a need to discern the boundaries around our closeness and be intentional about what we are. We are formalizing our affiliation with Sotto Voce, creating a special use agreement and contract that we think will benefit both entities. It will be revisited every year – if we didn’t get it right, we can revise. Feel free to approach a member of the Board, Rev. Cathy, or Dr. Jessie Downs if you’re curious about the nitty-gritty details.

The big picture is this: Sotto Voce gets some use of the church for rehearsal space, and there are flexibilities built-in. If emergent needs arise, the church can reclaim the space to fulfill them. But on days we’d otherwise have an empty room, we’ll be helping to incubate opera. Thank you to the Sotto Voce leadership for their many patient conversations with us. Thank you to the people in the congregation who shared their joys, hopes, and concerns with us. These helped us discern what needed to be decided. The Board is excited to continue UUCB’s mission and honor our history of supporting musical arts through this affiliation. Some may recall that the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus was similarly supported in its infancy as well, as its initial arts director was former Music Director Barbara Wagner.

Lastly – the budget. The Congregation approved a budget that had a built-in deficit. Making our office administrator full-time was an investment in our future. The hope was that this would create administrative capacity to rent the building and generate new revenue, as well as ministerial activities (weddings, mainly). Right now, our revenue has exceeded our expenses. This is partially due to increases in fundraising (for instance: the Service Auction is continuing to be extremely successful, Cabaret raised more than they have before, and there have been some incredibly generous donors). We have booked weddings! The money in the collection plate has been bountiful. Your generosity continues to power our church.

The largest portion of our financial support continues to be pledges. Thank you to everyone who generously pledged, and are steadily their commitments. On average, it costs $1,744 a day to operate our church. Your support is needed and deeply appreciated. Your support is being used to create something lovely: our thriving community.

This church is a monument to generosity, dreams, and effort. Every worship service, every fun event, every plant in the garden, every repair made or planned for, everything is because someone or somebodies thought it up and then even more people dedicated their time, energy, and resources to making it just so. This church is so lovely because our community has made a commitment that it should be, and we continue to fulfill it in so many ways. Thank you for being so generous with your time and treasure.