President of the Board of Directors-July 2010

by Phil Wheeler Board of Directors President

 As the newly elected president of the First UU Church of Rochester, I am honored to have received the congregation's vote.  In case we have never met, Sue and I have lived in Rochester since 1976 and started attending the church in 1982 when our children, Will and Andy, were 7 and 4, respectively.

Presidency-wise, things are off to an inauspicious start.  I missed the first Board meeting of the new church year because I contracted a food-borne illness and spent the evening of the meeting in a different sort of gut-wrenching experience than Board meetings usually entail. The minutes (already finished by newly-elected Board Secretary Ramona Barr), indicate that the Board met without me and did just fine.

Outgoing Board President Kathy Brutinel did a stellar job over the past two years.  Her last Venture article mentions her bittersweet feelings about moving on.  I guess it is a good thing for her to move on while the feelings are still somewhat sweet, but I would encourage Kathy to prepare to run again in 2027.  There is nothing like a 17 year hiatus to give a has-been President a fresh perspective on the job.

As you may have guessed, this is the second time I will have served as Board President, the first being from 1990 to 1993, when the Church had just gone through the departure of Fred Campbell, through two years of the excellent interim ministry of John Gilbert, and the first year of the excellent ministry of Dillman Baker Sorrells.  The church has changed a lot in the intervening 17 years, in size, in finances, in organizational structure, and in self-confidence. We are on a much firmer footing, for which we have worked hard.  The task ahead, of course, is to build on this foundation.

The Board will have a retreat in August to set long-term goals and objectives related to the Visions and Goals approved by the Board in July 2009.  We look forward to engaging members of our congregation in improving and expanding our connections with each other, our connections to the broader community, and our stewardship of this institution with its rich history and its wonderful facility.  Above all, we need to get about the real business of the church, which (as we know from John Buehrens' reading in the hymnal) is the transformation of society.