PCD Board Meeting January 14, 2017 Page5

PCD Board Meeting January 14, 2017 Page1 Submitted by Russ Menk on March 20, 2017

PCD Board Meeting Minutes January 14, 2017 Pacific Central District (PCD) Board Meeting Board Meeting held at First Unitarian Church in Oakland, CA

======Participating: Board Members: Steve Burns (Pres), Charles Du Mond (Vice-Pres), Holly Ito (Treasurer), Russ Menk (Secretary), Chris Bell, Paul Teplitz, Noa Mills (via Skype), James Kubal-Komoto

Major Decisions/Directions (annotated in minutes with blue highlight) 1. Decision to not pursue a “Key Note” speaker for DA. 2. Approved and authorized the recommendations of the revised Chalice Lighters proposal/program 3. Have PCD VP and one other Board member be on PCD Regional advisory council. Passed Unanimously 4. Send Board suggestions membership on Regional Advisory Council for next year to Charles D. Assigned to all Board members. James K-K requests that suggestions be people with Board leadership experience

Action items from meeting (annotated in minutes with yellow highlight): 1. Should DA have a Staff Level workshop on Friday (6 hours). See if Leslie T. will pick this up (Chris B. will approach Leslie T via email). 2. Action: Give feedback to Charles on what we see the feedback. Assigned to PCD Board members 3. Action: Chris B. contact Wendy about worship at DA 4. Action to have Finance meeting to build budget for next year. Assigned to PCD Board 5. Action: Send out action items prior to minutes……separately. Action Russ M.

======DETAILS OF THE MEETING Meeting started at 930AM Assigned roles for meeting. Read the PCD Board Covenant

 Roles of meeting assigned Time Keeper = Holly I. Worship = Russ M. Process Monitor = Chris B.

Minutes of our 11/19/16 meeting were approved. PCD Board Meeting January 14, 2017 Page2  Check in: Concerns for upcoming transitions for congregations  James K-K brings request from UUA divisions of Congregational National level. What do congregations need from UUA at this time? Group shared their ideas—mostly discussed cooperation, collaboration, and working with other congregations (UU and other liberal progressive religious institutions)  Break at 10:30AM

1. District Assembly Discussion---- o Leslie T. called Charles M. on having a workshop on Resistance (or whatever we will call the organizing phase around us) o Charles D went over his DA proposal documents. General idea is that separate workshops will not work. Idea is to have whole group together for any topic (Resistance). o Discussions headed toward 1.5 to 2-day event. Survey shows value in congregational leaders being able to connect with each other. o Should we have a keynote speaker (in addition to the Presidential Candidates)? o James K-K mentioned that PNWD is using the Presidential Forum as the keynote in their DA as focus. o Discussion on Workshops. Discussions on Keynote speaker. James K-K discussed the workshops the PWR staff are involved with in the upcoming PNWD’s DA in late February. PWR staff at that DA will support (for example) Community Organizing, Worship, Stewardship, Building the Beloved Community, Meet the Moderator) o James K-K offered that PWR has been holding Staff Development classes in the Region for DREs, Admins, Ministers. Focus of these classes is for staff and have been held outside of DA’s, but since DA’s are a gathering—it may be an opportunity. Usually they are a 9A to 3P session. o Decision: Saturday worship 900AM to 1000AM. Workshops will be 1000AM to 1200Noon. Lunch 1200N to 100PM. Presidential Forum will be 100PM to 300PM. Business meeting will be 315PM to 430PM. 430PM is closing. o Decision to not pursue a “Keynote” speaker for DA. o Proposal to use Friday afternoon to have fun and celebration by Charles D. o Decision Staff Level workshop on Friday (6 hours). Dinner on your own & then programming (if it comes together). Who is accountable (not PWR staff)? See if Leslie T will pick this up (Chris B. will approach Leslie T via email).

2. Discussion of Chuck Rosene leaving PCD o Chuck’s last day was 1/13 (approx.). o Thanks for 17 years of work in PCD o Celebrated also at DA this year? o Cake for Chuck & words of praise from James K-K and others

3. Break for Lunch 11:55AM—working lunch

4. Continued discussion on Chuck Rosene from James K-K PCD Board Meeting January 14, 2017 Page3 o Chuck’s email and phone messages are going to Diane Brinson, Administrative Specialist, Pacific Northwest [email protected] o Not planning to continue publishing the PCD newsletter. A discussion on the value of District newsletter occurred. There is the option of district news being distributed only to the specific district. James K-K (or staff) can do this. Is this possible? Prioritization (in order of appearance) is a challenge to get this changed by the specific districts. Past process, Chuck R. has been clipping out the PCD news from the PWR newsletter and then adding some other items to publish the PCD newsletters. There is still a PCD Constant Contact account, but the plan is to incorporate all into a regional database with subsets of the districts. Decision: PWR will publish what will be the PCD newsletter up until a new Admin will be hired for PCD. o Not planning on replacing Admin in PCD as generalist right away, but use additional hours of other Admins in the area (they are willing to work a bit more) for now. An assessment of needs (region wide) needs to be done and then write a job description and then hire. Board request to be involved in any hiring process of a new admin. o Facebook and website maintenance have shifted (over the last few months) from Chuck to Christopher Wolfe. ([email protected] - 647-708-2622) o Chuck R. will be available for questions in the transition. Leslie T. has agreed to help. o Discussion on DA in 2018. Will there be a PWR Regional Assembly meeting in 2018? Is there interest? Yes. Discussion around possibly Portland—or Palm Beach—or Phoenix. o Chuck was also shepherding APF (annual program funds). Who will do this? TBD, but might be Sarah Fulton

5. Budget Planning o Discussion mostly focused on the Admin support of the PCD: o James K-K reported that he believes that there are three streams of funding to Region: one for staff, one for professional expenses (travel), one for administrative staff support (not historically a cost sharing arrangement) o From this point forward, it may be difficult to evaluate the PCD’s admin expenses when they are to be shared over several people. Chuck was budgeted at 35 hours/week—but does PCD require that amount?

6. Noa M. on Project Tree o Has done research on what types of trees would work across most of the district: Elm? Arranged for 50 seedlings per congregation? All congregations should know about this and contact her (and team) if they want to participate.

7. Chalice Lighters o Proposal created by all 4 districts. Admin staff will support effort. Calendar/schedule is set (if can’t make a call, will be skipped). No committee is formed or in place at this time. Steve B. is hoping that Board will take this on for now. Steve B. hoped to have proposal, but it is not here yet (Lindi R. would like to have support of seminarian at small congregation). Steve looking for District manager to oversee the gatherings and run the program. Hopes to restart the program with Lindi’s proposal. First call will be early February (for PCD). Chalice lighters is being managed across Districts. PCD Board Meeting January 14, 2017 Page4 o Steve B: Motion to approve and authorize the recommendations of the Chalice Lighters proposal (2 calls for PCD this year). Not restricted to congregational site (can allow multi- congregation cooperation). Not limited to congregation with proper number of Chalice Lighter participation. Charles M. seconds. Approved.

8. Discussion of Growth Task Force beyond Chalice Lighters program. Paul T. has some ideas which he presented. o How can we get Members to stay (not only focused on new people) o Create some metrics beyond membership (like turn over, new members, attendance, deaths, move aways, cut membership, ?) o Help on Infrastructure (QBooks, rental revenue, best practices of this area) o Does the Board want to pursue any of this at this time? Effort should not be done by the Board—but by some other group. Who? o Morales’ 6-6-6 rule was discussed: Do new people know 6 existing congregants by name and do 6 congregants know the new person by name within 6 months? If yes—high probability that the new member will stay. If no—they may not stay o Rule of Thumb for membership: Church will always lose 10% of their church every year. If the number is larger, it is due to unresolved conflict. o Membership efforts can be vacuum cleaner without a bag……….unless there is the supported system of purposely engaging new members with activities and follow up. o Should PCD Board support Paul T’s idea (for Growth Task Force ideas)? Tabled for now. Add this topic to the upcoming DA for a workshop on Saturday. This area is very important to the PCD Board, but they’d like PWR staff to pursue this for now.

9. Advisory Council-report by James K-K o 4 District Boards, separate district advisory councils (some Districts have Board members and others have non-Board members attend), Regional District Leaders (sub-sets of 4 Boards). o Information is not being distributed effectively o Proposal to not have 2 separate structures (Regional Leaders meetings & Advisory Councils), but one structure. This would add some members to Pres/VP meetings. James K- K would also like to include participation by a UUMA, Admin, and LREDA representative as well. o James requests to have 2 District Board members on the Regional Advisory Board. o Should Board members be tasked to add Board member o Motion to Charles M. 2nd by Holly: To have VP and one other Board members be on PCD Regional advisory council. Passed Unanimously.

10. Action item: Send Board suggestions membership on Regional Advisory Council for next year to Charles M. Assigned to all Board members. James requests that suggestions be people with Board leadership experience

11.Charles M report on Survey Analysis: PCD Board Meeting January 14, 2017 Page5 o What do we intend to do with this survey? o Charles’ latest analysis has cleaned out specific names and non-value comments. o Action: Give feedback to Charles on what we see the feedback. Assigned to PCD Board members o Action: Chris B. contact Wendy about worship at DA o Action to have Finance meeting to build budget for next year. Assigned to PCD Board o Action: Send out action items prior to minutes……separately. Action Russ M.

12.Nominating Committee Discussion:  Discussion on future of the District(s)  Russ announces that he will not serve on PCD Board beyond June  Does this District wish to help the transition to a Regional governance structure?  Discussion about role of Districts. Some on Board are unconvinced that Districts should remain. Poll of opinions about Board structure. No decision but resolved to continue discussion and all 4 PWR District Leaders need to be in on this discussion.

Future Board Meetings: Schedule of future PCD Board Meetings o July 9, 2016—Virtual Meeting 9:00am to 12:00noon o August 27, 2016 Mount Diablo UU Church 55 Eckley Lane Walnut Creek, CA o November 19, 2016 as a Virtual Meeting o January 14, 2017 Oakland UU Church o March 25, 2017 Virtual o May 5-6, 2017 DA/Event and Board Annual Meeting o June 2-3, 2017 Board Retreat (maybe no Sunday)