Weekly News January 27, 2023 – A Complex Balance
 January 27, 2023 A Complex Balancefrom Janette Lallier Instead of making a New Years resolution this year, I decided to seek more balance in my days. I started by identifying those things that I wanted to fit into my life: work, exercise, cook, sing, socialize, practice, and stay connected. So the day came… I woke up early and made my way to the gym, then came home and made a nice breakfast before sitting down to work. I had a fairly productive day at work, taking my breaks to practice in little chunks. Packing up to head downtown to choir rehearsal, I keyed up my recent New York Times subscription on my iPad to catch up on current events on the commute. After rehearsal, I stopped at Karaoke for a bite to eat with friends and then…flopped into bed exhausted! Needless to say, the next morning when my alarm rang to start it all again, I decided to rethink my approach. Finding balance has always seemed to be just out of reach for me…and in this attempt I forgot a lesson I seem destined to repeat – balance is something to strive for, not something to achieve. Lately I have been reflecting on other parts of my life that seem as if they should be easy to balance – for instance, creating an event budget. When I first learned to create a budget for Ministry Days, I was shown how to take the cost of the meals, program, and venue, and divide it by the number of folks we expected to attend. Because we needed the events to break even, we usually added a few dollars to account for unexpected expenses, and voila! As our association, presentations, and world have grown in complexity, I have found that the budgeting process has started to feel a bit more like the experience of my “balanced” day. Competing priorities, all of which are interdependent and important, leave something exhausted in the end. In this new world of multi-platform events, we have to balance the significantly higher cost of AV with the cost of the program, venue, staffing and food. We are fortunate in having a great partner in the UUA GA staff, and I am grateful as they partner with us to find mutually beneficial solutions. We are working on the final touches of the program and are in negotiations to find an accessible AV solution for our multi-platform Ministry Days in Pittsburgh. Once all of this is set, we will let you know the exact venue and cost. While we expect it to be at either the Convention Center or the Westin Hotel, any hotel in the GA block will be within commuting distance. Please book early to receive special benefits. The complexity of a multi-platform event does not stop at the cost. Trying to find a schedule that works for all without exhausting those at home or those in the physical space has been a challenge. Based on your feedback and in consideration of making the Annual Meeting and Ministry Days as accessible as possible, we will continue to hold the Annual Meeting earlier in June. We understand that the first few weeks of June are busy for parish ministers, and are grateful that so many make the time to be with their colleagues in a setting that makes it more accessible to more people. You can find a draft schedule for the Annual Meeting and Ministry Days here.  Collegial Conversation Series: We are excited to offer a Collegial Conversation series to our members. From January through May, we will offer monthly opportunities to connect with colleagues via Zoom about timely and relevant topics in our ministry. Some of the gatherings will include a presentation, structured reflection questions and/or Q&A; all will have time for discussion and we will include smaller break-out groups formed by participant preference whenever we can. Some of you may remember that we used to offer a number of Collegial Conversations at our annual Ministry Days. Over time, attendance let us know that was not the ideal place to hold these important conversations. We are hoping this might be a better way. The list of currently scheduled Collegial Conversations is below. Registration for these events will open once our new site has launched. February: A Collegial Conversation about the new Congregational Salary Program In November 2022, the UUA released a freshly designed Congregational Salary Program that lifts up equity, transparency, and economic justice. We’ve invited the UUA Compensation Team, Jan Gartner and Sean Griffin, to join us for a collegial conversation in which you will have an opportunity to ask questions and discuss practices for moving toward this new approach to congregational compensation. We are offering two sessions to accommodate as many people as possible. Registration for the February events will open February 1 but you can save the dates here: 2/13 at 3pm ET/ 2pm CT/ 1pm MT/ 12pm PT or 2/28 at 1pm ET/ 12pm CT/ 11am MT/ 10 am PTThe Time Has Come: New uuma.org Launches Feb 1: Our new site is scheduled to launch Wednesday, February 1. You will still be able to find us at uuma.org, but the site will have a new look and feel. We wanted to share some important deadlines with you. Please don’t make updates to your profile in our current system. You will need to make them again after February 1. If you need to renew your membership, email Hannah and she can help you. You can still renew your Zoom account through our current system until January 30th. Starting today, Friday, January 27, we are pausing registration for our upcoming events. We will reopen registration after our new site launches. If you are currently registered for something, you will not need to re-register. By Monday, January 30, please make sure you have saved anything from your profile, You can find directions for this by watching this video from Janette. If you are a chapter leader, this is also the deadline for pulling things off your chapter site. Upcoming Events and Reminders You can view our calendar events here. Please make sure you are logged into uuma.org to see our full calendar as some events are available for members only. We haven’t provided links since we will be moving the website over on February 1. Mondays, Ongoing: UUMA Recovery MeetingMonday, Jan. 30: GO Right Relationship Team Interview ConversationMonday, Jan. 30: Article II Discussion Monday, Jan. 30: Chapter Leader CallTuesday, Jan. 31: GO Right Relationship Team Interview Conversation Tuesday, Jan. 31: Chapter Leader CallThursday, Feb. 2: Metro NY Winter Summer CampFriday, Feb. 3: Chapter Leader Call |