Prairie Star District

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UUA Tustee’s Report

by John Blevins, UUA Trustee

Katrina and New Orleans

All Souls Kansas City just sent their first team to New Orleans to assist with Katrina relief work, in late April. I was privileged to be part of that team of 16. The elderly woman that my small team helped was a gracious and warm spirit, even while living in a trailer that the government will remove from her premises in July. Her home is uninhabitable. We worked to get her a kitchen and bath that were functioning well enough to give her those basic necessities. And as hard as we worked, we didn’t make it. Thankfully, another team is scheduled to work with her very soon. Want to help? Go to: http://www.uusc.org/gulfcoastvolunteerprogram/index.html

If you’ve to been to help with Katrina recovery, I’d love to hear from you at jblevins@uua.org. I know that Unity Unitarian in St. Paul has sent at least 5 teams down, but I don’t know how many others of our PSD congregations have made this journey.

National Advertising Campaign

The UUA’s final full page ad of the 2008 spring season ran in Time Magazine’s May 12th issue (see page 48). The highly read “Time 100” issue features 100 people whose power, talent and moral example help to transform our world. The UUA’s ad includes an invitation for seekers and newcomers to order a free DVD, “Voices of a Liberal Faith.”

Work has now begun on Phase II of our national marketing campaign and it is set to launch this fall. Imagine Unitarian Universalist advertisements in publications such as Newsweek and Rolling Stone. Imagine Unitarian Universalist TV commercials playing on programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. I’ll soon get info to you on how you can support this next campaign directly, and take advantage of a $500,000 matching grant.

UUA Board’s April Meeting Reports

See UUWorld.org for a highlights article.

You can also read the notes from the President of the District President’s Association, who acts as observer to the meeting and provides his own perspective on the events of these content-rich weekends. See the report from the April meeting at: http://uua.org/documents/dpa/080420_boardobserver.pdf

If you want to see the full set of reports to the Board, and the actual Agenda for the meeting, you can find these at: http://uua.org/aboutus/governance/boardtrustees/agendasreports/103526.shtml

UUA continues move to Policy Based Governance

At the April meeting the UUA Board deepened its commitment to move to policy based governance by setting the schedule when it will begin receiving actual operational reports from staff (July 2009), and we will be publishing on the web the current version of the new governance policies in the next few weeks. The UUA’s new governance model is based on the “Carver Model”. You can learn more about this by following links from: http://www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/leaderslibrary/interconnections/57165.shtml

Congregational News

Hutchinson, Kansas held its first public worship is late April! Hooray! I was in Boston for the UUA Board meeting, so I couldn’t be with them in body, even those I certainly was with them in spirit.

Duluth, Minnesota will be continuing the celebration of their beautiful new building with a visit from UUA President Bill Sinkford in mid-May. They will also be hosting the 2009 PSD Annual Meeting in April 2009, so that we can all join in the celebration. This same weekend, Sinkford will also visit Lawrence, Kansas to celebrate the recent expansion of their building, and Shawnee Mission, Kansas to help them celebrate their 40th anniversary.

Wichita, Kansas is now enjoying their new building. Congratulations!

More information on these congregational events is in the April issue of The Prairie Star.

PSD’s GRACE Team

Under the leadership of your PSD Board of Directors, and Director Cheryll Wallace (DRE, Omaha First), your district board is ramping up their work and their focus on our anti-racist, counter-oppressive work that you have charged us to do. This spring the team leading this work adopted the name GRACE Team, “Growing Racial and Cultural Equity”. I was proud to be able to update the UUA Board and UUA staff on this work at the April meeting.

Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

At the April meeting the UUA Board asked the staff to turn more attention to the complex transitions now occurring in this vital area. The emotions are high as this work to renew our youth and young adult ministries, growing from our two year “Consultation on Youth and Young Adult Ministry” planned for and implemented. The Board and President Sinkford restated their unwavering commitment to this essential work. DVD “Listening to Experience” now available Every congregation should have received by now a DVD capturing the messages from the ministers of 12 rapidly growing congregations. PSD’s Thom Belote (Shawnee Mission) and Victoria Safford (White Bear) are featured. The message may surprise you. Find your copy. Watch it. Invite others to join you.