Report from the Executive Director
Lorraine Dennis
September 29, 2005
This report will focus on a couple of areas, rather than the general goings-on at the CLF since you will be reading individual reports from many of the CLF staff. I hope you find them interesting and hear the enthusiasm and dedication that each of our staff members bring to their work. You will have an opportunity to ask questions about all the staff reports during your meeting.
General Assembly
GA this year was really wonderful in so many ways. We were very much in public view with our worship service, the CYF launch, our booth, and the workshop that Denny and Gini Courter created. Our primary goal at General Assembly is to put a public face on the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and, for those few CLFers who want, to present opportunities for our members to meet each other. We also sell jewelry, order of service covers, note cards, books, and luggage straps as a fundraiser and this not only brings people to the booth, but can be a real money-maker for us
This year, we brought both Iris and Donna to work in the booth. Jane and I were both there and very much involved with our professional organizations and CLF activities. Our visibility in the UUMA (UU Ministers Assoc.) and the AUUA (Assoc. of UU Administrators) is one way to get the CLF word out to the professionals in the movement. Linda Berez and Lynn Ungar were also there at their own expense, but still working with us. And Kasey Melski was there in her UUA staff role. We had the CLF Worship and Annual Meeting, the CLF Booth, the CYF booth, the CYF Plenary Announcement, the CYF workshop, the Electronic Frontier workshop, CLF Staff Reunion to organize or shepherd. GA is also our opportunity to meet with off-site staff without incurring travel expense.
Planning this many activities makes for a pretty frantic pace for the staff. I would love to find ways to lighten the load a bit and we hope that 2006 will be a bit quieter for the staff.
The Church of the Younger Fellowship (CYF)
The CYF's official launch at GA was a total success. I think everyone at GA encountered someone wearing a red CYF t-shirt. The young adults worked so hard to prepare and present their ground-breaking program to the movement and the folks at GA were very enthusiastic in their support. The CYF has nearly 200 members at this writing and is about to elect their first Steering Committee. Their website launch is complete and they will adding features to the site as they progress. There have been a few challenges, as you might expect. Since the CLF is processing all the membership and financial transactions, there is work to be done to refine those processes. We hope in the next couple of weeks to install PayPal on the CYF site, which will simplify the processing of new members and lighten the load a bit at the CLF office. The CLF staff and the CYF Task Force have also done some hard work on their working relationship. It hasn't been easy to integrate our work styles and communicate well with each other when we almost never see each other. We will keep in touch about the details of our working relationship and continue to support each other in this important work.
The Steering Committee already has plans to work on fundraising and collecting pledges as our fiscal year comes to an end. The CYF is presently in the black, with the support of the CLF and the UUA Young Adult and Campus Ministry Dept. I anticipate that they will end the year with a balanced budget and go into 2006 with more than 200 members. They have some time to build a culture of stewardship with their members and they plan to work on that in the coming months.
Last updated November 21, 2005
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