President’s Message

Michael Bloom

January 4, 2024

This is my last written message to the congregation as your President.  It has been an honor and a privilege to serve Emerson as President this past year.  Thank you for your support and your commitment to our church.  Also, I hope your winter holidays were wonderful and Happy New Year to all!

The year 2023 was a significant one for Emerson.  Special thank you to my fellow Trustees, Allan Brain, Greg Hunt, Ellen Norton, Hilary Ritz, Ian Sachs, Bradley Smith, and Dori Wolfe for their support and work efforts. Thanks to Scott Steib for his work as Treasurer and to Leah Olive for her work as Secretary.  Extra special thanks to Ale Gonzalez for her work as our new Congregational Administrator!

In the first quarter of 2023, membership approved a balanced budget that relied on a $75,000 loan from our Endowment fund. We also created the Long Term Planning Task Force (LTPTF) and we welcomed Trish Hinojosa, Linda Lord, Nancy Lipp, and Ann May as members, and Troy Rockett as chair, of the LTPTF.  We welcomed Scott Steib as our Treasurer.  We also updated bank account information.

In the second quarter of 2023, we said farewell to our Director of Religious Education, Katy Carpman. We established a formal policy outlining how the English as a Second Language (ESL) Program will operate within Emerson and approved the hiring of an ESL Coordinator funded from ESL funds. On April 30, at a special meeting, the congregation voted unanimously to call Reverend Ed Proulx to be our settled minister.  We all thanked members of the search committee (Zena Taylor, Ken McLeod, Deborah Wotring, Kris Taylor, Bill Hammons, Beth Hammer, and Judy Williams) for their tremendous work during the search process.  We also happily received a generous gift of $25,000 from the estate of Rosemarie Schrage. 

In the third quarter of 2023 we initiated the development of our 2024 budget.  We created an Accessibility Task Force with Craig Bertuglia, Pati Bertuglia and Michael Ho serving as members and April Smith serving as chair. We said farewell to our wonderful Interim Minister, Michelle LaGrave and we welcomed the Reverend Ed Proulx to our church officially on August 1, 2023.  We coordinated a path forward for our religious education programs for both youth and adults with Jill Rose, Tineke Berends, Ann May, Pat Smith, Hilary Ritz, Deborah Wotring, and others.  We welcomed Jill’s leadership in coordinating the delivery of youth programming and Pat’s continued work to deliver adult programming.  We restarted the development of a campus safety and security policy.  We also initiated the annual stewardship campaign, led by Dori Wolfe and Beryl Kaminsky.

During the last three months of 2023 we harmonized our employee vacation policy, initiated use of employee debit cards for certain expenses, and adopted a policy to help protect confidential personal and financial information. We initiated work to hire a new UU Education Coordinator.  We approved and adopted a standard service agreement to use to retain vendors. We consolidated some banking accounts to generate some additional interest income.  We also secured property and liability insurance coverage for our campus.

January 2024, my last month of service as President will be busy.  

On January 14, 2024 the congregation is invited to attend an informational meeting regarding the proposed 2024 budget.  (Details will be provided in a separate email message shortly.)  

During the January 18, 2024 board meeting, the Long Term Planning Task Force will present their draft report.  This will lead to a six month effort to revise and finalize the draft report with additional input from everyone at Emerson.

On January 28, 2024, the formal Annual Meeting will be conducted.  During this meeting the congregation will vote to adopt a budget and to approve the members of the Charitable Outreach Committee, the Nomination Committee, and the Board of Trustees, as well as Officers.