Minister for Social Justice Kären Rasmussen

It is great to be back at UUCF as your new part-time minister for Social Justice. I'll be working about 10 hours a week and I'm enjoying hearing about social justice projects that are up and running as well as people's new ideas.

What does UUCF's Minister for Social Justice do? A great question. Here is the blurb from my job description.

"UUCF's new Social Justice Minister will identify and recruit new social justice leaders and activists in the congregation, communicate social justice activities to the congregation on a regular basis, coordinate congregation-based activities and themes across a wide range of groups and interests and represent UUCF to the larger community."

Whew!

But what it really means to me is directly connected to our vision to "Grow, Connect and Serve."

My ministry, and my passion, is to listen to people, hear what their hopes and energies are for social justice and then connect them to activities within our congregation and out in the community.

Grow - to help us grow from within ourselves to find our talents and energies for projects and leadership and then make the actions happen.

Connect - to connect people, projects and talents with a wide range of social justice activities. To hear what people dream for and connect it with the leadership of UUCF and our structure across the congregation.

Serve - having our words and our work make a difference both within our congregation, in our local community and out in the world. To serve in ways both small and large to make a difference.

Join me as we travel together to use our hearts and our hands to build a just world. Work with me as we take our faith into action. To grow new leaders, connect to projects and activism and serve with energy and integrity - that's the job of your new Minister for Social Justice.

by Roberta Kiver and Ginge Sivigny

It was an inspiring day for the two of us. We were blessed with a bright, sunny, cool Autumn day. We went to six houses of worship. At each we were met by articulate, intelligent, warm, shining individuals who wanted to share the story of their faith heritage. They were enthusiastic and seemed really pleased to see us.  

We visited the Washington Hebrew Congregation, St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Community of Christ Church, St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Soka Gakkai Buddhist meeting house, briefly stopped at the Kahlil Gibran Memorial park, and lastly the Islamic Center of Washington. The walk was very well organized with a detailed program with maps, water bottles at stops along the way, signs indicating houses of worship and volunteers at critical corners giving directions.

As we started off from the synagogue, we met a young Muslim man named Mohammed with whom we shared our stories of faith and what we were looking forward to with this walk. He is working on a service project in Haiti, supervising the money from Qatar being used to help the Haitians. He is also involved in other service projects. It seemed that serving others was an important part of his life view.  

We both want to thank Furman Riley for informing us of this event and organizing us. We come away with this thought: If we could all be this welcoming to others of different faith traditions every day, how much better our interactions and world view would be. It was also a great pleasure spending time with a fellow member of UUCF and share our stories.

* The 9/11 Unity Walk was held in Washington, DC, on Sep. 9. It brings together people of all ages, backgrounds and faiths to learn to respect each other through a framework of experiential education, compassionate leadership and intentional service. Unity Walk seeks to create a world where we are united, rather than divided, by our many faiths.

The Coordinating Team is pleased to provide this summary financial report for the year that ended June 30, 2012. We ended this past year with expenses exceeding income by $4,000 - less than one half of one percent of our total budget. You can see broad categories of income and expenses in the chart below. The $79,000 surplus results from a change in how we record early pledge payments (see Next Year pledges - $83,000).

Pledge income received as a percentage of pledges made was slightly lower this year than last. Each year we budget a pledge default number to account for individuals leaving the area, becoming less involved or facing a change in economic circumstances. So far we have received all but 7.4% of pledges made last year. It is not too late to complete your pledge for the 11/12 year. Just send in a check clearly marked for your 11/12 pledge.

A couple of other lines below perhaps warrant comment.

• Plate collections are a bit under budget due to the shift to giving 50% to the Share-the-Plate charity instead of 33%. However, the change also meant more going to the Share-the-Plate organizations.
• Our Auction continues to be a very important source of income (not to mention a great time). This year our results were a little lower due to the power outage disruption. Actually, that we did as well as we did is quite remarkable.
• Miscellaneous income includes Amazon sales through the UUCF website, income from the Holiday Bazaar and donations from the Montessori School and Mindfulness Practice Center, among other things.
• Expenses were under budget overall. However, due to the work on developing a UUCF logo and redesigning the website, the CT was over budget. The Endowment Committee's expenses for last year's campaign were also higher than budgeted.

We want to thank the congregation for your strong ongoing financial support. Contact me if you have questions. In the coming weeks, we'll provide a report on the funds UUCF congregants contributed to entities and causes outside UUCF.

- Rich Sider, for the Coordinating Team*