Proposed Amended Bylaws, Florida District UUA

Last month I wrote about important changes being proposed in our Florida District UUA Board of Directors. If you did not get a chance to read that article, please access it here. We have been focused on a dream of bringing the amazing volunteers within the Florida District and their energy to work in areas that speak to their hearts, that provide witness to their passion and that allow them to do ministry they are called to do. As a Board we want to

* Strengthen the bonds of community and covenant across our movement

* Promote faith development

* Empower youth and young adults

* Reach beyond our doors for the greater good

* Grow the faith

* Encourage inclusiveness; Celebrate and encourage intentional multi-racial, multi-cultural

Congregations

* Encourage accountability - to each other, to the future; lateral and vertical

* Develop leadership; cultivating Elders (of any and all age groups)

* Honor both professional and lay leadership

* Respond to a changing world - being flexible enough to address issues that arise

* Teach, train, instruct and provide consultation

* Cultivate excellence (not perfection) in ministry

* Remember this is religious work - no us and them

As a part of this work, we are proposing significant changes to the Bylaws. The Proposed Amended Bylaws have been mailed to each congregation together with the Notification of Meeting, announcing the upcoming District Assembly.   We urge you to become familiar with the proposed changes, discuss them within your congregation, and to empower your delegates to vote on the Amended Bylaws.

In order to help you review the bylaws, below is a summary of the changes that we have incorporated in the Amended Bylaws, and some discussion as to why we are proposing the changes.

• Revised the Purpose statement to be in line with our focus on collaboration with the Districts in the Southern Region, engaging volunteers in creative and meaningful work, and to be consistent with our Covenant with our District Executive and our Unitarian Universalist Association.
• Identified members consistently as congregations, rather than congregations, churches and societies.
• Revised the Board to be a Board of Trustees rather than a Board of Directors, to emphasize the role of stewardship, growth and the faith basis of our work.
• Provided a vision of the role of the Board of Trustees.
• Reduced the Board to a five-member board from an eleven-member board, to free up the energy of committed volunteers to do meaningful, active work in our faith.
• Provided for members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship to serve on the Board.
• Provided for a mechanism to transition to the new board format.
• Eliminated the calendar restrictions on the date of the Annual Meeting. The calendar was specific in part due to the requirements for election of a UUA Trustee, which is no longer required.
• Eliminated the requirement to mail notices of meetings to the secretary of the congregation. Notices will still be mailed to the Minister and the President (or Board Chair).
• Provided for email of notices to be sufficient if the recipient confirms receipt of these notices.
• Deleted Article VI Duties of Officers and incorporated the section into Article VI The Board of Trustees
• Renamed the Nominating Committee to Leadership Development Committee. Provided for one Youth and one Young Adult to serve on this Committee in order to help increase the engagement of Youth and Young Adults within the Florida District. Allows members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship to serve on the Leadership Development Committee. The Board envisions that the Leadership Development Committee will be active throughout the year and throughout the district in identifying and developing leaders and volunteers in service to Unitarian Universalism.
• Provided for transition to the Leadership Development Committee format.
• Deleted the Youth Council to be consistent with the affiliated structure of the Beacon Youth in relationship with the Florida District as adopted by the Youth.
• Revised the section regarding employment of the District Executive to reflect our Covenant with our Unitarian Universalist Association regarding employment of staff.
• Deleted the section regarding Election of UUA Trustee to be consistent with changes in the Unitarian Universalist Association Bylaws regarding election of Trustees.

The Proposed Amended Bylaws will be taken up for vote during the Business Meeting of the District Assembly, on Friday, March 23, 2012 at 6:45 pm. For your reference, the current Bylaws are available here: http://www.floridadistrict.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BYLAWS-As-Revised-April-2010.pdf , and the "markup" version showing the proposed changes are available here: http://www.floridadistrict.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/BYLAWS-Proposed-Revision-3-25-12.pdf .

Additional proposed amendments to these recommendations should be submitted to the FLD Board President no later than March 15, 2012.

We hope you plan to attend our Annual District Assembly at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville, March 23 through 25, 2012. Please encourage your church to be well represented with members, delegates, ministers, staff and youth.

I hope you will contact me or any of our board members if you have any questions about this work.

Rachel Christensen, President Florida District UUA Board

highgear3@gmail.com

Vice President: Ila Klion, ijklion@bellsouth.net
Secretary: Ginger Abraham, vhma621@hotmail.com
Treasurer: Reverend Brock Leach, brock.leach@comcast.net
Director at Large: Al Tweedy, sylvester0077@yahoo.com
Director at Large: Afesa Adams. afesaone@gmail.com
Director at Large: Betty Brantley, betty618@bellsouth.net
Director at Large: Roger Brown, rabnaples@earthlink.net
Director at Large: Joan Burnett, joanburnett3225@yahoo.com
Youth Representative: Abi Kirby (University UU Society)
Youth Representative: Spaulding Basham (River of Grass UU Cong.)
Director Ex-Officio: Reverend Kenneth Hurto, khurto@uua.org