To the Congregation of the UUFC from the Board of Directors
The UUFC Board has been working diligently to respond to your concerns about David and Lauren Servias’s resignations in a productive way in keeping with our bylaws, policies, and Covenant of Right Relations.
The Board held a special meeting on Sunday August 30th, the third in these turbulent two weeks, to address a petition signed by 37 members to hold a Special Meeting of the Congregation addressing concerns related to their resignations. The petition’s stated purpose of this Special Meeting is to “provide an open forum for members and friends to gain an understanding of the current situation, state concerns related to staffing issues and ask clarifying questions.” Our bylaws require a minimum 30-day notice for congregational meetings, with a posted agenda 14 days prior to said meeting. The earliest available Sunday (given the Annual Women’s Retreat) is therefore October 11th; however, please stay tuned for an official announcement because we have two tasks we’d like to complete prior to the Congregational meeting:
- Per Unitarian Universalist Association recommendations, we’ll host multiple small-group “Listening Circles” to provide the open forum requested by the petitioners for sharing grief and concerns. These will be modeled after our Chalice Circles and facilitated by trained individuals for both moderating and notetaking.
- We will contract with an outside Human Resources specialist to assess the working climate for our UUFC staff who report directly to Rev. Alex. Information will be collected through a structured interview process, and the results of that assessment will be reported directly to the congregation.
We feel that both of these efforts will aid in a more meaningful Special Meeting of the Congregation at which we also will have additional information and guidance from the UUA and other professionals. Work has already started on these tasks, but October 11th may be overly optimistic for those results. Again, stay tuned for the process.