"Welcome to Our New Monthly Newsletter"

Hey Fellowship, have we got a big bundle of news for you! So get a drink, kick-off your shoes and find out about the incredible activities that you have just done, are doing or will be doing soon!

BED & BREAKFAST

Bed & Breakfast, our 2008-2009 Fundraiser, It’s not too late to join the fundraiser. Brandon, our office assistant, is in the process of creating our B& B website. Call or e-mail him at the office and he will send you forms. Contact Maria Cheng if you have any questions.

MINISTER’S MESSAGE

Rev. Wanda Daniel

“What Do We Really Need?”

In times such as these, we seek anew to discover what we really need. What can we do without for now? What can wait? What cannot? What is enough . . .?

In a poem titled “Enough,” David Whyte writes:

• Enough. These few words are enough.
• If not these words, this breath.
• If not this breath, this sitting here.
• This opening to the life
• we have refused
• again and again
• until now.

In times such as these, we have the impetus to open the doors to what we know deep inside us is most important. Or, we are bombarded until we close those doors tighter and tighter, simply moving along with the flow of the news reports. Or, we find ourselves somewhere in-between, vacillating wildly as to what we must do now – if anything, other than survive.

At High Country UU Fellowship, we begin to shape our budget for the coming year. Many would argue it’s not a particularly good time to do so. The stock market is fluctuating. Holidays and their frenzy lie just around the corner. Our learned tendencies may nudge us to retreat a bit and conserve what we have?! I can hear my dad’s voice reminiscing the depression of the 1920's and the similarities rearing their scary heads.

At the same time I sense the abundance of life flowing within me, through me, and around me. Yes, many challenges exist, demanding to be confronted and addressed in ways we’ve managed to avoid for too long. Alongside these challenges are people and ideas and actions rising to the occasion and working together. We find ourselves in a time of choice . . . and vulnerability.

To choose at this moment to share, to open, to explore, to dream is to risk discovering that what is really enough, is very different from what we’ve accepted as enough. And overflowing from this discovery rushes that profound vulnerability of our life changing before our eyes in unexpected ways.

So perhaps, this time is a very good time to consider the 2009 budget for High Country UU Fellowship? To balance what is “enough” with the most important dreams living in both our own lives and the life of this community? Go exploring, and see what you find, and what you really need . . .

November 16th, “An Attitude of Abundance”

Living abundantly, and thus making choices from an attitude of abundance, is challenging in times of economic stress and decreasing resources. How do we clarify our choices so as to continue funding our dreams in the midst of struggling with our necessities?

Minister’s Schedule for November

Wanda arrives in Summit County on Friday, November 14, and will be available until Tuesday, November 18. Please give her a call (719-650-4560) or email wkayd@earthlink.net to schedule time !

BOARD BY-LINE

-Board member resignation

Dean Caldwell has resigned from our Board due to time conflicts of his & Kris's new retirement plans. We are so sorry to lose you, Dean. Thanks for all the great service you've given us, and thank-you for agreeing to serve again sometime in the future when time permits. We will miss your wise counsel and good humor!

-Pledge Drive

The HCUUF Annual Pledge Drive for 2009 begins November 21 and ends on December 5, 2008. 2009 will be a nine-month fiscal year, running from April 1 through December 31, 2009, so that beginning January 1, 2010 our fiscal year will be aligned with the regular calendar year. We are asking everyone to increase this year's pledge from last year's by at least 5%, pro-rated for 9 months. In addition it would so help us if you would consider a Special Sponsorship, from $25 for Coffee Hour to $225 for a guest minister speaker and many other categories in-between. Your Special Sponsorship donation will of course be acknowledged in the appropriate Order of Service. Look for the pledge letter with further details by November 21. A Board member or Wanda will be calling you. Thanks in advance for your continued support to the ongoing life of HCUUF!

To help you determine the amount of service and financial support you choose to give, here are some current facts, each followed by how we hope to change, re-shape those facts.

1. Two years ago, under our past minister Nathan Woodliff Stanley’s leadership, a Growth Committee made up of Nathan and members of our Fellowship determined that Growth & Change were needed at HCUUF, Growth internally in terms of better care & support of each other and Growth externally in terms of size of membership and community outreach. Central to achieving both types of Growth was the hiring of a quarter-time minister who would in due time be with us half-time. How fortunate for HCUUF that our Search Committee found Wanda Daniel. The Growth & Change Plan suggested that to get our minister to half-time would take at least 100 members. Well, it is with great joy that the Board announces an offer from Wanda that we couldn’t refuse! For the next fiscal year, which is only 9 months, Wanda has offered to give 3 extra sermons at no increase to her salary, in exchange for use of our office space to develop her counseling/personal coaching/workshop private practice. Eventually she would like to be with us ‘half-time’ - 10 months per year, doing 2 sermons per month plus her pastoral and outreach duties. She is already exploring the possibility of moving here from Colorado Springs. Her proposal gave the Board the impetus to expand on her offer and come up with a specific 3-year plan, complete with salary increases of base, cost of living and merit, so that by January 1, 2011, we can give Wanda a half-time contract as described above. This plan is based on a membership growth to 75 by 2011.
2. Right now we are at 52 pledged members. But we serve a much larger extended community of friends and visitors, so we hope the upcoming pledge drive will bring in a total of 61 pledgers for fiscal year 2009; 70 for 2010; 75 or more for 2011.
3. Of our present 52 members, approximately half do 99% of the work that has to be done: set-up/take-down & food for 52 services a year, education of our children, Membership/Hospitality, governance, fiscal policy, fiduciary oversight, Board work, personnel hiring & facilitation of our minister and office assistant, etc, etc, etc. 22 volunteers fill the 30 positions of the Board and 9 standing committees. These folks and another 4 or 5 also consistently help with weekly set-up/take-down and food. We hope to increase the number of regular volunteers by 20% to at least 30 in the next year. Please, please give of your time on one or more of these tasks.
4. Do you know that presently we are assessed by the national UUA and the Mountain Dessert District the ‘fair share’ amount of $89 per member per year? Next year this figure goes up to $102.
5. Our attendance averages 30 persons per service, but this figure is somewhat misleading as the reality is that our minister usually draws 38 or more, evening services have averaged 75 this past year and attendance is always higher during ski & summer seasons. If you will pledge to attend services more often and to bring 2 new people to one service the next year, we hope to increase attendance by 10% across the board.
6. Do you know that it costs about $675 every week to put on a service? This includes space rental, music, service supplies, printing, office support, coffee hour food, Summit Daily ads and minister/speaker fees & travel. Next year this will increase to about $700 per week because of an enhanced music program and increased cost for food, supplies and possibly rent. The Sunday Service budget is 2/3 of our entire budget.
7. Our average pledge per member is $650. But that number is somewhat misleading. The mean is more telling. It is $500, that is, half our members give above and below that amount. Even more telling is that almost ½ of our membership averages $300 per person. Now it is not the policy or attitude of this Board to say how much anyone should contribute. It is absolutely a personal decision as to how to allocate your time and financial resources. We do ask that as a member you contribute both in whatever proportion that you deem workable. We do urge you, in trying to arrive at an amount of dollars and volunteer time, that you consider 1. the facts we have laid out and 2. the importance of HCUUF and its workings in your life and give accordingly.
8. The Board hopes to enlist 61 pledgers for 2009 for a nine-month budget of approximately $42000.

Finally in closing, here is what we as a Fellowship have accomplished in the past year, over and above the ‘normal’ activities. It is listed in no particular order of importance or effectiveness.

• Barbara Schott and the Social Justice Committee raised $1300+ to fund a one year scholarship, hopefully ongoing, to Colorado Mountain College for a needy student. The SJC also helped to sponsor Lizzie Anderson’s Honduran medical mission. Both these projects lend for HCUUF great visibility and tremendous outreach to the community.
• The Music committee will be bringing in an extraordinary nationally recognized musician, Judy Fjell, this February. She’ll not only do a service but also workshops on liturgical music.
• The Celebrations Committee has consistently brought us extraordinary speakers this year, best ever we think, of outstanding members from the greater Summit community and beyond and a roster of fine ministers who come to us regularly 2 or 3 times a year. It has landed Rich Mayfield twice and has responded to a request from many of our members to have him more often. We are happy to announce that Rich will be speaking once a month from May to October in 2009. His regular presence at our pulpit may be seminal in bringing in new members to HCUUF.
• Last, but certainly not least, our Search Committee found us an extraordinary minister in Wanda Daniel. Though she has only been with us since July, her talks, presence and contributions have already noticeably enhanced that internal part of our growth, of spiritual inquiry and mutual support. Externally, there is always increased attendance at her Services. We are lining her up with the Summit Daily to resume the monthly column initiated by Nathan. She will also be working with other churches in our MDD cluster group on joint projects and services. The consistent depth and effectiveness of Wanda’s ministry coupled with this Fellowship’s goodwill and commitment are the most important factors to attaining positive change and growth.



The Board will meet on November 17 to finalize budget figures. You will receive a pledge letter by November 21, followed by calls from Wanda and Board members. The canvass period will be two weeks, spanning Thanksgiving, and end on December 5, at which point the Board will take assessment of the pledge results, revise the budget accordingly if need be, and ask the Fellowship to approve a final budget in early March.




The road ahead is long and daunting, but hey, us UU’s have always taken the road less traveled. Besides, these goals are quite doable and it will be so energizing and rewarding to do them together. Wanda felt immediately the vitality and goodwill of this Fellowship. Other guest ministers have said the same. So, to borrow from recent campaign slogans, as we embark on New Beginnings to create and enact change that we can believe in, let us go forth with a spirit of “Yes we can!” so that down the road we can say with joy and pride, “Yes we did!”

Committees' Corner

Celebrations:

Calendar wise we have ministers in place through April, 2009, and have only five Sundays to fill by local community or Fellowship members. Have a favorite? Let the Celebrations committee know: Don Parsons, Jon Hans, Liz Clark, Pat McShane and Wanda Daniel.
The Committee also concurred with a request from several members following Rich Mayfield's recent visit to recommend to the Board that he be asked to speak regularly during the Summer/Fall months (perhaps 4 to 5 times).

Religious Education:

We are always looking for volunteers to help out with RE. If you are interested with helping in any way, please contact Jennifer Wright.