The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica

Featured Articles - September, 2003

Catherine Farmer is Our New Religious Education Director

Catherine Farmer, from the UU Church in Riverside, has been named our new director of religious education (DRE). A near-lifelong UU, Catherine originally comes from Ohio. “Both children’s RE and YRUU involvement played vital roles in my own growth and development,” says Catherine.
Catherine came to Southern California to attend Pomona College in Claremont, where she received a BA in history with many courses relating directly to her interest in religious education. She then worked closely with Greg Stewart at the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena for several years helping make the Way Cool Sunday School format a success in that congregation.

From there, Catherine was hired as director of religious education for the UU church in Riverside where she has served full time for the last couple of years. “Religious education is the focus of my life’s work,” she says.

“My goal is to serve a congregation that is interested in developing its educational ministry in a sustained relationship with a settled professional.” As part of her commitment to religious education, Catherine plans to become a credentialed director of religious education through a new program offered by the UUA. This last year, she has been a consultant to our RE program in reviewing our curriculum and led the volunteer training session on August 23.

“We were very impressed by Catherine. She was articulate, passionate and experienced. She stood out as the best fit with our congregation, the RE program and its goals, “said Karen Patch, chair of the search committee for a new director of religious education. Other members of the search committee were Diane Fletcher-Hoppe, Janet Goodwin, Victor Paddock, and Karen Raiford. The Rev. Judith Meyer adds: “I expect to enjoy working with Catherine as a colleague and hope to learn from her how better to minister to our children and families. She has a lot to offer.”
-- Karen Patch

Our Financial Conundrum: 'Tis a Puzzlement . . .

There's good news and not so good news, folks. At our annual meeting this past May, we optimistically projected a break-even result for the year ending in June. But when we toted up the final numbers in July, we had in fact a $7,000 deficit.

The good news is that that's $3,000 better than our original budget for the year; the bad news is that the current year budget (2003-04) will count as our third annual deficit in a row. So we have a conundrum - we have a vital church community with many excellent programs and services but without enough money to pay for it.

Some may note that $7,000 is a fairly small percentage of a $420,000 annual budget. But the cold, hard truth of the matter is that we cannot sustain an ongoing deficit indefinitely.

As background, in developing the last three annual budgets, we've made cuts wherever we thought we could, trying urgently to achieve a balanced budget. Each year, however, the board of directors and then the congregation have voted overwhelmingly to maintain our current programs and the staff that supports them, even though we couldn't responsibly forecast enough income to cover all the projected expenses. What does this mean?

There seems to be little doubt that as a congregation, we absolutely want the kind of church and its programs that we have. What we need and don't have is enough pledge income to pay for it.

Our forecasted expenses for the coming year 2003-04, including the new full-time DRE, are approximately $440,000. We currently have 465 church members and 370 pledging units. Simple division tells us that $80 per month per member or $100 per month per pledging unit would cover the budget.

Although individual pledging decisions of course depend on many personal and other factors, the above averages provide an indication of what our church needs from its members in order to maintain its programs and services.

Something to think about as we head into pledge season this fall.

--Warren Mathews, for the Finance Committee

Stewardship Story: “A Vital Community”

When people come together to make this church a place that can speak to our spiritual, social and emotional growth we have a vital community. Let’s look at some of the people doing this very important work (committee chairs) and their hopes for their committees.

Helen Burns, Shirlee Frank and Peggy Kharaaz are the driving forces behind new member suppers, where they coordinate food, drink and recruiting of longer-time church members to act as hosts for periodic new member welcome dinners. They also coordinate Dining for Dollars, in which they work with a dizzying number of congregation members to host dinners-for-auction in their homes throughout the year. This fundraiser raised nearly $20,000 for the church this year. With both of these endeavors, they seek to create church community in a social environment. Their hopes for the future? More help in organizing and executing both of these projects.

Shirlee Frank also chairs the Gallery Wall Committee, which provides group and solo art exhibitions in Forbes Hall. In the coming year, she’d like the funds to replace the 20-year-old beige-colored cloth covering on the wall.

Warren Mathews writes that the Finance Committee’s mission is to make sure the church operates in a financially sound manner. They don’t make any program decisions, but they do seek fiscally sound ways to accomplish programs and long-term objectives. Finance’s dream is to see a substantial and continuing increase in church income, which realistically means a substantial increase in annual pledge income plus an active program of deferred giving.

Carol Agate looks to connect our congregation to the greater world of UU through the denominational affairs committee. Barbara Kernochan chairs the building committee, and Laurel Bleak coordinates new member evenings with the minister.
You’ll see more specifics about the works and desires of these wonderful people and your other committee-chair-neighbors in the pews as we publish our first UUCCSM program booklet for the coming year next month.

The greater appreciation we have for each other’s contributions to our community, as well as each other’s hopes and dreams for our congregation, the better stewards we’ll become.

In faith,
Jacki K. Weber

Workers Justice Will Be on the FIA Agenda

On September 14, our congregation will choose which faith in action (FIA) issues they want to support during the coming months. One of the issues to be voted on will be “Partnerships for Justice.” This campaign will help 4,000 low-wage hotel workers in the Santa Monica area to achieve fair working conditions in union contracts that provide fair wages, health benefits, fair workloads, and job security.

Cathie Gentile, member of the church’s FIA Commission, explained the “Partnerships for Justice” campaign in a pulpit announcement on August 31. Two organizations, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) and Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism (SMART) hosted a dinner and information meeting last month about “Partnership for Justice” at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Santa Monica. Attending from our congregation were Cathie, Ernie and Maggie Pipes, Sylvia Berke, Mar Preston, Paula Bernstein and Abby Arnold.

In advocating the “Partnerships for Justice” issue, Cathie cites, from the UUA general assembly in Boston in June, a portion of the statement of conscience that addresses the issue of worker rights: “We are called to participate in the work of organizations that advocate for human rights, fair employment standards, and environmental justice. Countries have the responsibility to require foreign and domestic companies to pay fair taxes, ensure their workers a locally-defined living wage, provide a healthy and safe work environment, and respect the right of their workers to bargain collectively in independent labor unions and to engage in strikes and other job actions when necessary.”

“The low-wage worker campaign has the potential to be a significant labor movement in our community as well as the country,” believes Cathie. “As Unitarians, we have a long history of supporting labor issues. I hope our congregation feels as I do that this is a worthwhile effort and will choose to become advocates for the workers who currently engaged in this struggle.”

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