UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF NASHUA

REPORT TO THE CONGREGATION

John A. Sanders, President

June 12, 2003

I’m very happy to report that, since our last meeting, and after a two-year struggle, we finally completed a major construction project that added a Parish House elevator with newer safer stairs wrapped around it and relocated, redesigned coat closet and toilets. We are immensely grateful to Bob Sampson and Steve Gronberg for the careful and professional way in which this was done. During the course of this construction, we uncovered structural rot in a couple of places, one of which had been the vehicle for some water damage in the Fellowship Room. All of this was fixed as soon as it was found, but at an unexpected cost of about $8,000.

During the year, the Executive Board has been studying alternative governance structures that would allow the board to spend a substantial amount of its time on longer range planning and on setting policies for to guide the committees and staff in running the church (e.g. policies guiding the Property Committee in dealing with unexpected expenses – like the structural rot that we found last summer). A little later in this meeting, Gary Lerude will explain more about this effort. But it’s important to note that changes like this could affect many things about our church. So before we change our By-Laws to incorporate any such a change, we want to try it out for a year to make sure that it’s in a form that works well for our church.

Several years ago, our Music Director left for another job that paid twice as much for half the work, and we realized that we were severely underpaying all our staff. So over the last five years, we’ve been trying to correct that: by raising hourly wages to fair levels, and by increasing the number of hours paid to match the number of hours actually worked. That long-term effort continued this year as we increased the Administrator to full-time (to recognize hours worked) and started providing retirement benefits for staff that work more than 1000 hours a year.

As we approached the end of the church year and started to prepare next year’s budget, we discovered that we had a significantly larger than normal shortfall – one that was too large to “fine tune” away. This is a result of several factors. First, raising our staff’s compensation to fair levels has raised the cost of running this church. Second, the available endowment income has fallen sharply – because of the falling financial markets, because of special withdrawals for the elevator or painting the sanctuary, and because for most of the last several years we’ve withdrawn more than is fiscally prudent in order to meet expenses. And third, although our pledge income has risen over the last few years, it has not risen enough to offset these other factors – nor has it risen to a percentage of our budget that could be considered healthy. So we asked all of you to raise your pledges, but only about 10% of you have responded. Therefore, your Executive Committee made some very difficult choices and painful cuts in order to present a balanced but fiscally responsible budget for next year.

We have a short-term problem and a long-term problem. The short-term problem is how to balance the budget for next year, and we’re addressing that tonight. The longer term problem is how to reduce our over-reliance on the endowment and become a healthier church. That’s not an easy problem. In fact, it’s generally recognized as the hardest problem for any church to deal with. So the Executive Board has decided to hire a nationally known and highly respected consultant, Michael Durall, to help us address our long-term problems. Michael will be here on November 7^th, 8^th and 9^th to work with our congregation to understand what’s right for us and what we need to do to become a healthier church.

That’s what your Executive Board has been up to this year. But our church year has been more, so much more than that. And we have a lot of people to thank – far too many for me to thank everyone that deserves it. But let me try and hit a few highlights. Thanks to Ellen Fisher and the Cemetery Association for the very special work they’ve been doing this year, and which Ellen will discuss later in the meeting. Thanks to Sue Chadwick for taking over Denominational Affairs after Vaughn Darnell died and for organizing our GA participation this year. Thanks to Ellen McCormick and her thousands of helpers for a spectacularly successful Auction. Thanks also to John Burkitt, Steve Ladew and another cast of thousands for the herculean work that went into this year’s pledge drive. And thanks to Steve Ladew and Linda Donaldson-Guidi for co-chairing our next, very critical fundraising year. Thanks to Joan Connacher and the Membership Committee for the new members they’ve helped bring in and for the new picture directory. Thanks to Sandra LaBarge-Neumann not only for another splendid year of music but also for the very special Rolling Requiem on September 11^th. Thanks to Gary Lerude and the Personnel Committee for everything they’ve done to help us be responsible employers. Thanks to Mary Swanson and the Property Committee for all their unsung work in dealing with property problems and helping us to keep this place so beautiful. Thanks to Bud Swanson and the PR Committee for keeping us in the limelight. Thanks to Chris Parker, Marie Kiefer, the RE Committee, and all the RE teachers for giving us a future to look forward to. Thanks to Burns Fisher and the Sabbatical Committee for planning such wonderful sabbatical services. Thanks to Tess George and the Social Activities Committee for revitalizing our social life. Thanks to Chairs Nancy Dowey, Roy Goodman and now Adrian George together with the rest of the Social Responsibility Committee for helping us examine our moral choices. Thanks to Steve Ladew and the Teaching Parish Committee for helping Jackie Clement’s ministry blossom before our eyes. Thanks to Lori Lerude, Laurie Conrad and the White Wing Committee for helping our little ones get off to a good start. Thanks to Anya Goodell and the newly revamped Worship and Services Committee for bringing us Sunday evening alternative services. And finally, thanks to retiring Executive Board members Linda Donaldson-Guidi, Amy Evans, and June Haskell for everything done for our church over the last several years.

And so we come to the end of this church year and start looking forward to next year. We have some problems to face, but our congregation – our extended church family – is a great group of people. Working together, we can lick any problem we have to face.