From Your Board President
Dear Fellow Countryside Members and Friends –
Things at Countryside Church have certainly gotten more interesting and busier recently.
First, and most significantly, Rev Pam and Rev Karen publicly announced their retirements, effective at the end of this church year. That announcement was made just over two weeks ago (though it seems much longer ago than that). The timing was such that I, and some fellow Board members, were able to contact the UUA’s Congregational Transitions Director, Christine Purcell, for advice on how to proceed. Accordingly, the Board decided at the January meeting to conduct a search for a contract minister. To refresh your memory, a contract minister search is conducted by a search team selected by the Board and the contract minister is hired by the Board for a specific term – one or two years, with an option to renew. This is different from the settled minister search process in which the congregation calls the minister through a vote at a special congregational meeting for an unspecified, open-ended term. Of course, a contract minister may be called later by the congregation, but the call decision is not made at the beginning of the contract period. The Board also decided that the contract search team will consist of five members. They are Board members, Pat Wydell and Elizabeth Van Orden, along with Judy Ball, Michael Lunter, and Amy Zukoski. Although I am not a member of the search team, I will follow their activities closely and will work closely with Pat Wydell, who will head up the team.
The search team is in the process of preparing our congregational profile which will be posted to the UUA Ministry Search system, hopefully during the first week of February. If all goes well, the search team will have several qualified candidates to choose from and the Board will be able to make an announcement of our new contract minister no later than March 23. Things are moving quickly! I will be reporting back to you on a regular basis.
Next, thanks to the tireless efforts of our Treasurer, Rick Rayborn, and the ad hoc capital projects team he assembled, it appears that we will be able to install a second array of solar panels on the church roof. Early last year, the Board was approached by a donor, who is not a member of the church, but who often attends Green Sanctuary committee meetings, and who made a generous offer to fund the second array of solar panels for the church. Shortly after Rick began as Treasurer last July, he reached out to the donor to determine specifically what the donor expected the church to do with his donation. In addition, because of changes in the Federal Law related to solar panels and the associated tax credits, a decision needed to be made quickly to determine if installing a second array of solar panels made economic sense. Rick got up to speed on the Federal law changes and determined that it would make sense to install the solar panels if installation could begin in the first half of 2026. Knowing that, Rick began to get several quotes from solar panel vendors, and, with the help of Steve Black, several quotes from roofing vendors for enhancements to the roof over which the solar panels would be installed. At the January meeting, the Board approved a contract with a solar panel vendor and a roofing contractor. Finally, Rick and I recently met with the donor to clarify and document the terms of the donation. I am pleased to report that, just this past week, the donor made his promised donation to the church. As a result, I will soon be signing contracts with the solar panel vendor and the roofing contractor. If all goes well, the roofing enhancements will begin in late March, and the solar panel installation will begin shortly thereafter. I understand that once the new solar panels are installed, we will have doubled our solar generating capacity. That’s impressive.
Finally, our annual stewardship campaign (pledge drive) will begin in a few weeks. The theme for this year’s campaign is “Rooted in Love, Growing Our Future.” More detailed information will be available soon. I trust that you all will pledge generously to sustain this amazing spiritual community.
Thank you,
Gary LaBedz, Board President