Dear Member of the New-and-Improved Program Council,
We wanted to remind you that we will be meeting on Sunday, June 3 at 11:15am in the Parsonage Dining Room.
The purpose of the meeting is two-fold:
1. We realize in the 'old' Program Council's enthusiasm for a potential new model, we raced ahead without gauging buy-in from the folks we were hoping would take part (i.e., YOU). We're sorry about that. We also plunged in with our vision for the new PC without involving the broader group in creating that vision. So, we'd like to take a step back.
I (Dawn) recently went to a UUA workshop on Spiritual Leadership. We'd like to bring to this group an exercise they recommended called Discerning the Sweet Spot to help us clarify our goals, see how they align with our mission, and determine where we are with respect to having the resources and the will to move forward with the *new* model for Program Council. This Sweet Spot tool, if we like it, will potentially be useful for the Program Council moving forward as we are asked to consider new program initiatives presented by FUUSE members and friends.
This part of the meeting will take approximately 30 minutes.
2. For the second half of the meeting, we'd like to talk about the FUUSE calendar, and begin planning for the 2018-2019 church year.
It would be most helpful if committee chairs could start thinking about the events (programs open to the broader church community) your committee is likely to be involved in from September - December. We'd like to get onto a Program Council calendar things your committee does annually (Thanksgiving Baskets, for example, or the Children's Shopping Table), and also anything new you might have in the works - workshops, art initiatives, RE family activities, etc.
Putting all of this on a collective calendar (we'll bring a big one) will allow us to see where the gaps might be, and help us think as a group about whether we - the Program Council - might want to host an event (for example, a Welcome Back to Church brunch), or whether an individual committee might want to step in to organize something.
Please note: no one will be saddled with hosting a social event they don't want to host! The idea, instead, is to have more eyes on the many and varied programs offered at FUUSE, and a coordinated, collective effort to serve the programmatic needs of our community. No one will be asked to do anything they don't want to do!
Remember: with the new model, Program Council will be meeting as a group only 4 times a year, always on a Sunday after Coffee Hour.
We have invited to the June 3 meeting everyone who heads a committee or group that offers programs of any kind at FUUSE. If you think you have been invited in error, please reach out to Gwen or Dawn to let us know. Our aim is to have at the table the many and varied people involved with programs at FUUSE, but we don't want to burden anyone or ask you to be here against your will.
One final thing: the model of Program Council has been to have committee chairs send summaries of their committee's activities from the prior month (or few months) to one another in advance of meetings. If you have something you can share with the group about your committee's recent activity, please send your summary to Gwen Kenney by May 31 - rather than sending it to the whole group. Gwen will batch the summaries and send them to the collective group prior to our June 3 meeting.
For those who haven't done this before, we are looking for brief, bullet-point summaries. The idea is to capture the highlights - what your committee did, how it went, what you are working on next - without the level of detail that might be contained in a full set of minutes.
Thank you for reading through to the end, and for your willingness to be part of this new venture. We look forward to seeing you on June 3.
Warmly,
Gwen Kenney (current chair of PC) and Dawn Huebner (soon-to-be chair of PC)