Hello dear readers.
I seem to be getting all sorts of good gossip these days, but this one is the most important to me.
It seems that the President of my district (Central Midwest for those of you who didn't remember) is a part of a congregation that is not in full Fair Share status with either the UUA or the district. Or at least that's what the gossip is.
This does not seem fair to me. There really should be some advantage to being a Fair Share congregation.
Is this a common occurrence in other districts? How can the President of a district faithfully stand there and talk about congregations contributing to the district at Fair Share levels and yet not be part of a congregation that is doing just that?
I'm developing a headache trying to make sense of this. So I shall stop here.
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4 comments:
I guess at issue is WHY they are not a fair share congregation. Our church had a spell where we had to drop our fair share status. It was that, or close our doors. (It was along with other cuts we made.)
So ... are we going to say that you can only be the president of a district if you belong to a large, financially healthy congregation? Seems like we'd be better off having that type of experienced UU helping new, struggling churches.
On the other hand, if it's just a "choice," because the congregation doesn't see value in it, that's a different story ...
((((How can the President of a district faithfully stand there and talk about congregations contributing to the district at Fair Share levels and yet not be part of a congregation that is doing just that?)))
I don't know why we would punish a candidate for choosing to be a part of a poorer congregation.
And that's assuming it's a choice.
I've gone to a UU church where the closest alternative UU church was 80 miles away.
I don't want to encourage good leaders to abandon congregations that probably need them. Do you?
CC
Real Anonymous,
In my district, one "advantage" of being fair share congregation is getting a lower fee when you pay for an outside district consultant to help your congregation:
"The fee is $125 per 'unit' (a working morning, afternoon or evening) for Total Fair Share (TFS) Congregations (those who pay both Annual Program Fund and District fair share). The fee for non TFS Congregations is $200 per unit."
The types of services provided by these consultants in my district are the following:
** Board and other lay leader retreats
** Developing mission and vision statements to help your congregation articulate its purpose and future
** Setting goals to make your dreams more concrete
** Covenant Group Training to train facilitators to develop groups that offer ultimacy and intimacy
** Congregational Behavioral Covenants to help everyone agree what they need from one another to effectively live in community
So -- the concrete answer in my district is you get a price break on optional fee-based district services.
From my experience, I've seen two general reasons behind the decision to not be a "fair share" congregation:
(1) Congregations of any size who are experiencing cash flow issues (when compared to paying the electric bill, the mortgage, and staff salaries -- the district dues and UUA Annual Program Fund may appear to be more "optional").
(2) Some very large UU congregation pay a large amount of money to the UUA but do not pay the per-member fair share rate. There is an alternative assessment rate based on operating budget size, but both methods levy a huge UUA and district "tax" that many larger congregations are unwilling to pay.
And the UUA may not put that much pressure on them -- when a large 1,500 person congregation doesn't pay their UUA APF fair share of $84,000, they may still be paying a large amount to the UUA (e.g. $50,000 to $60,000).
Finally -- given the congregational governance that we promote in Unitarian Universalism, what exactly can we do to make congregations pay fair share other than gentle encouragement?
I am a member of that congregation. You don't have the whole story. In fact, we are trying very hard to become a "fair share" congregation.
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