You're Breaking My Heart, or Independent Affiliates pt.2

(as you can see dear readers, I try to come up with interesting titles for my posts)

So...the board has met. And the net result has not changed, there are only 4 groups/councils deemed worthy by the UUA of the status of Independent Affiliate.

Linda Laskowski, UUA Board member from the Pacific Central District, on her blog http://pcdtrustee.blogspot.com writes:

With the idea of "covenant" in mind, I wonder which organizations (other than our congregations) would be in the category of ones we would choose to covenant with as a UUA Board? Which ones are clearly in line with the purpose of the UUA to serve congregations, and would merit (and be willing to take) the time to delve deeper with us into what exactly serving congregations means?

I think those are legitimate questions, but first let's take a look at a small sample of the organizations that were not deemed worthy by the UUA Board of Independent Affiliate status(using Ms. Laskowski's list):
-Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans aka CUUPs
-HUUmanists
-the Magi Network
-Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship aka UUBF
-Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship aka UUCF
-Unitarian Universalist Religious Naturalists

Did I miss the memo? Is Unitarian Universalism NOT a religious movement anymore? Why were all of the "religious" groups[in terms of theology] told that the board (of a religious organization, mind you) didn't want to have a relationship with them?

And let's look more specifically at the Magi Network. I don't know that much about them, but from what I little I do know, their mission is to plant churches. Isn't it a little odd that the Board says that its function is to serve congregations and yet it doesn't want to have formal ties with a group whose whole mission is to plant churches? I know I'm missing something here.

Now, there's another small portion of Ms. Laskowski's list we should look at:
-Council on Church Staff Finances
-Society for Ministerial Relief
-Unitarian Service Pension Society
-Unitarian Universalist Council on Church Staff Finances (don't know if it's the same as above but since it's a separate line, I listed both)

Not to offend, but what the heck were these doing as Independent Affiliates in the first place? On the face of it, shoudn't these have been a part of the Office of Religious Professionals (I can't remember the real name of the department on Beacon Street)? Even with lay people involved, these are things specific to church staffing and remuneration and should never have had to go through the process of trying to get Independent Affiliate status in the first place.

If I felt like it, I probably could go through the entire list (of which I knew of all but 3 of) and talk about them, but I want to get back to the body of Ms. Laskowski's post.

Why would the Board even walk into this buzz saw? The easiest thing for us would be to react to whatever came before it, continuing a system by which Affiliates were actually encouraged to remain separate (more workshop slots, more opportunities for exposure), even though they may have few resources and would have benefited from collaborating.

Where to begin. First, does the Board really care that some of these IAs had few resources? Even if grouped together, many of them still wouldn't have much in the way of resources. Next, the General Assembly Planning Committee has always had the ability to set the number of workshop slots any organization gets, if they get any at all. So whether an organization gets 0 slots or 50 slots, there was always going to be competition for workshops at General Assembly. Third, access to the website might be free for now, but advertising in the UU*World has never been free. And looking in the last issue of the World, only 5 IAs had the financial ability to pay their prices. [this is not an indictment of World ad prices, far from it] Would collaborating have changed that?

But more importantly, where does the assumption that these IAs weren't collaborating come from? Every time I'm at GA I see workshops put on by collaborating groups.

Finally, what is the difference between an Independent Affiliate and an Associate Organization? Could someone please explain it to me.

That's it for now. More later.