What You Bring To The Party? or Independent Affiliates pt.4

Hello dear readers. I have a correction to make, and since it fits in with the rest of this email I hope you will be able to tell what that correction is.

Anyway, dear readers, this is my 5th post about the Independent Affiliates issue and I noticed that the first 4 all talked about the IAs that were rejected. For this post I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the 5 that were deemed worthy.

Let's look at the list of the approved IAs:
-Council of UU Camps and Conferences
-DRUUMM
-Partner Church Council
-Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry
-Universalist Convocations

With the new rules about IAs, I can see how 2 of them made it through. A third one is a possibility. The other ones I question and I thought that I would talk about one of them in particular and then open the conversation. Those who know me in real life would be surprised by the one I'm going to talk about, that's why I'm not going to talk about that one but a different one.

The new rules state that an organization applying for IA status must present:

a statement outlining how its purpose, mission and structure models interdependence through engagement with our member congregations, coordination or collaboration of effort and resources; and a statement outlining how the organization supports the transformation of institutions and our world to be aligned with those values expressed in our Principles;

Now, dear readers, using this part of the rules, can anybody explain to me how the Council of UU Camps and Conferences got IA status? How do they SERVE congregations? (as there is a difference between serving and providing a service)

So, as the title of this post asks; what do these 5 groups bring to the party of Unitarian Universalism? How do they make us better? What was it about them that made them more worthy of IA status than the ones that were rejected?

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? or Independent Affiliates pt.3

My last post was about passion (well written if I do say so myself) and since I asked questions about passion in a UU context, I thought in this post I would go back to the Independent Affiliate issue and tie it in.

Just to re-cap for those of you dear readers who might have forgotten, the UUA Board rejected 44 Independent Affiliates. Among those IAs that were rejected are:
-CUUPs
-HUUmanists
-UU Buddhist Fellowship
-UU Christian Fellowship
-UUs for Jewish Awareness

All of these groups share a couple of things in common. One, they are theological. Second, theses groups are passionate about what they do. Guess that comes with having a theology.

What makes a religious organization different from groups like the ACLU, John Birch Society and the like? They have a THEOLOGY and are passionate about it. And yet the Board has decided that a religious body should not have a relationship with the organizations that bring the RELIGION to the body.

Does this make any sense?

Last Independent Affiliate Thoughts for the Week

Hello Dear Readers. This is going to be a short IA post because I'm heading out to St. Louis to see Barack Obama at St. Louis Union Station.

I printed out Linda Laskowski's IA post so I could read it and think on it. If you haven't read her post just follow this link http://pcdtrustee.blogspot.com/.

I continue to be stuck at this:
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 had few resources and would have benefited from collaborating.

Why am I stuck? Mainly, dear readers, because more questions keep coming to my mind.
Question 1: How did the past rules regarding IAs encourage them to remain separate?
Question 2: Hasn't the General Assembly Planning Committee always had the authority to set the number of workshops that any organization gets? Or did the Board set that and the Planning Committee just implement and enforce it?
Question 3: "More opportunities for exposure"? Is there something wrong with IAs getting as many opportunities for exposure as they can?
Question 4: "few resources". What kind of resources are you talking about? Money? Or something else?
Question 5: Weren't many of these IAs collaborating already?
Question 6: What benefits of collaboration does the Board think the IAs were missing from their supposed non-collaboration?

That's it for today, dear readers, talk amongst yourselves. You can also read my first and second posts on the IA issue; "Opposite Side of the Street Parking" and "You're Breaking My Heart".

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.

Opposite Side of the Street Parking (aka the Independent Affiliate Issue)

Hello Dear Readers.

I love "The Golden Girls". And since this post is about the Independent Affiliate issue, I thought I would use a scene from that show to help me illustrate my point.

Picture this: Dorothy and Sophia have just finished singing the first verse and chorus of "I Got You Babe" and Rose stops playing the piano abruptly.

Dorothy: Rose...what's the matter? There's another verse......
Rose: I'm sorry, but this song always takes me back to St. Olaf in the 60s. And the controversial issue that nearly tore the town apart.
Dorothy: What Rose....Vietnam?...Civil Rights?...Campus unrest?...
Rose: Opposite side of the street parking. Nobody could understand the concept. I mean because no matter what side of the street you park on there's always an opposite side.

As somebody who's been active denominationally for almost as long as I've been in it, I feel like one of the people of St. Olaf. In getting rid of all but 4 of the Independent Affiliates, has the board done anything but create opposite side of the street parking for IAs?

Have you seen the letter that many of the IAs received when they were told that they no longer belonged? I have. And let me tell you that it takes convoluted logic to a new level.

One of the suggestions that the board has is that similar, but different, IAs should form a council that could go back to the board and seek IA status. Isn't that just like UUs? Hey, let's form a committee of the committee of the committee. What exactly would this new council do except ferment dissension among the groups that form said council (because we all know that somebody is going to feel left out)? What benefits would this new council give to the IAs that form it?

Part of the reason IAs formed in the first place was that there was some need that grew out of the people of the congregations that the board says the UUA is there to serve. Doesn't it stand to reason that since IAs are a grassroots effort, that they inherently serve those same congregations that the UUA does? Is the board on a different planet than the rest of us?

My friends who are leaders in some of the IAs tell me that some of the IAs are going to be sending letters of protest to the board. I encourage you, if you are so inclined, to do the same.