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Dear St. Lawrence District Friends, As a participant in last summer's new Unitarian Universalist Leadership Team Institute (UULTI), and now as a St. Lawrence District representative to the Design Team for the 2008 Institute, I am very pleased to share information about this highly innovative leadership training opportunity for our congregations! Last year's attendees (including me) are still raving about their experience and what they were able to bring back to their congregations in terms of practical organizational tools and resources, powerful personal and theological insights, and a freshly inspired sense of UU identity and connection to our larger faith. No doubt, most of our congregations feel a constant and pressing need for more and better leadership development. This week-long residential learning experience is the best district-wide (actually, UULTI is co-sponsored by SLD and three neighboring districts) opportunity to build a critical mass of leaders within and among our congregations. Whether your congregation is small, large, or in- between — and no matter what challenges you face or visions you hold — you'll want to check out the information on the UULTI website, spread the word, start putting your team together, and make sure to include UULTI training in your budget! (We encourage cost-sharing between participants and their congregations.) But first be sure to read below how LAST SUMMER'S UULTI is currently benefiting six of our fellow SLD congregations. And feel free to contact me with questions. Faithfully,
Jan Gartner, Director of Religious Education
Change is the Thing at UU Leadership Training Institute by Ellen Asprooth Leadership school may change you, and — perhaps more important — it may change your congregation. At the Unitarian Universalist Leadership Team Institute, what you do with what you learn is as important as what you do while you’re learning. “Once you’ve been to the mountain, that’s great, but you have to bring it back to the village,” said Kathy McGowan, president of the First Unitarian Society of Schenectady. “One of leadership’s main jobs is to lead change, taking the congregation gently, slowly, into something new.” In her congregation, learnings from UULTI are “absolutely coming back,” according to McGowan, and the congregation’s UULTI team has met periodically to make sure that happened. The Institute was sponsored in its first year during the last week of July 2007 by the Joseph Priestley, Metro, Ohio-Meadville and St. Lawrence Districts and Murray Grove Conference Center. It offered a multi-track program and focused on group work, encouraging congregations to send teams of leaders and setting aside time for congregation teams, teams from the same track, and teams of those with the same congregational roles to work together. Schenectady’s team included its minister, Rev. Priscilla Richter, who said bringing a team to UULTI made a difference. “Now there are several people in the congregation who have a shared overall transformative experience and best practices to bring home,” she said. “It had the added quality of strengthening our bonds.” Rev. Sam Trumbore, who went to UULTI with a team from his congregation, First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, said meeting regularly at the Institute was useful as his team tried “to figure out how to take this stuff home.” Also important, Trumbore added, was the trip to and from the UULTI site. “It was good getting to know each other better and building relationships, “ he said. The five different tracks – congregation development and growth, family ministry, governance, justice-making, and small group ministry – allowed UULTI participants to focus on the needs of their individual congregations. Tim Bancroft, president of the Hornell Alfred Unitarian Universalist Society, said he brought appreciative inquiry to a fall retreat, where members focused on the small congregation’s story and positive attributes as they put together a plan for development and growth. The approach was effective, Bancroft said, as the group agreed to begin advertising, develop an active website, organize a Sunday peace vigil, develop community connections, participate in Association Sunday, and set up a team to visit homebound members. Barb Green, president of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Glens Falls and a staff member at UULTI, said she brought back to her congregation a shift in thinking from religious education to family ministry. “We’re doing religious education a little differently now,” she said, including an experimental period where everyone worships together. As the new Director of Religious Education at First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, Leah Purcell is “planting the seed of Lifespan Faith Development” wherever she can – in the newsletter, in services, in conversations with teachers and parents. Purcell says her experience at UULTI led her to look at everything that happens in the congregation from a family ministry perspective. “Many families come to our congregations in transition or even crisis,” she said. “We need to support them, sometimes even as they are crossing our thresholds.” In addition to the tracks and group work, the Institute offered lenses: perspectives on leadership in the context of emotional systems, lifespan faith development, anti-racism/anti-oppression/multiculturalism, shared leadership, and UU history and values. Lens presentations were offered as separate workshops or in some cases as part of the track sessions. Jan Gartner, Director of Religious Education at the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, said she used material from the shared leadership lens at teacher training in the fall. The distinction between a basic behavioral covenant (how we treat each other when there’s no problem) and a right relations covenant (how we treat each other when there is tension or conflict) was helpful as the teachers discussed how members of a team could mesh their understandings and their “growing edges,” according to Gartner. In their classes, she added, teachers framed the concept of covenant as aspirational, representing the way they’d like things to be, and reciprocal, so that if it is broken, both parties are responsible for fixing it. “As a result,” Gartner said, “teachers have reported that kids have been calling each other back into covenant.” For many, connecting with leaders from churches throughout the four districts was a critical aspect of UULTI. Barb Green reported that “the networking alone” made the experience worthwhile to her congregation. Ellie Syverud, president of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua, said her UULTI experience prompted her to attend the District Presidents Conference in the fall. “Meeting people from other UU churches was wonderful,” she said. “It’s good to get outside our walls.” For ministers, too, networking is important, according to Rev. Sam Trumbore. “The valuable thing about being at leadership school is that you’re with a bunch of leaders – you want to meet them,” he said. Trumbore said he enjoyed meeting younger colleagues and found it helpful that five district executives were in attendance. “Anything that gets us in each other’s congregations, meeting each other’s leaders, breaking down the boundaries, is good,” he added. These connections can be meaningful as leaders work to translate their leadership school experience into congregational change. “The energy that gets created gives you a real sense that there are many other people working on these issues who are out there as allies,” said Dave Munro, president of the Albany congregation and another staff member. As the leaders put in long days at UULTI, the
Institute’s staff and structure were organized to meet their needs for
spiritual development and support with what Many participants said the covenant groups were critical to the UULTI experience, providing opportunities for leaders to get to know each other better and offer care and support. “The covenant groups were vital,” said Kathy McGowan. “People came out of them so happy.” The whole UULTI experience “peeled away some layers,” according to Donna Doran, leaving her with a sense of new and healthy growth. As a self-described “moderately introverted person,” Doran said she now finds herself more open to others, getting to know more people in the congregation and comfortably greeting more newcomers. That could be just the kind of response all the tracks, lenses, covenant groups, team meetings, and worship services were meant to provoke. “UULTI is a powerful experience, not just personally, but for your church,” said Barb Green. “You can bring back what you’ve learned and be transformative.” This summer, the Unitarian Universalist Leadership Team Institute is scheduled for July 28 – August 3 at Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA, under the sponsorship of the Joseph Priestley, Metro New York, Ohio Meadville and St. Lawrence Districts, which now make up the New Regional Group of the Unitarian Universalist Association. More information is available at www.uulti.org
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