Thank you for coming to the annual meeting on March 21. It was great to see your smiling eyes (under your masks, I am sure the rest of your face was smiling too).

Even though our fiscal year is on a calendar year, the annual meeting, held the third Sunday of March, feels like we are beginning anew. Maybe it is this beautiful spring weather or the hope we are feeling as more and more of us are getting vaccinated, but I am rejuvenated.  I hope you are too.

The annual meeting is when we elect our Board of Trustees. We are blessed to have five board members continue and have two additional members to add to the team. Yes, I am a little biased but there has never been a better time to serve then the present. I am so grateful and feel so blessed by this support.

Once elected, the board members themselves then determine which offices they will hold based on their skills and desires. We did this immediately following the annual meeting.

Your 2021-22 Board of Trustees are:
Valerie Holloway, President
Lianne Kagunda, Vice-President
Beth Lambdin, Secretary
Janeen Chiscon, Treasurer
Cathy Hoffman, Member
Lynn McKinney, Member
Jane Warner, Member

You can read the business of the meeting on our website and/or watch the video here. We also provided an update on priorities as together we create our new normal. They are to:

  • Begin one monthly in person talk (starting April)

  • Explore the availability of an interim minister

  • Begin the formal minister search process

And we want you to be a part in three ways:

  • Volunteer to get involved

  • Participate in Sunday talks, take classes

  • Virtually attend the Discovering Your Why program on Saturday, May 1

Several UOM board members, LUTs, and other team leaders are participating in a leadership series sponsored by the Southeast and Eastern Regions. I write this having attended the first session just last night. There were 97 Unity leaders on the call. In the breakout sessions, I got to know other board chairs and officers from places like Harlem, NY; Chattanooga, TN; Coastal Delaware, Sun City, FL; Charlotte, NC; Montclair, NJ and more. Talking with these other leaders and hearing their journey helped to realize how fortunate Unity of Melbourne is.

I am reminded that so often when we feel like we are challenges – minister search, virtual vs. in person gatherings, issues with our building, etc.  sessions like this snap me back into a place of gratitude and abundance. I met board members who had been without a minister for over two years, churches who lost their leases during COVID, boards that lacked trust and teamwork. Yet every one of these individuals was practicing what we believe, they taught me that our community is more than a building, more than Sunday talks it is connections we have with each other. We are perfectly positioned to begin anew.

We have a beautiful sunrise service and a Taizé service planned for Sunday, April 4 which I hope you can attend.

I hope to “see” you on Zoom at the Discovery Your Why session on May 1. This is the first step in determining our new normal…. together.

The future is ours to create.
In abundance,
Valerie Holloway