The Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford

Proud to be a
Welcoming Congregation

   20 Forest Street, Stamford, CT 06901      203-348-0708      admin@uusis.org

Interim Minister

The Rev. Dawn Sangrey

Board of Trustees President

Joe Gonzalez, Jr.

Administrator

Tara Fleck

Office Hours

9:30AM to 2:30PM

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday

COMMITTEE ON MINISTRY

COMMITTEE CHAIR:

MEMBERS:  Dani Beltran

                       Julie Punishill

                       Bob Nixon

                       Tara Fleck

                       Maisie Kohnstamm

                       Nancy Furnas

                       Norrris Wakefield

NEWS

We would like to take this opportunity to once again introduce ourselves, and thank you for having elected us to this very important position! Our committee is composed of: Julie Punishill, Daniel A. Beltran, Norris Wakefield, Robert Nixon, Tara Fleck, Nancy Furnas and Maisie Kohnstamm. We are committed to finding the best Minister for our congregation!

We plan to keep you as updated as we possibly can throughout this process. So far, we've had a nearly 3 hour meeting with the Rev. Craig Hirshberg, the Metro District Ministerial Settlement Representative. She was great at discussing what we need to expect as a committee searching for a new minister and getting us to be honest about our congregation. We have also set a date to interview Maureen and Tara as employees of UUSIS and plan to meet with the remaining two employees after Homecoming. Lastly, we scheduled our retreat with her for early October.

In case you were not present for the service with Rev. Craig, which outlined all that needs to happen, we are expecting this process to take two years. It sounds long, we know, but trust us, it is not! We need to get feedback from all of you as to what you envision for our congregation for the next ten years! We also need to collect a history of who we are to put together with your feedback to send out to interested ministers nationwide. They will respond to us. We will need to interview by phone, check references, do criminal background checks, etc. before we invite a select few to be interviewed by us. Following that, we will narrow it down to ONE candidate who we will present to all of you in a week of sermons, interviews, informal get together, etc. Are you starting to get the picture? If this is to be a successful

process, it will take a LOT of our time!

You need to know that once we have narrowed it down to that final candidate, you need to all agree, by at least 95% for that minister to accept us! If that does not happen, we begin from scratch. During all of this time, we will have the assistance of our Interim Minister, the Reverend Dawn Sangrey to help us all along the way. She has been trained to help us look at ourselves with fresh eyes, and to see what we need to change and where we go from here. What an exciting place we find ourselves in! A new chapter is just around the corner for us.

We commit to keeping in touch with all of you, via this newsletter, as well as in person or by e-mail. The ONLY time that we must keep silent with you is while we are choosing our final candidate. This is to protect them as well as their current congregations. We hope you understand that.

We are all here for you! If you have any questions, anytime during the process, please feel free to contact us!