Recent actions of the UUA board

Among recent actions by the Unitarian Universalist Associ­ation Board of Trustees:

• The board and others within the UUA are looking to designate General Assembly 2017, in New Orleans, as a justice-focused GA, with more worship, witness, and service opportunities with local partners than the typical GA. As a result, the board voted to move to amend the UUA bylaws to suspend the Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) process during GA 2017. Delegates at GA 2016, in Columbus, Ohio, will vote on whether to accept the board’s motion. There will be no suspension of AIWs during GA 2016.
• In December, it announced that a special task force will examine whether to recommend a change in the way that UU congregations provide financial support to the UUA. UUA Financial Advisor Larry Ladd will chair the task force, which will make its recommendations to the board no later than June, when the board meets at GA 2016. Most congregations currently calculate their contributions to the Annual Program Fund based on the number of members in the congregation, a method that critics say encourages the underreporting of membership. Congrega­tions in the Southern Region, however, have been using a percentage-of-congregational-budget figure instead, as have some congregations with more than 550 members.
• In February, the board appointed the Rev. Sofia Betancourt to the Appointments Committee, which recruits and recommends candidates for board-appointed committees as well as board appointments to elected committees, and appointed Catherine Romano Griffin to the Commission on Appraisal, an independent commission of the UUA that studies and reports on issues of deep importance to the movement, congregations, and the UUA.
• It appointed Denise Rimes to fill a vacancy on the board and named her vice moderator, effective February 24. Rimes, a former president of the District Presidents Association and a member of the UU Church of Richmond, Virginia, is already on the slate of candidates for election to the board in June. Rimes was appointed to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Vice Moderator Susan Weaver.

• Trustees noted that the value of the UUA’s new headquarters in Boston’s Seaport District continues to rise after the multinational conglomerate General Electric announced it was moving there, too.