Adult RE

Animal Ministry Committee

Building & Grounds Committee

Building Renovations Committee

The CBR’s goal was to complete bid plans and have recommendations for the June 21^st Board meeting regarding bridge financing, bidding, and transition.

Financing.  Two members stepped forward to offer loans for bridge financing to fill the gap between Capital Campaign collections and ultimate cost.  This will allow us to move to construction now, instead of waiting for all pledges to be collected over three years. CBR requested and the Board approved this.

Bidding.  To meet the latest schedule of beginning construction August 1^st, the CBR expected to have final bid plans for approval in June.  However, in final design the use of a steel beam in widening the opening between the Sanctuary and Social Hall resulted in issues that were difficult to resolve. The chosen solution is use of a wood truss instead of the beam and replacement of the masonry above the opening with a lighter exterior/interior wall, which resolves most issues and is expected to save money. This design change has delayed completion of the plans by several weeks. CBR is finalizing a list of potential contractors and proposes to invite bidders instead of advertising the work publicly. The Board authorized the CBR to release bid plans to this list of selected contractors. Due to this delay, the construction start target date of August 1^st will be missed, but are aiming to get a Contractor on board and begin construction in late August or early September.

Transition.  In accepting chairmanship of the CBR last year, Richard Culler did so with the understanding he would step down before July 1^st in order to concentrate on the role of Board President. CBR member Quillin Davis was nominated to the Board to be the new CBR Chair.  Quillin has been a part of the CBR from the start.  In his position at Lexington Medical Center, he has worked with architects and contractors on multi-million-dollar construction projects and brings that experience to his service on the CBR.  As Board President, Richard will remain ex-officio to the CBR.  Past-President Phil Turner will no longer have an automatic role, but in order to maintain continuity, the CBR requested the Board appoint Phil to be a voting member of the CBR to fill the vacancy. The Board voted to approve these appointments.

Richard Culler, Chair

Caring & Hospitality Committee

CYRE (Children & Youth Religious Education) Committee

• The CYRE Committee met June 3, 2017, for our Annual CYRE Planning Retreat.
• CYRE will not meet in July.
• The next regular meeting TBD.
• Teacher Orientation and Curriculum Planning is scheduled for 26^th.
  • 9 am to 1:00 pm — New Teacher Orientation and Curriculum Planning – calendars provided; lunch.
  • 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm — CYRE Wing Clean-up; teachers turn in supply list to DRE.
• We still need to find a CYRE Chair.

Keitha Whitaker, Chair

Denominational Connections

Endowment Committee

Finance Committee

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia Finance Committee Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2016 – 2017.

The Congregation’s finances and the Finance Committee have had a successful year.

A capital pledge drive for building renovation was held earlier in the year.  It resulted in a total pledged amount (requested to be paid over three years) of $193,153.82, which is significantly above the amounted estimated for the work.  As of May 31, the amount actually paid toward the pledges was $115,271.33, or 60% of the amount pledged.

The budgeting process was also successful, resulting in a balanced budget which includes the amounts included in the new minister’s contract and $10,000 for a music coordinator.  Total pledges are currently about $225,000, for an increase over last year’s of 7.8%.  The budget as approved by the congregation is attached as a separate document.  While it falls short in some respects of everyone’s desires, we believe it is a reasonable compromise among the congregation’s priorities.

One of our activities outside the routine was a dinner meeting with candidate minister Ref. Jeff Liebmann.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank my committee of Linda Brennison, Caroline Eastman, Robin Scherer, and Bob Whitaker for their hard work and wise counsel.

Respectfully submitted,

Joseph Long, Chair

Governance and Structure Ad Hoc Committee

The final report to the Board has been turned in and the work of this committee is complete. The Chair will meet with the Board in July.

Keitha Whitaker, Chair

Green Sanctuary Committee 

Leadership Development Committee

Membership Committee

The membership committee met on committee night June 7,2017. There was a short meeting after the potluck where we discussed and planned our upcoming meeting with Rev. Jeff. The committee left and Patty met with the new chairs Nancie Shillington Perez, Buzzie and Mike Kelly to hand over all materials and discuss a smooth transition.

On Thursday June 15th the membership committee met with Rev. Jeff at Patty Drews house. This was a very enjoyable, and informative meeting and the committee looks forward to welcoming and working with a Rev. Jeff beginning in August, 2017.
Patty Drews, UUCC Membership Chair

Personnel Committee

Publicity Committee 

Shared Ministry Committee

Discontinued during interim period.

Social Action Committee

Ramadan Dinner We collaborated with the Atlantic Institute on June 2 with the Ramadan Dinner which was a huge success with about 80 people in attendance. There was a presentation by Dr. Akif Aydin which was very well received and the food was wonderful. We look forward to more opportunities such as this to work with other groups to learn about other cultures. Thanks to all of that brought food and helped to set up and clean up.

Seeds of Hope This fresh market held in front of the church began Sunday, June 18 and will run until August 6. We experienced a slow beginning in getting volunteers but the schedule is beginning to fill up now. Bauer Westeren is chairing this event as he has for many years and is available to assist in any training necessary. The shifts are from 10:15 am to 1:00 pm. We have made signing up very easy this year by making the schedule available through our Social Action website or by contacting Bauer by email. We have completed our third week of sales as of this writing and our sales total has already reached $300.

T-shirt Sales We continue to do well with the sale of our t-shirts with only ten shirts left from our current order plus those left from the original order. We had a total of 50 shirts to sell. We will do a one more Sunday Sale Table on July 16^th to sell these remaining few. The profit will be used in our Social Action budget to supplement our 2017-18 expenses.

Welcoming Meeting/Dinner for Rev. Jeff Liebmann Social Action hosted a welcoming dinner for Candidate Rev. Jeff Liebmann and his wife Jody on Wednesday, June 14. We served sub sandwiches, salads, and dessert to a group of about 30 people. Rev. Jeff conducted a very informative Q&A session after dinner and spent time meeting our group.  It was a very profitable evening of getting to know Rev. Jeff and Jody and realizing what a passion they have for Social Justice.

SC Appleseed Legal Justice July 9 service Both Tammy Besherse and Erick Vasquez will give the sermon and also be representing Share the Plate for July. Erick is an 18 year old Mexican Immigrant and will do most of the speaking. SC Immigration Initiative is linked with SC Appleseed Legal Justice to present in churches and civic organizations in the area having young immigrants share their stories and this will be our opportunity to be a part of this project.

Nagasaki Day at UUCC – Our plans to host a program for Nagasaki Day on August 9^th at UUCC have been cancelled as the speaker Dan Zak will not be available. To properly recognize this event we will be supporting the musical celebration of life and commemoration of the 72^nd anniversary of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a Family friendly event held in the Canal Room at Edventure. It is produced by Columbia Friends Meeting and Carolina Peace Resource Center. We will be promoting this on our website and in the Unigram and OOS.

White Supremacy Teach-in Worship Service – Laura Hartwig is doing an excellent job of putting together this worship service for July 23^rd for the Teach-in. This will be a SAC sponsored service and the speakers will be Laura, David Crockett, and Judy Turnipseed. This will be a regular worship service with all of the elements of such to include meditations and music. These teach-ins are being done all over the country by our UU churches and are sanctioned and encouraged by the UUA. At this time over 700 UU churches have already had the benefit of a White Supremacy Teach-in. Laura has prepared an excellent article on our Social Action Webpage about what to expect and invites you to do your own independent research prior to the teach-in. Please go to the webpage and read what she has to say at http://www.uucolumbia.org Social Action page and look for Teach-in Resources on the left side of that page. This is an important event in Social Justice for our committee and I ask that you all give it your support and attention. We are very excited about the opportunity to make this presentation.

Pride Parade – This will be held Friday, October 20 at night this year. It will begin at 7:00 pm so we will begin set up about 5:00 pm or as soon as we are allowed to get to our float. Jeanette and Grant will be chairs again this year. We have already reserved the same float that we had last year as it was big and sat 15 people. It was easy to decorate and we are familiar with this float. We will be focusing on lighting this float with twinkle lights and using anything that will glow at night. There will be a dance after the parade.

Farewell – I bid farewell in my last Committee Report not realizing I still had none more to go. Once again and with even more emphasis – Farewell as chair but this certainly is not goodbye as an active member of the Social Action Committee. 

Linda, McLeod, Chair 

Technology Services Committee 

Transition Team

The Transition Team held its final meeting with Rev. Jennie on June 20, and concludes its service. We have enjoyed our time with her these past two years!

Kevin Meredith, Chair

Worship Committee

. . . The topic of White Supremacy as encouraged and outlined by the UUA was discussed as an appropriate topic for a summer service. It will be the focus of a July 23 service and organized by ARE and Social Action.

. . . Julianne Lepp of a Wisconsin UU church will be our guest speaker July 2, Tammy Besherse of Appleseed Law on July 9, Stephen Robinson of the Baptist Hospital on July 16, and Ty dePass of the Community-based Research and Education Organization on July 30. New minister Jeff Liebmann’s schedule will be determined before further guest speakers are scheduled.

. . . The narrative about announcement control as crafted by this committee has been posted in the Unigram and other appropriate places.

. . . Since the new budget includes a part-time music coordinator position, the draft of a job description has been revised and approved by the Board. An application and interview process is being defined by the Board with input from this committee.

Richard McLeod, Committee Chair