President's Message for July 2009
[Editor’s note: the following article is from the July Chalice Unitarian Universalist Congregation PrevUUs newsletter.]
President’s Message from Callie Leef:
Welcome to a new Chalice UU Congregation year. I am honored and privileged to be your new president.
I would like to thank Jim Idell for all his work in support of Chalice over the past year. He will be continuing on the Long Range Planning Committee and will be shepherding us on the journey toward Policy Governance. I would also like to thank those folks who have completed their board terms: Jo Lindstrom (treasurer), Debbie Hall (past president), and Michele Nelson (trustee.) Joining the board this
year are Delynn Kelly (Treasurer,) Mark Stutzman and Morgana Mlodoch as trustees. Also joining me,
will be Anne McKeirnan (VP,) Carol Molek (Secretary,) Dianne Decker-Houser, Paul Dulany,
Greg Trigeiro and Manuel Welchez. Jim Idell and Margo McKenna Brower make up the final two nonvoting
Board members. I am looking forward to working with all of these dedicated and energetic
people.
In July, we have only one service each Sunday so this is an opportunity to visit with those people who
regularly attend the “other” service during the rest of the year. Now is also the time to relax a bit, enjoy
the increasing sunshine as the June gloom departs, take a moment (or several) to smell the
roses, or find some wilderness. In visiting Alaska in late May/early June, I was astounded by how much
wild land there is there. On a bus tour 50 miles into Denali Park, we barely scratched the surface of that
park. We were fortunate to see grizzly bear moms with their cubs, moose, caribou, Dall sheep, snowshoe
hares and Arctic squirrels. And the most amazing display of Mother Nature was watching big chunks of ice being sloughed off the Hubbard Glacier dring the cruise part of our trip. I hope you
can find that peaceful place where you can just be or a short while and let it rejuvenate you.
As for the year ahead, now that we have 5-year plans for all of our goals, the board and various
committees will be working on implementing the first phases of those plans over the next year. If you have not already read the plans, I encourage you to do so. Better yet, find the area that interests
you the most and get involved. It is going to take our whole Chalice village to reach our goals.
Callie