Call to Order (Charles Du Mond & Rev. Meg Riley) Meg: Hello! My name is the Rev. Meg Riley and I’m a member of First Universalist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the land of the Dakota people. My pronouns are she/her/hers. Charles: And I’m Charles Du Mond, a member of Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo, CA on the land of Ramaytush Ohlone people. And I am also a member of the Church of the Larger Fellowship. My pronouns are he/him/his. Meg: Together, we are the co-moderators and chief governance officers of your Unitarian Universalist Association, and we call this 60th General Assembly to order this Meg: Today’s business agenda includes, in the following order: • Welcome from Your Co-Moderators and UUA President • Voting Process Review and a Practice Vote • Review and Adopt Rules of Procedure • Introduction to Youth and Young Adult Leadership • Introduction to the GA Care Teams, which include: o Systemic Justice Team o Chaplains o Conflict and Covenant Team o Accessibility and Inclusion Team • Closing Words • Announcements and Recess Welcome (Rev. Meg Riley, Charles Du Mond, and Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray) Meg: Welcome to the 60th General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association! Happy 60th birthday, UUA! I serve as UUA co-moderator from a place of gratitude. Gratitude to have been born into this faith and the amazing community which has raised me and created me to be the person I am, living the values I was taught the best I’m able. It’s a privilege and an honor to be with you. And I certainly could not be in this position without the wisdom, grace and humor of my cohort, Charles Du Mond. Charles: Welcome to the 2nd all-virtual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association! We are both excited and nervous about this, our first General Assembly as co-moderators. We hope you will be kind and bear with the inevitable bumps with technology and humanity, and participate joyfully, thoughtfully, and respectfully. There are many people, volunteers and professionals alike, who have worked very hard to make this the best General Assembly we can. We’d like to introduce them to you now: From the General Assembly and Conferences Services and UUA Staff: ● LaTonya Richardson, Director of GA and Conference Services ● Betty Clark ● Stacey Dixon ● Donny Plante ● Larry Stritof, Director of Information Technology Services ● Carmen Moon, our new GA Production Manager From the General Assembly Planning Committee: ● Debra Boyd ● Thomas Earthman ● Cecilia Hayes ● Chelsea Surfus Meg: We are so grateful for all of you, choosing to be here. We know it’s been a rough year and that we are tired. Tired of spending our lives on screens, tired of keeping up with the ever-changing safety guidelines, tired of the stress of uncertainty, tired of the accumulated losses of lost events and gatherings, and most of all tired of the grief of lost loved ones. We gather acutely aware that one of our co-moderators from the past years, Elandria Williams, died last September at the too-young age of 41. We are grateful for all that Elandria gave to us in a too-short life, and also we acknowledge that events like this General Assembly will sharpen our longing for E to be with us still. Charles: We know that many of you arrive grieving ones beloved to you, and also that our faith has lost some luminaries this year. We marked some of them in the opening worship and will be holding so many in our hearts through this assembly. May our grief sharpen our appreciation for one another and our precious, vulnerable lives which we dedicate to this precious, vulnerable faith. Meg: Many of you told us how much you appreciated virtual GA last year. You say that you attended for the first time, that your congregation sent a full delegate slate for the first time. This news thrills us and we intend to keep making General Assembly business meetings as accessible and inexpensive as technology will allow so that participation can continue to be robust. If you have ideas, please send them in to us. Fill out the surveys after this assembly which you will be sent about this gathering, and tell us your dreams. The GA professional staff, the GA planning committee, the UUA board, and many others, will be imagining multi-platformed gatherings for the future, the likes of which we have not yet attempted. We are committed to making them inclusive, accessible, and welcoming for all. We need each other in times like this. Through this frightening pandemic, through the horrific murder of George Floyd in my hometown of Minneapolis and too many Black lives at the hands of police all across the land, I have been so grateful to be part of a faith community that teaches me, that challenges me, that loves me too much to let me be as misguided as I sometimes can be. This faith, whether experienced online or in a physical room with other people, holds me. I have needed you all. I need you still. I hope that this General Assembly will be a time of support and challenge, love and accountability, so that we may experience healing and joy and also open our hearts to one another in a way that builds compassion and more love. Charles: In this difficult year, we have been perpetually grateful for the ministry and leadership from the UUA staff, and especially in the regular emails and videos that have come from our President, Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray. It feels like they always came at just the right moment, offering practical wisdom and generous accompaniment on the journey. Susan has agreed to say a few words now, so I’d like to invite her. If we were in an Assembly Hall in a convention center somewhere, I suspect this would lead to a standing ovation, but since we are not, I invite you to make some virtual noise or shout out wherever you are. As someone who’s had the privilege to work up close with Susan, I want to tell you how hard she is working every day on all of our behalf. She inspires, she pays attention, she thinks strategically, she plots and conspires and gives it all for our faith. Here’s Susan Frederick-Gray. Susan: Charles, thank you for the lovely introduction. And to both you and Meg, I am so grateful to lead beside you on behalf of this religious tradition and Association we love. I am so excited for this General Assembly. After a year like this, it is good to be together. Y’all we are in a liminal time – an in-between time. The vaccines are bringing such good news, and the pandemic is not over. In some ways, the questions we are facing right now are more complicated than they were just over a year ago. In the beginning of the pandemic, it was clear what we needed to do to save lives. Emerging from the pandemic brings new and more complicated questions. We know we can’t just go back to what was before. We have experienced the unbelievable gift of more accessible opportunities to gather, to worship, to learn together and to share our good news. As more and more people are vaccinated, savor those moments to hug our loved ones and gather together in person. And know, that not everyone is able to get vaccinated. The path ahead is more complicated, as we continue to nurture communities that are inclusive, accessible, life-saving, vibrant religious communities. Add to this that we are all tired, some of us are bone tired, and carrying the trauma of loss, the trauma of anxiety, of injustice and violence. This year, it has all been so much. And so we come together. We circle ‘round for freedom, for healing, for justice, for courage. We circle ‘round as an Association and a religious community that holds us, loves us, and connects us by unseen but real threads of compassion and strength, care and intention. And as we ‘circle round, I have an invitation for you this week. The poet Mary Oliver reminds us that in the midst of loss and trauma, in the midst of destruction, and cruelty and ignorance, that life offers us something else. She says, “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it….Perhaps [joy] is [life’s] way of fighting back.” So this is my invitation to you: if you suddenly feel joy this week – perhaps in response to the inspiration of a speaker, the power of a piece of music, a connection with a good friend who you’ve not connected with in a long time, even in imagining thousands of Unitarian Universalists across the globe sharing a common experience – whatever it is, if you unexpectedly and suddenly feel joy, lean into it, don’t hesitate. Oliver says, “Joy was not meant to be a crumb.” In my own experience, joy comes when I feel deeply connected, when I feel free, when I feel safe, when I feel loved. And this is the condition we want for all people, that we want for ourselves. Joy reminds us of the gift of life and our humanity and what we were made for. Joy reminds us why we are in the struggle for liberation, the struggle for justice. As we gather – feeling once again our connection to our wider UU family of faith and tradition – as we circle round for healing, for courage, for justice – may we welcome and lean into the moments of joy and power that fuel us for living – both in our struggles and in our times of celebrations. Dear ones, I love you! I am so glad to be here with you! It is good to be together! Charles: You’ll be seeing names and faces of many leaders in our movement as GA goes on. Volunteers work on committees, task forces, commissions, in ways large and small which, together, create the community we weave together. At this time, we’d like to acknowledge your UUA board of trustees, a group of folks who spend a great deal of their time thinking and working on behalf of our movement: ● Genevieve Baldwin ● Gregory Boyd ● Kathy Burek, Financial Secretary ● Barbara de Leeuw ● Rev. Suzanne Fast ● Rev. Sherman Logan ● Leslie MacFadyen (Vice Moderator) ● Rev. Patrick McLaughlin ● John Newhall (Vice Moderator) ● Lucia Santini Field, Financial Advisor ● Rev. Tom Schade ● Rebecca Throop ● Bill Young, Secretary Meg: With gratitude for the team that holds us in this gathering, and with gratitude for the leadership of those who brought us here, including Rev. Mr. Barb Greve and Elandria Williams, Jim Key and Gini Courter and Denny Davidoff, we gather this year. As we continue to implement the report of the Commission on Institutional Change, which was enthusiastically received at last year’s General Assembly and which the board and staff and many of your congregations have been using as a guidebook all year, we circle round for justice, circle round for healing, circle round for courage. Charles: May the circle grow ever more vibrant, ever more welcoming, ever more wide. Welcome to General Assembly 2021! Rules Review (Charles Du Mond) Charles: A few quick reminders about the rules as we start this business session: The full rules of procedure were issued separately from the business agenda. They are a separate pdf on the business agenda web page. The rules have been rewritten in plain language. You must be a delegate to participate in the business discussions. You may speak live via zoom, submit a written statement, or submit a recorded video or audio file. Written statements are limited to 200 words. Audio, video, and live statements are limited to 2 minutes. Please go to the information room and you will be transferred to the pro line, the con line, or the procedural and amendment line, as appropriate. Before discussion of a bylaw amendment or business resolution begins, a few minutes will be provided for you to informally discuss the agenda item through the participation portal chat rooms as well as with those seated near you; this informal discussion time will not count towards the twelve-minute limit. The twelve minutes of discussion time does include time devoted to discussing any amendments to the proposed item. Amendments must have been submitted for consideration at the Mini-Assembly. There has to be 8 minutes of discussion on the main motion before amendments can be considered. There are 12 minutes total allowed for discussion of business items. After 8 minutes of discussion, you can move to end discussion. Motions must come from the procedural and amendment line. Time taken at the procedural mic will not count against discussion time. Now let us take a moment to watch a video on how the voting process works. Voting Process Review and Practice Vote (Carey McDonald & Charles Du Mond) Hi, I’m Carey McDonald, UUA Executive Vice President, and thanks for being a delegate at Virtual General Assembly 2021! Let’s explain how the process of discussion and voting works for our business sessions. Building on last year’s Virtual General Assembly 2020, we’ve learned that virtual business meetings can allow more people to engage directly with the business of the Association. We’ve also tweaked the process a little from last year based on what we’ve learned. To participate in GA business sessions, you must be registered and logged into the GA Participant Portal. To enable access to the delegate tools, be sure to enter your credential ID into the form on the left under your name. In the “Main Stage,” participants will be able to see a live feed of the meeting and, if you enable them, the chat rooms, and you’ll see links to the documents being discussed in the meeting, which is new this year. Delegates will also be able to view the polls/voting window and the link to join the Zoom rooms where you can speak as part of the discussion, which we’ll review in a minute. The meeting feed will be how the meeting is led, it’s a live-streamed Zoom meeting with the Moderation Team and other multimedia content. Our Moderation Team includes the Co-Moderators, other members of the UUA Board, our Parliamentarian and Legal Counsel. All participants can join one of the six chat rooms displayed beneath the Main Stage feed. The open chat rooms are Birch, Maple, Oak, Palm and Spruce, and a sixth chat room is reserved for attendees who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. The chat rooms operate co-equally at the same time. Participants can join any chat room they want or switch to another one, but can only be in a single chat room at a time. Chat rooms all have Chat Hosts to help everyone participate. During the meeting, delegates can comment on the business item under consideration by clicking on the link in the Participant Portal. You’ll be added to a Zoom meeting just for delegates who want to speak, and from there you can join the Pro, Con, Amendment/Procedure Line, or the new Information Room. A teller in each room will direct you from there. Pro statements support the item, Con statements express a concern that would prevent you from supporting the item, and Amendment/Procedure is for making a motion or proposal. You can also submit advance video or audio statements up to 2 minutes, or written statements of 200 words, about any item on the business agenda up to two hours before the start of the General Session in which it is being considered. Pre-submitted content will be captioned, and added to the appropriate discussion line. The Information Room is new this year, and it gives delegates a chance to ask a question or raise an issue while still keeping the meeting moving smoothly. If you have a procedural question, go to the Information Room first, and the tellers there can answer your question, pass on your feedback to the Moderation Team, or direct you to the Amendment/Procedure Line if it’s appropriate. Votes will be announced and shared through the Main Stage video feed. Only delegates will have access to the vote window and voting button when it’s time to vote. We’ve also created a new version of the Rules of Procedure using a plain language approach to make them easier to understand. Be sure to review the Business Agenda, the Rules of Procedure and the GA Participation guide, which is a great place to check if you have questions about the process. You can also always email the Tech Team at gaonlinesupport@uua.org. Thanks for being a part of our 2021 all-virtual GA! Charles: Before we get to the business of this session, let’s test the technology. So here is your practice vote. Which do you prefer? Peanut Butter or Jelly? Let’s vote. Feel free to interpret peanut butter and jelly in whatever way is most meaningful for you. If you are allergic to peanuts and prefer almond butter, then you are voting for almond butter. Or whatever substitution works for you. Sunflower butter? Soy butter? Similarly, if an alternative to jelly is your jam, then go with that. If you prefer to think of preserves, honey, fresh fruit, or marmalade, then you are voting for those. If it helps to add modifiers like organic or locally-sourced, please include those in your interpretation. And you can also abstain. If you are finding this practice vote way too silly – and it may be – please choose to abstain. You can also test changing your vote. Until the voting is closed, you can switch your vote. Go ahead and switch back and forth to make sure that works. If you are having any technical difficulties, please contact the tech team at gaonlinesupport@uua.org. It looks like most of the voting is done, so we’ll give it another 30 seconds and then we will close the vote. We've got about 64% peanut butter and 36% jelly. So thank you for participating in this little bit of silliness on my part. But hopefully the technology worked and those of you who didn't have success can contact administrative support or go ga online support so that you can get the voting works. Review and Adopt the Rules of Procedure (Charles Du Mond and Bill Young) Charles: Our first item of business is to adopt the rules of procedure. Bill Young, the UUA Board Secretary, is recognized. Bill Young: Moved that the Rules of Procedure of this General Assembly as set forth in the supplement to the Final Agenda be adopted. Charles: This year, the motion to adopt the rules is not debatable and it is not amendable, so we will immediately proceed to a vote. After we adopt the rules, motions to amend the rules will be in order. So we are voting now, so please put the vote up. We are voting on a motion to adopt the rules. Please vote yes, if you're in favor of adopting the rules, vote no. If you are opposed to these rules, you may also abstain like two thirds vote is required for this motion to pass. We are voting on a motion to adopt the rules. Please vote yes if you are in favor of adopting the rules. Vote no if you are opposed to these rules. You may also abstain. A 2/3 vote is required for this motion to pass. You may recall in previous years that we allowed amendments while we were in the process of adopting the rules. Sometimes that process got confusing, so we are trying a different process this year. First, we vote to adopt the rules. So we'll see if we get a similar number of votes to what we got for the all important peanut butter and jelly comparison. And it looks like we're getting close so we'll give it another 10 seconds or so. Alright, let's go ahead and close the vote. The results are 96% in favor 1% opposed and 3% of you abstain. Amendments to the rules are now in ordeIf there are amendments that are submitted to these rules, we will consider those on Friday at the start of our business session. Introduction: Youth and Young Adult Leadership (Youth: Oriana McKanan, Mali Gottfried, Aliana Herman-Campana, Caroline Landis, and Ellie Ferris Young Adults: Martha Durkee Neuman, Dandelion Prinsloo, Jaidyn Bryant, Kitty Valbuena, and Liz Wendell) Oriana: Hi! My name is Oriana and I serve the GA Youth community as the Senior Community Care Team Coordinator. We are thrilled to be gathering here with our fellow Unitarian Universalist youth at this 2021 General Assembly. General Assembly Youth is a project now many months in the making, and we are delighted to welcome other UU youth in fostering a growing community based in values, creating emergent spaces to worship together, and build youth power as we engage with this year’s general sessions. All Unitarian Universalists are also invited to the Synergy Bridging Service, where we will be honoring our senior members, as they make that special transition from youth to young adult. Mali: Heya! I’m Mali, I use she/her pronouns, and I work on the GA youth staff team as the Senior Youth Worship Coordinator. We are centering accessibility to our community for ALL youth. We hope to meet your access needs be they physical, emotional, or otherwise. We can’t wait to meet all our fellow UU youth in this year’s online community space! Please reach out if you have any accessibility needs, or are having any trouble finding your way to our Slack channel, which will be used as a central hub for providing links and access to all the fun and exciting events we’ll be holding. Aliana: Hey y’all! Aliana here! I’ve dedicated my time to the GA youth staff team this year as the Junior Business Manager. My fellow youth, we are so excited to have you join us! You are all invited to show up as your full selves, and bring your own interests, hobbies, and spiritual practices to share with our growing community. You are as much a part of this space as anyone, and by being apart of it you will affect the shape it takes over the course of this week. Caroline: Howdy! I’m Caroline , and I’ve joined the General Assembly youth staff team as your senior business manager. Over the course of this year, the GA Youth staff have been engaged in skillbuilding with our collaborators at Peopleshub, developing organizing muscles that help ensure the growth and sustainability of our movement. We thank them and our fellow trainees the Young Adults @ General Assembly, for holding our community with respect and dignity as we navigated this new intergenerational project. Ellie: Hi! I’m Ellie, I use she/her pronouns and I am the junior youth worship coordinator. Our goal is to create worships that are youth centered and are accessible and welcoming to everyone. We are working super hard to make sure that everyone will get the most out of GA, even if you don’t consider yourself to be the most spiritual person ever. GA this year will be a great way to get to know people from all over the country, and we cannot wait to welcome you to our dynamic virtual space. Over the course of our preparation for GA, we have worked with People’s Hub training services in order to be able to navigate online facilitation, so a big thank you goes to them for making this all possible. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions, tech oriented or otherwise! Let’s Gather ‘Round for Youth Empowerment! Martha: Hi! My name is Martha, she/her, and I serve as your Young Adults at General Assembly Senior Co-Coordinator. Dandy: And I’m Dandelion, they/them, and I serve as your Young Adults at General Assembly Junior Co-Coordinator. Martha: We are so excited to be bringing together our young adult community here at GA virtually. Youth and young adults have long taken important leadership from times of crisis to times of change with radical and bold faithful courage grounded in a love of this tradition. We are transforming ourselves and our faith with resilience, urgency, and a deep commitment to the values and communities that are at the center of our religion. Dandy: As a team, the change-making and dream-building we are fostering for our community here at GA are built on the values we have instilled into our covenant with each other. We are engaging ourselves as a living community capable of vulnerability and growth, keeping strong faith in the goodness and power of one another, and holding radical space for folx existing in the margins. We are creating a community that will sustain us in the critical fights we have ahead of us. With deep love in our hearts, we are excited to share our programming and hold space with all you Young Adults. And we are thrilled to introduce you to our team. Jaidyn: Hi! My name is Jaidyn, she/her, and I serve as your Thrive Young Adults of Color Coordinator at GA. This year, we have put young adults of color at the center of our programming, and I am so excited to be bringing this to life with you all during this time. We are excited to meet you all and share experiences as we build a more engaging, accessible, and inclusive GA community. We will be holding Young Adult Tea Rooms throughout GA. In all our tea rooms there will be space for young adults to engage in all Zoom energy levels. Kitty: Hi! My name is Kitty, she/they, and I serve as your Worship & Spirituality Facilitator. We are excited to help coordinate and hold emergent worship spaces for our YA community alongside our youth worship team. Our spiritual agency and well-being as young adults have been key components in our approaches to community building, and we can’t wait for y’all to join and challenge these approaches in our time together. Liz: Hi! My name is Liz, they/them, and I serve as your Community Care & Access Facilitator. We are intentionally creating our spaces to center our many access needs - physical, emotional, economic, and beyond. We would love to see you at our caucus spaces each morning session. We are so happy that y’all are here and can’t wait to be in community together, sustain ourselves across the time we have, and build relationships to take with us. Our movement is growing and there is no better time to push the dream we share for the faith we belong to than right now. Introduction: Systemic Justice Team (Tessa Ellis & Michael Sallwasser) Tessa: Greetings! My name is Tessa Ellis and my pronouns are she/her. Michael: My name is Michael Sallwasser and my pronouns are he/him. Both: We are co-leads of the Systemic Justice Team. Michael: The GA Systemic Justice Team assists registered attendees from currently and/or historically marginalized communities in creating structural change by providing access and advocacy to challenge and change oppressive structures and/or systems. The Team is available during active hours of virtual General Assembly; however, our work may extend for a few days beyond GA to allow for satisfactory resolution. Prior systemic justice work includes responding to youth who were disheartened by attendance numbers at Synergy that were less than 20% of the attendance numbers for Opening or Service of the Living Tradition and advocating for LGBTQIIA+ folks to obtain gender-neutral bathrooms and private space for unbinding. Joining us on the System Justice Team are Skye Williams-Tao, who uses they/them, and Kim Diana Conley, who uses she/her. Marcus Fogliano is our liaison to the UUA Administration and uses they/them pronouns. Tessa: The Systemic Justice Team focuses solely on system problems rather than interpersonal conflict that may be rooted in systemic injustice. These interpersonal issues are the charge of the Conflict and Covenant Team. The Systemic Justice Team's final report will likely be heavily influenced by its own process observations during GA as well as feedback from other GA Care Teams who identify over-arching processes and systems for how to make General Assembly more accessible, inclusive, and impactful. Enjoy your General Assembly! Michael: See you on the screen! Introduction: Chaplains (Rev. Dr. Michelle Walsh, Rev. Kristina Spaude, & Rev. Julianne Lepp) Michelle: Hello, I am the Rev. Dr. Michelle Walsh and my pronouns are she, her, hers. It is our honor to introduce you to your General Assembly chaplain care team. This has been a particularly challenging year, filled with many public and personal losses. Do you need a listening presence? We are here for you during this General Assembly as your Chaplain care team. Kristina: I am the Rev. Kristina Spaude and my pronouns are she, her, hers. We would like to take a moment to share with you the origins of a chaplain presence for our General Assemblies, though parts of this story also relate to the reasons why right relationship teams also began to be part of General Assemblies. In 2003, Dan Savage was invited to the General Assembly in Boston as a featured speaker. During his address, he made comments that were hurtful to bisexuals and others (such as “make up your mind”). Participants felt injured (one person made an “I was savaged by Dan Savage” sign and walked around with it), but there was no formal system for processing their hurt. So, they continually showed up at the “GA Office” and complained to staff who didn’t have the resources or training to effectively listen or help them process what they were feeling. In a convention center filled with thousands of UUs and religious professionals, there was no one to help. Following that year, the GA Planning Committee began recruiting and designating chaplains to serve General Assembly registrants during GA. Julie: I am the Reverend Julianne Lepp and my pronouns are she, her, hers. The Chaplain Team’s mission is to work within the larger context of the entire General Assembly Care Team, inclusive of and coordinated with the Accessibility Team and the Conflict and Covenant Team. In particular, the charge of our GA Chaplain Team is to manage and coordinate pastoral care for registered attendees experiencing physical or spiritual crisis, including personal loss or overwhelm, during our General Assembly. Chaplains are available to registered participants during the active hours of our virtual General Assembly. Chaplains also work with participants to connect them with resources for ongoing care or to other General Assembly Care Teams as appropriate for their respective missions and charge. Michelle: The year’s General Assembly Chaplain team includes the co-leads, myself Rev. Dr. Michelle Walsh (she/her/s pronouns), Affiliate Community Minister, United First Parish Church, Quincy, MA; Rev. Kristina Spaude (she/her/s pronouns), Contract Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Tarpon Springs, FL; Rev. Julianne Lepp (she/her/s pronouns), Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Eau Claire, WI; as well as an additional core of chaplain volunteers - returning chaplain Rev. Lindasusan Ulrich (they/she pronouns), Minister, Unitarian Society of New Haven, CT; and Rev. Madelyn Campbell (she/her/s pronouns), Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley, Bethlehem, PA; Sangye Hawke (she/they pronouns), Intern Minister, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Santa Cruz County, Aptos, CA; Rev. Lara Hoke (she/her/s pronouns), Minister, First Church Unitarian, Littleton, MA; Rev. Ren McFadyen (they/their pronouns), fellowshipped minister and Dedicated Good Offices person; and Rev. Dr. Richard Speck (he/his pronouns), Affiliated Minister, First Unitarian Church, Wilmington, DE. We are all both honored and delighted to serve you during this virtual General Assembly 2021. Do not hesitate to reach out as needed. Introduction: Conflict and Covenant Team (Rev. Elizabeth Mount & Rev. AJ van Tine) Elizabeth Mount: Hi, I’m the Rev. Elizabeth Mount, AJ van Tine: and I’m the Rev. AJ van Tine, and we’re your Conflict and Covenant Team leads. Elizabeth Mount: In past years, the Right Relationship team has been responsible for many different areas of personal conflict and systemic justice. This year, we’re trying a new model, where each of our Care Teams holds a specific piece of this puzzle. As the Conflict and Covenant Team, we’ll be responsible for mediating interpersonal conflict and violations of the GA covenant. AJ van Tine: Each year at General Assembly, we co-create this community. Together, we dive into this sticky, beautiful, and vital space that strives to reflect our highest values--and sometimes falls short. Every year is a learning opportunity. Every year, we shape this shared experience in ever new, different, and challenging ways because the General Assembly is the body of ALL our representatives of all our congregations coming together, choosing our path, and learning how to live out our faith. Elizabeth Mount: Part of our learning is about living our covenants together, even and especially when there’s conflict. The good news is, we do not have to go it alone. The work of covenant is inherently and by definition relational. And, our team is here for when we need a little help to figure out how we navigate the conflicts of community. AJ van Tine: Because it is our belief that conflict is not a bad thing. It is in fact natural and to be expected. What matters is how we respond to conflict -- we can do this in productive or less productive ways. When we engage with conflict in more productive processes, we can find creative and transformative ways forward. Elizabeth Mount: If you have something you are unsure about bringing to the Conflict and Covenant team, we suggest you reach out to the GA Chaplains as a first step, as they can help you process whatever you’re experiencing and then refer you to the appropriate care team. AJ van Tine: If you do find yourself in tension or conflict with another GA attendee, we encourage you to lean into the promise of conflict and try to engage respectfully and responsibly with your fellow Unitarian Universalist. If another attendee invites you into a conversation about conflict or covenant, we hope you will say “yes” to relationship and engage with an open heart. If you’re unable to make headway in your conversation, then please reach out to our team and we’ll be happy to help facilitate the process! Elizabeth Mount: Our work often looks like facilitating these one-on-one or small group conversations between GA participants who find themselves in conflict, or otherwise out of covenant with each other. We also support and work with participants whose behavior is outside the boundaries articulated by our GA covenant, in hopes of finding more engaged and relevant ways to stay in community. AJ van Tine: By providing a container for conversations that transform relationships, our work over the next four days together is a testament that spiritual and communal transformation is possible. Elizabeth Mount: Like all important work, AJ and I are not doing this alone. We have a fantastic team supporting our gathered community this week. We invite you to approach this virtual GA as an opportunity to practice the deep call of our covenantal faith. AJ: Come, let us be courageous and faithful together. Introduction: Accessibility and Inclusion Team (Patty Cameron & Mary Beth Spencer) Patty Cameron: Good evening everyone. We are very pleased to be with you tonight. My name is Patty Cameron. I use the she series pronouns. I'm from Arlington Massachusetts and I'm a member of the Winchester Unitarian Society. Arlington and Winchester sit on the Algonquain lands. Mary Beth Spencer: My name is Mary Beth Spencer, and I use she/her or they/them pronouns, and I'm from Pittsburg, California, and go to the Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church in Walnut Creek. This land was originally settled by the Bay Miwok people. Patty Cameron: Together, we are teaming up this year to provide the accessibility and inclusion services for this year's virtual GA. We are part of the care team, which also includes the Conflict and Covenant team, the Systemic Justice Team, and the Chaplains. Together we will help you experience success at General Assembly. This year we are using a new platform called Whova. I am assuming if you are viewing us right now you've been able to navigate it a little bit, and you will become more familiar with it over the course of the next several days. Mary Beth, would you like to describe some of the services we will be providing? Mary Beth Spencer: We are here to help you successfully get to all of the programming here in this General Hall. We want to ensure that you get to your programs you want to see in the various places and to participate in the different activities that might be going on, including the worship services, the workshops, and the exhibit hall and to make it as successful as possible as we can for you whether you have a disability diagnosis or not. Our services are open to anyone who has accessibility needs at this moment. Patty Cameron: That's great Mary Beth. One of the things that I want to make sure people know is we have been working pre-GA in giving guidance to the speakers and worship leaders who will be with us over the next several days. We hope that what you will find is that they are making their presentations as accessible as possible. Really looking at color contrast, font size, as well as positioning of the slides so that captioning will not block any amount of that presentation. So a lot of work has gone into this prior to GA. While we are all gathered in our living rooms and viewing in, we also want you to know that we have a team of volunteers who will be fielding your questions. And you can submit your questions in a variety of ways. Mary Beth Do you want to cover that. Mary Beth Spencer: Sure, you can contact us at gaaccessibility@uua.org. You can contact us at the general care team’s phone number 617-948-6448 and follow the prompts. Just leave a message for us. Is there another way Patty? Patty Cameron: It’s not necessary that everybody remembers all those numbers and email addresses right here and now. You can go to the Whova home page, in the left margin, and click the Ask Me. It will bring up the full list of all the Care Team and the multiple ways to contact us. Also watch for the virtual participation tips which will be available on the Whova home page and will be updated regularly. We have a team of volunteers working this GA, and we will cover all the program hours of General Assembly. Mornings, afternoons, and evenings, you can reach us. Mary Beth Spencer: We're all in different time zones. Any time programming is going on we will have someone available. At 11 am Eastern, eight o'clock Pacific, and all the time zones in between, up until 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific. So we will have folks on duty, who would be happy to assist you. And again, whatever your questions are, we will find out and problem solve to find those answers. Patty Cameron: We are available to help answer your questions. If we can't help you, we will try to brainstorm with the tech team, and help you figure out who are the best people to assist you. Mary Beth Spencer: Whatever your needs are, we will do whatever we can to help you find your way through GA, and make this year as successful as possible. Patty Cameron: We are happy to be here and we look forward to enjoying our time together. Mary Beth Spencer: It is good to be together. Closing Words (Kathy Burek) Our closing words are by the Rev. Jay E. Abernathy, Jr. We affirm that love is our greatest purpose. Accepting one another is the truest form of faithful living. The search for truth is our constant star. We pledge our hearts, minds, and hands: To challenge injustice with courage; To find hope in times of fear; And to live out our Unitarian Universalist values every day as a beloved community. Thus do we covenant with each other and with all that is sacred in life. Announcements and Recess (Rev. Meg Riley) Announcements: • The deadline to submit an Action of Immediate Witness is 10pm Eastern Time tonight. • The Board will host office hours starting tomorrow. The schedule and Zoom login information may be found by day in the Meetups section in the Participation Portal and Whova App. • The election for the UUA Board of Trustees including the competitive, election for Board slot #8, is happening in the background during GA. Delegates vote online through a unique link, and voting closes at midnight ET on Friday, June 25. Any delegate can vote, even if they are not registered for GA. For more information, check the "Elections" section of the Logistics tab on the Whova app, the Delegate Resources in the GA Participant Portal, or visit uua.org/uuagovernance/elections. There being no further business to come before us, and in accordance with the schedule set forth in your program books, I declare that this general session of the General Assembly shall remain in recess until 1:30pm Eastern / 12:30pm Central / 11:30am Mountain / 10:30am Pacific tomorrow.