Report on behalf of the MidAmerica Region Board of Trustees

February 28, 2019

Since our last business meeting at General Assembly in Kansas City, the MidAmerica Region Board of Trustees has been working diligently to serve our congregations, our Region, and our Unitarian Universalist Association. We met in person last August and will meet again at this Regional Assembly, and we have met via conference call every other month this year. In addition, individual Board members have been contacting congregations to better understand the needs and successes of our congregations. Information regarding our meetings is available at on our websitenode.

Our principal goal this year has been to work individually and collectively as a Board to be better able to advance the cause of dismantling a white supremacy culture. To that end, each member completed an Intercultural Development Inventory assessment, with a commitment to attend to what the assessment revealed. We changed our Board meeting practices to model a shared leadership process, with a different Board member chairing each month’s call. As a group, we have been reading and discussing this year’s UUA Common Read (Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Environment, edited by MidAmerica ministers Manish Mishra-Marzetti and Jennifer Nordstrom). We each agreed to participate in a microaction and share that experience with the Board.  We also committed to bring this lens to all of our other work.

We worked this year with the UUA’s Stewardship and Development staff to implement the “new” Annual Program Fund throughout MidAmerica. Rather than receiving separate requests for financial support from the UUA and the Region each year, calculated on a dollar basis per member, congregations will now receive one unified request, calculated as a percentage of qualifying expenses. We believe this is a more equitable and sustainable model, and we appreciate all of the UUA and MidAmerica staff work that has gone into making it a reality.

Speaking of financial support, none of our Region’s work would be possible without the generous support we receive from MidAmerica congregations. We appreciate all of that support, especially that of our Honor Congregations, as well as the support of individuals who have contributed to the Friends of MidAmerica.

We are in a time of transition in our staff leadership. We recently welcomed Jessica York, the UUA’s new Director of Congregational Life, and we look forward to working with her. We also bid a reluctant but fond farewell to our staff lead Ian Evison, who will be retiring shortly after Regional Assembly. Ian has contributed enormously to the formation and work of our Region, and we will miss his leadership. We also want to express our gratitude to Peggy Boccard, a long-serving member of our administrative staff who will be stepping down at the end of this church year.

Finally, I want to honor the memory of our dear friend and former Board member Janis Cheney, who died in January after a long illness. Janis was a longtime member of the Bismarck-Mandan Unitarian Universalist Congregation in North Dakota, and she brought her wisdom, her considerable skills, and her grounded and steadfast presence to her work on the Board. We are among many who loved Janis and are grateful for her life.

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of serving in this role, and for everything that you and your congregations do to nurture and advance our saving faith throughout MidAmerica.

David Lauth
President, MidAmerica Region