Dear UUCB Community,

One of the exciting and challenging realities of growth as a congregation is that our staffing needs have changed substantially in these last three years. I want to share some staffing changes we’ll make in the coming months to better meet our current needs. (This evolution is possible because of the success of this year’s pledge drive, so: a friendly reminder to pledge if you haven’t yet.)

Change is hard, even when it’s good change, so I encourage you to reach out to me with any questions, large or small, about anything below. There’s a lot here, I hope you’ll read to the end.

Here’s what’s coming this spring and summer:

We’ll hire a new, full time Financial and Operations Manager. They’ll lead all financial operations and business functions of the church — everything from bookkeeping, budgeting, and financial reporting, to support for the annual pledge drive, to rentals, insurance, and payroll, to the financial management needs of the Building Expansion Project. I encourage you to pass along the job posting to anyone you know of who might be a good fit. We’ll say farewell to our longtime contracted bookkeeper Renee Loewen. She’s done good work for many years, even as we’ve grown bigger and more complex than is reasonable for her to handle. We’ll still rely on our volunteer Treasurer and the Finance Council for direction, oversight, and controls, but the workload for those folks should ease somewhat.

We’ll hire a part time communications specialist to handle the weekly email, UUCB news special emails, the website, and additional communication. By starting small at just 5-7 hours a week, we can cover the present workload and have room to expand as our communications needs grow in the coming years.

We’ll hire former membership coordinator Irene Kirschenbaum to launch the Spirit Play Religious Education program for preschoolers. Irene is a lifelong UU and knows UUCB well, but she’s also a licensed preschool teacher with years of experience. Launching this program for our preschoolers fills an important need for our kids. (You may have seen Irene here this last month as she filled in while Rachel was away supporting her mom through recovery from surgery. Her mom is doing well, and we’re glad to welcome Rachel back this Sunday.)

We’ll expand hours for Community and Connection Manager Scott Montgomery and for our Music Director Dr. Emily Koriath to meet the increasing demands on their time.

Scott will launch a new cohort of office volunteers to help support some of our daily office functions: answering calls, triaging email, organizing paperwork. If you have the capacity and the interest to spend a half day in the office once a week, we’d love for you to be a part of that team. Sign up here and Scott will reach out to you with more information.

And here’s the harder news:

This new constellation of roles means that the work which has been done by our 3/4-time Office Admin — financial tasks, rentals, communications, and scheduling — will be redistributed to other members of the team, and the Office Admin role held by Sam Henderson will come to an end. The staffing change isn’t about Sam, it’s that what UUCB needs has changed. This is a healthier, more connected, more hopeful, more growing community than it was when Sam began nearly three years ago. Sam’s work — and their deep care and appreciation for the congregation — played an important role in that evolution. I hope you can join me on Sunday May 11th at noon for a farewell celebration to show our appreciation to Sam.

We want to support Sam through the transition: I’ve been in conversation with Sam about this change for more than a month, they’re actively looking for new admin roles. We have enough flexibility around an end date that they can keep looking while finishing out the time here. If you know of admin job opportunities, or have experience with navigating a recent job transition, I’d love to connect you with Sam.

Change is hard, even when it’s for the right reasons. And I’m excited for the road ahead, even while it’s bittersweet saying goodbye to Sam. If you have any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, or to a Board member.

With appreciation,
Rev. David Schwartz