President’s Report

This year offered many challenges and opportunities. In October we had a special congregational meeting and passed a revision to our bylaws. The bylaws committee was Barbara Brandt, Pat McGiverin, Jinene Harvey and I. We also had a very successful book sale chaired by Pat St.Clair and Barbara Brandt.

In November Abhi left for his sabbatical. The theme for the sabbatical year was “Renewing our spirit and deepening our Commitment”. Special thanks to Terry Stapleton and the sabbatical committee for all their efforts in bringing us such an inspiring group of speakers this year.

Once again our auction was a huge success. Meena Saxena did an outstanding job as chair. The theme was the Mardi Gras and 10% of the money raised went to a charity that provides housing for musicians in New Orleans. Jeannie Shimer chaired two rummage sales and Anneliese Ekberg chaired a wonderful holiday bake sale. Thanks to Joe Myers our Ways and Means chair for meeting his fundraising goal even before the money raised by the Trivia game was counted.

February was the kick off of the regional media campaign. With the help of the UUA, an intensive three month media campaign took place in our area. Roger Rochester and Scott Milinder were the point people for our congregation. Ads about Unitarian Universalism ran on radio and TV. We had billboards on US 19 and an insert in the St. Pete Times. Bill Maxwell wrote a full page interview with the UUA President Bill Sinkford. This wonderful campaign sparked the enthusiasm of the congregation and brought in record numbers of visitors. An ad hoc committee led by Jan Krave “beautified” our lobby in the Octagon and our facilities committee led by John Chase, Bill Newton and Ashlynn Ponnudurai worked on our buildings and grounds. The membership committee under the leadership of Marie Chapman and Mary Thornton were busy welcoming new guests, planning membership workshops and new member Sundays. Bill Norsworthy began the Community Builders Project and used our new software to develop a picture directory.

The Social Justice Committee had a busy year under the direction of Marlene Calderone. This year in addition to all their regular projects they began peace cornering on Tuesday afternoons and organized a dinner to feed 200 homeless people at Project Hope.

And while all these activities were going on many more people were volunteering to do all the other jobs needed to keep the UUC running. Barbara Shimer and Barbara Brandt organized the office volunteers, Helga Reaves and Ann Myers organized countless dinners and special receptions, our chorale and our musicians gave us lovely music, order of service were typed and printed, the UUC tech team staffed the sound booth, ushers made sure our Sundays ran smoothly, and countless others quietly gave of their time and money to make the UUC a better place. Our staff did an outstanding job of keeping all of this activity running smoothly.

The adult RE program chaired by Carolyn Fischer was enhanced by many workshops given by our guest sabbatical speakers. The children’s RE program continued to flourish under the direction of Chris Pensa after Roseann Silverman resigned as RE Assistant. Janet Clark did a wonderful job as chair of the RE committee.

And finally I would like to give a special thanks to Rev. Millie Rochester. She was an emotional anchor for our congregation during this year. As the congregation struggled to come to terms with the sudden death of six of our members Rev. Millie showed the way and gave us the support we needed so badly.

This was a year of challenges and opportunities and I feel our congregation has matured as a result. I am looking to our continued growth under the incoming president Susan Hegner and I am excited about the coming year.

Thanks to you all,

Linda Stoller