 All right, everybody, let's get started. We're glad you're here. Welcome. I'm Executive Director Monica Nolan, as I think you all know. Joined today by Roger Bodacious Board of Trustees members, phenomenal members of the Finance Committee. And board members and Finance Committee, is why don't you wave? So folks know who our facilitators will be today. Thank you guys. So if you haven't seen a description of today's meeting and you've been to a financial forum in the past, you're in for a little bit of a surprise. Today will be an interactive forum in which you'll have an opportunity to discuss some ethical questions that the Board of Trustees, the Finance Committee and the staff leadership team feel are at the heart of the decision that we make about how to align our UU values and our FUS resources. So we'll break into small groups with those facilitators in just a few minutes. But I'm gonna give a quick introduction first and then we'll do our chalice lighting. Roger, why don't you insert those questions now into chat so everyone can see them? So a week ago, we shared a video called the Financial Reflection, which contained slides of our year-to-date financials, our budget proposal, a reading of Dan Hodgkis' essay entitled Green Eyeshades and Rose-Colored Glasses, which is an overview of the framework that we've been adopting for creating budgets that align with our values and short-term strategic plan. It also contained an overview of this year's board policy work that impacts our budget and upcoming financials, as well as some of our reflections on our unique and diverse financial orientations. We also shared with you the questions that you'll have the opportunity to chat with fellow community members about in just a moment. Those questions, which you can now see in the chat, include where do you fall on the spectrum of frozen green-colored glasses? Do you think the divisions between these two camps at FUS have become too rigid? Does each camp value the other's contributions? So if you aren't familiar with a Hodgkis article, you'll need just a tad more context likely. We have a really stunning image that Alyssa's gonna share with us now. It was created by member and visual practitioner, Lynn Wilson, and it gives a snapshot of the concept of rose and green-colored glasses. So let's see, can you all see that? On the left, you can see the green eye shades camp, perhaps the more frugal amongst us. Historically, the more likely to attend these financial meetings, though we are endeavoring to change that. And those who place a balanced budget as their top priority when creating a financial plan. And then on the other side, on the right side, you can see the rose-colored glasses camp, the dreamers, the big spenders, the least likely to be at these meetings historically. And we're hoping that you can start to think about where you fall on this spectrum between green eye shades and rose-colored glasses, both in your own personal financial management, as well as in your orientation here at FUS. And then the final two questions that you all can choose to speak to in those small groups are if budgets are moral documents, what do you think our budget, our proposed budget for next year, says about our purpose, our mission, vision, priorities, principles and or morals. And then last but not least, oh, actually, and I just wanted to remind people that you can see the 21-22 proposed budget in those meeting materials. You might wanna reference that when discussing that question. And then finally, what is an area you feel our vision of ministry are strategic priorities and FUS's expenses are well in alignment. And what is one area where there is room for greater alignment? So a reminder that our current vision of ministry is we seek to grow in mind and spirit, connect with one another and embody UU values within ourselves, FUS and beyond our walls. And to make progress towards fulfilling our vision, we prioritize nurturing a strong sense of community through the pandemic, taking care of ourselves and one another with love. Dismantling systems of oppression, particularly racism and practicing adaptability, supporting our search team and engaging in the process as FUS searches for a new minister to join Reverend Kelly Cracker next fall. We've certainly come a long way on all of those priorities this year. Of course, if you didn't have a chance to read the Hotchkiss article or watch the financial reflection video, I hope you'll take some time after this meeting to do so. And then please feel free to send in your thoughts and our questions to us after doing so. You can email me at monica and at FUS Madison.org. And also, if you didn't watch the video or read the article, you will be just fine interacting with your small group. We're glad you've come as you are. Please feel free also to email me if you have questions and or comments on the proposed budget for 2122. We'll compile a frequently asked questions document to distribute in meeting materials for the parish meeting being held next Sunday, June 13th at 1130 on Zoom after coffee hour. All right. The discussion questions can be seen in chat. Roger, how are we doing on breakout rooms? Good, they're ready to go. There'll be a few people that I'll have to assign after. Just to go back on that Q3 forecast. We're starting to land the plane from the KPI standpoint. Look, Patrick, you want to win-win, but I'm burning the camel at both ends here. I tell you what, let me easily put you on a quick hold and touch base with Darren using Zoom phone. Hello, everybody. I just muted everyone. So, Roger, you can unmute yourself and keep talking. Yeah, just we'll be ready. I'm ready when you are. And there's a few people that I'll have to add after the initial folks are sent. So bear with me for a minute when it's time. Yep. Yeah, fabulous. Facilitators, remember there might be another facilitator in the group with you. So if you can just decide who is going to take notes, please, if you can send those to me after the meeting, I'd really appreciate that. And let's see, what other notes? We're thinking we'll be in these breakout rooms for 25 minutes. So when we get back together, facilitators, be prepared to share just a couple of thoughts or some of the things you heard that resonated with you. I think that's everything. Why don't we take a deep breath and have Terry do our chalice lighting, our opening reading, and then Roger will escort us into our breakout rooms. Thank you, Monica. The words for our chalice lighting. We light this chalice in the spirit of imagination that calls us together for the commitment to become collaborators together and in the hope that we may be sensitive and courageous in the journey we extend further today. All right, thanks, Terry. Roger, we are ready when you are. Fun, everybody. I'll see. Can you both see, I should say, anything in the chat box? I think sometimes it's not visible if you weren't here when we sent it. Nope, okay, let me send you. I'm gonna, we'll put in the link so that you can grab meeting materials if you haven't seen it already. Let me do so. Come back, everybody. Hey, Roger, we have a couple of people that just joined us. Do you mind putting in the link to the meeting materials again, just for their reference? Oh, is that you, dear? I'm gonna mill. I'll do it after everybody's back in the space. Perfect, they're slowly joining us again. They really have to know what they're doing. I'm gonna mute off for just a moment and facilitators, I'll call on us. I think there's five groups and I can call on you one by one, but let's just make sure everyone's visible. Yeah, that looks good. Well, this is rare. Typically, I think you all self-selected, but typically as soon as we start breakout rooms, half the people flee, but I think they preemptively flee. So we gained people this time, folks. It's 42 of us. We're going strong. Well, I hope that went well. I'm really curious, which I'll talk about. So why don't we start with Lorna and Paul? Were you two together? Pardon me. Yes. Do you wanna share a little bit about what your group discussed? Sure. Great, I'm gonna spot let you. We kind of, we found a lot of people, a fair number of people in the middle of both in terms of personal finances and church finances. There was a tendency to be a little concerned that especially in current times, given current budgets, that the rose-colored glasses and the hopes and dreams would overshadow somewhat the reality. And so we got to the point of, in terms of the budget as a moral document, the idea that what we pay our staff is that moral and that's a reflection. And so the proposed increases for staff are a greater alignment of morals and budget. Where the kink comes in is, is the money to do those reimbursement, the increases in salary, is that real money? And are we going down the wrong path by potentially utilizing money that really isn't there? And Paul, do you have more that you wanted to say? No, Lorna, I think you do an excellent job of summarizing the group. Good, okay. Thanks, Lorna. And so there was a morality of do we hire staff or keep staff that in the long run we can't afford to pay? Is that a moral decision? So the relationship, the current discussions of compensation for staff figured heavily into our conversations. Yeah, thanks, Lorna. I can speak to some of the real money questions in that FAQ. It is real money, I can assure everyone, but it's certainly, it's a cash reserve and it will be depleted if we continue to use it in the same way that we're proposing. So I'll flush that out for everybody in that talk. Okay, next up, let's do Roger and Alyssa. I'll jump in, thank you. So I would characterize our group as feeling good about where we are in the progress of these, in this process, but also a thirst for what's next. And in particular, I think a thirst to really move toward budget that is based, more mission-based from beginning to end in the process. So that's sort of the next step in the process. And I'm hopeful that that will come beginning with looking at the mission, re-examining the mission of FUS then everything else flows from there. I would say another example of this is like looking at the budget, $3,000 for the racial justice team. And yet it's one of the three strategic priorities and not in having a hard time correlating that and how much staff time, which is such a major part of the budget, goes toward that, just maybe rethinking the process. And I would say there was certainly support in the group for getting all the staff to at least the minimum level. And also there was some conversation about making progress in the coming years on supporting the UUA and our collective work. So, Alyssa, anything you wanna add? The only thing I'll tack on that stood out to me, which was a great call out is the comment to wanna remove the words can't afford from our vocabulary. We decide on what we can afford and I thought that that was a great call out that we're making choices and prioritizing them. Thank you both. I wanna say something that I didn't mention in the financial reflection but that the finance committee has been talking about recently. Roger mentioned the social justice component in particular. One thing that the UUA recommends is creating a mission-based budget. So instead of a report typical, like what we typically show you with lots of line items for things like operation and facilities and staff, it really does show your strategic priorities and then breaks the budget out into those buckets. So next year, the finance committee wants to work on with the help of congregants showing you exactly how much we're spending on things like social justice. So it would break out salaries and it would break out the amount of facility that goes to supporting the racial justice ministry team. It's probably a much truer depiction of how much we're spending in these different strategic priorities. It's gonna take some work to do that but I think it's gonna be really interesting to see knowing that, for example, our ministers spend a fair amount of time on racial justice work. That's not reflected when you look at just the one item that says the racial justice ministry team has $3,000. So lots of interesting work to be done there in the next year. So thank you, Roger and Alyssa, for sharing your group's thoughts. Monica, I'll just add we ended on a comment from someone who said that it's really hard to look at our budget and see where our values and our priorities are reflected in it, so that's cool. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Creel, do you wanna actually jump in and share your group's other thoughts? Yeah, I mean, Terri, do you wanna take the lead on this from the facilitating standpoint? I'm happy for you to do it, cause you have the notes. Yeah. Yeah, we really only got, we didn't get to the last question, let's see, first question, folks on both sides of the aisle there as far as green and rose and also a lot sort of in the middle and a few of us, myself included who work in and camps or work in an areas right now through FUS that urge us outside of our comfort zone, which is good. As far as division, yeah, I mean, a little bit of a sense along there that, yeah, some people are, there is a little bit of a sense of people being open to both sides, but then also I think a little bit of a sense from a few of us that there is some frustration that maybe we don't see eye-to-eye with everyone or people have these different views, but I think my point was that this is a good step in that direction to us sort of understanding that there are two divisions and understanding what those sides look like and how we can each sort of grow. So this activity in itself is important. And then, and also some comments and some thoughts related to how finances and how FUS specifically relates to our social justice or equity diversity and inclusion work and wanting to do the work that we need to do to make this a place that is not operating out of a sense of white supremacy, I guess. Carrie, anything to add there? Yeah, just one more thing. We had just a lot of interesting discussion around just the different orientations. And I think we did have a lot of appreciation for, in a large community, you have folks who do have different orientations toward finances. And I'd say part of the reason we didn't get to the questions at the end is I think, I think the orientation toward balanced budget or dreaming, I think we talked about some of the specific topics where that manifests or it's not, might not be about the budget as such, but kind of orientation toward what's the role paid staff, how much do we want to focus that orientations toward the building, orientations toward are we inwardly focused or outwardly dreaming about who isn't here that could be here, things like that. So we kind of got into some of that, which is essentially kind of mission and values conversation, kind of indirectly. And a lot of appreciation for the format, just chance to talk about this together. Yeah, thank you guys. What about Julie's crew? And then I think we have Jenny after that. And I had a partner in crime too, but I took the notes. So I'll go over it. Yes, Middles, I would say the theme was Middles. We came up with Brown being the color of the middle. What happens when you do rows and green together? Division, I think what I heard was, well, actually what I heard was interesting, it was first, we're not as bad as it used to be, that there was resentment or division before, but I actually do think that there was also a perspective of perhaps that it's gotten worse because people know more now, their eyes are more open. So there, moral documents are sort of, that's a really big question and not necessarily feel like we could answer. And so some of this, that's coming up of show us and can we see it in a format that would help us see that might be some of what was coming up. Not everyone had been able to actually see the budget, wanting it to reflect our mission, wanting that. And then there were some questions, just really looking at the numbers and saying, I can see where there's some cuts are, like we're cutting in programs and we're cutting in communication and I don't know what that means, like what is being cut? What if that is related to a mission that's being cut? So curiosity about that. Tension between building costs and others. We are stewards of a historic building and the costs to that can be high and that creates some tension around other areas where mission and vision might come up. Yes, really pleased about compensation. I think that was a theme that there's actual movement towards that. A very specific, could we get some smart people together on how to capitalize on the historic architecture since that does have a cost to it? And then alignment, we didn't get to talk very much about that the two things that were named were glad we're moving toward a better compensation package or a compensation package aligned with our values and glad we split our weekly plate offerings. And I'll just say my group, anything else to add? I think I missed. Yeah, I think that covered it, Julie, pretty much. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Julie. Thanks, John. Last up is Jenny. Yeah, so it sounds like we spoke about a lot of the same things that the other groups did. So one thing that we noted is most of our group was in the middle and it wasn't as much straight down the line in the middle, but being on the greener side with some rosy spots, like areas where they feel rosier and in particular social justice and staff compensation. And we talked a little bit about having different ideas for how we can fund things or doing things that don't cost money, like trying to think about those kind of things. And as far as the division between the two camps, there's also some talk in our group about it being more divisive in the past, but that there still are some areas, especially around the meeting house and the buildings. There was really a general sense of optimism in our group, especially we talked about just all the layers of complication right now with being in a transition and pandemic and all of that, but feeling kind of hopeful right now that we are in as good a spot as we are, where it could have maybe been much worse and then also being able to have more alignment now that we have our new model and our new minister in place. So having that clarity to be able to have our budget around. And then we talked a little bit about how to get everyone involved because since we said people are on the greener side that are usually take part in these sort of forums and there is some discussion about specific invitations, inviting people specifically to take part and even in this group instead of opening it up to everybody having these small groups, but more of the kind of one-on-one to get people's perspectives. I think those are some of the main things that we talked about, but I did really note kind of a general sense of hope, but still some of that a little bit of uncertainty. Thank you, Jenny. I have been looking forward to this for months. So I'm so glad to finally hear some of your perspectives and just a reminder to everyone that the facilitators will be sending more in-depth notes to myself so that we can share those with the board this Wednesday at their meeting. If you still have lingering questions, don't hesitate to send them to me and the finance committee and the board will also look at those. Let's see what other housekeeping things before we end. Just a huge thank you for being here. This is different, this is new. Usually when we talk about finances, we're not breaking out into small groups. So it just feels like an opening up and I'm just really grateful to have you all in this with us. So please join us next week, of course, Sunday, June 13th at 11.30 after coffee hour. I hope you all have enjoyed this as much as I have. We have some closing words from Roger and then we will send you on your Mary in very hot way. We have transferred a comment that is a little separate from the discussion of the greens and roses and so forth but I couldn't help but think back over the past years. Many, many years ago and for a long period of time, there was great cooperation between the churches and between ministers in particular our church and the Lutheran church as it was at that time and also the Jewish synagogue. And the three leaders of those organizations work together and certainly there are some of the things that are in our budget and our concerns that are shared with those other organizations. And I think having an opportunity to work together might be a useful thing to see if we could get going again. It makes a significant difference in the community and it made a difference to me and the things I did with my life, I know. And so I just wanna leave that as a comment that was an interesting time that I like looking back at. Thank you, Richard. Yeah, I'm always interested in how we can join with other organizations and pool our resources, both income but also expenses, sharing expenses when there's big things that we want but we can't afford them alone. Looking at how we can partner with other UU congregations or other organizations and look at some expense sharing. So there are lots of creative solutions and paths forward. So thank you for sharing that. Again, thanks everyone for being here and Roger, are you feeling? Yeah, ready to go here. So thanks so much, Monica. So this is a poem from Alberto Rios and it begins with an italicized quote, one river gives its journey to the next. We give because someone gave to us. We give because nobody gave to us. We give because giving has changed us. We give because giving could have changed us. We have been better for it. We have been wounded by it, giving has many faces. It is loud and quiet, big though small diamond and wood nails. Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too. But we read this book anyway over and over again. Giving is first and every time, hand to hand, mine to yours, yours to mine. You gave me blue and I gave you yellow together. We are simple green. You gave me what you did not have and I gave you what I had to give together. We made something greater from the difference. I love that. Thank you, Roger. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful day. We'll see you next weekend.