 Okay. All right. Thanks everyone for joining. And we'll start off opening reading by Roger. Hi everybody. So I think it's always helpful to start meetings that congregations with some gratitude. So I'm going to share a reading from Reverend Laura Horton Ludwig. For what shall we give thanks for this moment for friends near and far for our breath for love for courage and clarity for strength for delight for laughter for beauty for the tables round which we gather for the food we enjoy with friends seasoned with love and memory. And parenthetically some of that last part is memory right now for most of us for the sun and moon and stars in the sky for the trees who have seen so much and still sit stand proud stretching themselves to the sky for the bright voices of children for the wisdom of elders for actions that bless the world for hard work that makes a difference for music and art and celebration for generosity for compassion for endurance for joy for hope for all these things we give thanks. Thank you Roger. All right, can move forward a couple slides and just do a quick review of the agenda. So welcome again to our virtual zoom parish meeting and we have quite a few things on the agenda actually just one vote we will in a minute we will approve the minutes from the last parish meeting. So we haven't if you if you would like to review those and you haven't yet the link to the meeting materials is on the website. Next so after that we have a few quick updates we have some updates on nominations and future bylaws updates and and a quick update from the search committee it's a very busy time for the search committee and or it will fill us in on on their work so far. Then the next topic is Reverend Roger will introduce the concept of a relational covenant some work that's going to be going on later this year. And then we'll hear from the leadership team of Kelly Roger and Monica with an update on our strategic priorities for the year. Then we have Tim Conroy chair of the personnel committee along with Roger, who will talk about staff compensation. And we will close with some continuing discussion on our open question of what it would look like for f us to center people of color, and President elect Alyssa Ryan joy will leave this discussion. All right so again the handouts. There's a link in the chat link on the website. We have the minutes and then a document to accompany the relational Covenant introduction, and then the there's a leadership team report. That's, it will be, you know, we're speaking to that as well but if you'd like to look at those those are available. So just to review again the you we've had some rules of procedure to move to the to the next slide. With our zoom format we are trying to conduct business as closely as possible as we would in person, and we will use the zoom functionality, the poll functionality to hold our votes. And so all the same, you know, all the same processes as an in person meeting, we've established quorum, and when we do vote, you know, vote only if eligible, as we normally would. And we do have at least one person voting by phone. So we will pause for a voice vote for for those folks as well. All right. So the only the only item that we have that requires a vote for today is accepting our minutes from the last parish meeting. So the board moves to to accept these minutes. So we'll just open up the floor if anyone has any any questions or corrections to those minutes and feel free to use the chat. If anyone, if anyone has a question. And we have on the screen we're also it's yet another chance to practice voting here we, you know, Monica has made some updates to the format of the of the poll question that hopefully clarify a little bit better how to vote if there are two people to voting members sharing the same machine to to join the zoom meeting. So they're the same question. So each person only needs to answer the question once. And they so there are the same, the same question is posed several times to allow for multiple people to answer the same poll. So if you're the only person so you make your selection. And then if you're the only person voting for the other options you can just select I'm the only person at my house voting. So any questions on any questions comments additions to the question about explain the poll function. So as soon as we've closed discussion the poll will pop up on your screen. And all you have to do is answer the questions by selecting your response. And you will have to, you know, select the I'm the only person if you know once you once everyone has has voted and once you click submit that poll will just disappear and it will go back to the normal normal screen. All right. There aren't any other questions. Monika, I think we can move to voting and give it a little more time we've got still waiting for about 40% to respond. I think that usually it's because because you have to answer each question. So if it's just you, if you want to answer for number two and number three, I am the only person voting. And then you'll be able to submit. Seeing any options here. I just see the motion. Jim, Jim, do you see the motion and then it says, number one, I'm in favor and there's a yay and a and abstain. Just a motion. I don't want to take your vote verbally or in the chat if that's okay. And there's three questions y'all. My screen only showed to I had to scroll down for three. Seeing any scrolling here. There are three questions and two and three are repetitive. And it will be a separate window. So there's the there's the main meeting window. And then the poll pops up on the screen. So it could be minimized possibly. We have to vote for all three on all three of those poll questions. So we have now submitted three gay votes, rather than two, because that was the only way it would allow us to submit. You should be able to select. You should be able to select. I'm the only person voting in my house for the four questions, two and three, if if you're, if you're the only person voting. But if you're two people, that's the question. We're two people. If you're two people, first person votes on question one, second person votes on question two. And then for question three, but I'm the only person voting in my house. Thank you. Or I'm, which is, I'm the only person or there are two people voting in my house. I still have a frozen screen in front of me. I just see the motion. Please select. I am the only person on question two or three. I wonder if it's related to machine. I wonder if it's iPad and the same thing, Jim. I also voted, but I'm still on the page where it says motion and please select. I'm the only person voting, but I did it. That was the slide that you all are seeing, but that was just the instruction slide saying what the motion was, but if you clicked on the phone, that went for you. When you get to the next page after you voted and it comes back and said it's motion approval of minutes. We'll, we'll move to the next page when the next. Okay, thank you. I think, I think we probably have enough to meet the quorum, but we can, is anyone still we do, we do want people to understand the polling function just for for practice. So is anyone still struggling. Let me first screen on an iPad on the very top of your screen is Poland progress and if you hit that it takes you to where you can vote. If you have an iPad, very top. Don't have an iPad. Oh, never mind. And if you hover the mouse, if you're at a computer with a mouse sometime, if you hover the mouse toward the bottom of the screen, that's where the additional options will appear. Is there anything that says poll polling in progress. No. Jim, you may have to fill it around with your view to get to minimize the motion sign and then you may be able to see the poll. Send a direct message to one of you. You could also just vote in the chat. All right. Yeah, so let's let's move on for now. We do have enough votes in the affirmative here. I think we've accepted the minutes. And we will come back to this to try and make this as clear as possible for future votes. So this was what we'll keep getting better at this. All right. So I think we have the motion passes. So I just wanted to share a couple updates on on work of the committees of the board. We do have an open position on the board that the nominations committee is actively working to fill. So if anyone has names to suggest or if you're interested in finding out any more about board service, you can contact our nominations committee chair Joe Kramer at f us nominations at gmail.com. And that's right there on the screen. Also, our governance committee during the ministerial transition the board and the governance committee has been looking at refining the language in the minister section of the bylaws. The proposed changes include clarifying the difference between a hired minister and a called minister and also specifying the percentage vote required for decisions related to called ministry. So the board will offer offer an opportunity to review this in detail before bringing forward for a congregational vote. So look for more soon on that topic. All right, so I think we have a door it up next to provide an update on the search committee. Okay. Hi everybody. It's great to be here representing the other six people the seven of us on the search team and we haven't been busy. Just a brief recap. So in September we conducted the congregational survey, and in October we conducted focus groups and cottage meetings. We also had a beyond categorical thinking workshop. However, the team took all of that information and a lot of other information about first Unitarian society and wrote our congregational record beginning of December interested ministers were able to look at the records of all congregations in our denomination in search. And at the beginning of January, we were able to look at the records ministerial records of anyone who was interested in first Unitarian society. And the update from the beginning of January is that we received 13, we received 13 ministerial records in January. And from that, we ended up conducting eight one hour zoom interviews. Currently, as of today, we are in what's called the pre candidate in base. After those eight interviews we identified three people that we wanted to have a long weekend with all by zoom. We've completed one of those, and we have still to to come. We also wanted to report to you about Reverend Kelly's involvement in the search process. We settled on with Reverend Kelly and with Reverend Roger talking about it. Reverend Kelly has an extended one on one conversation with each candidate. She also joined us for an informal social time we have at the beginning of that weekend. After the pre-candidating weekends are over. She will meet with us to share her impressions before the team goes on to its final discernment process. And that's our update. Thank you, Dora. Right. Next up, Roger is going to introduce the idea of a relational covenants. All right. Thanks. So thank you. Thank you, Dora for that report to that. The search committee here is just amazing. And I feel really privileged to get to work with them this year. So I just want to lift up the really good work that they're doing and that they also are having fun together, even after these months of intensive work so that's pretty cool too. I want to talk about a relational covenant and there is a document that is a summary and I'm going to highlight a few things from that and also give an example. So a relational covenant is a written articulation of how members affiliate staff of a congregation aspire to interact with one another. It's not a set of rigid rules, but our guidelines intended particularly for individual and group self reflection. I know that F us has a safe congregation policy, and that is different from this in that a safe congregation polity policy, especially really does have rules, you know, for example, it's, it's required that there never be a case where there's one adult with children or youth in F us programming there always needs to be to and that that's not a guideline that's a requirement. This the relational covenant is more about more subtle ways that we interact with each other, for example, relational covenant often encourages invites people to directly communicate with each other when they have a concern or an issue. So, congregations that create these are more likely to interact thoughtfully and intentionally with one another, especially in areas of disagreement. And over time, these relational covenants can really shift a congregation to a healthier place in terms in terms of their interpersonal dynamics. So an example from my ministry in Appleton we had one of these that we adopted around 2003 and well into, you know, years, years after adoption. There was a change that that I and the other minister made in the worship life of the congregation, which was not universally loved. In fact, there were two people who really hated it. And the relational covenant directed them to share with the ministers we had really good conversations about it. We had a healthy congregation team that really made the behavioral covenant or the relational covenant to live thing. They worked with these two folks to sort of discern, you know, how big of a deal was this for them. One of them discerned with that with that conversation and conversation with me and the other minister that it was, you know, it was not that big of a deal. This person, the day I left still said, I think you were wrong on that but you know, stayed in there. And the other person discerned that it was a deal breaker for her. And so she made the decision to leave the congregation, I was sorry about that. I think she was sorry that that's that's the way things went. But we had had a good conversation kept the channels open, listen to each other. And when she made that decision, the door was still open and backed. While not a member she would, you know, frequently come and participate and found her own way through that so it felt like to me that relational covenant really helped us all navigate a disagreement. So this is all why a lot of you congregations these days have these relational covenants, they're encouraged and resourced and creating them by the way. And the widening the circle report from the ua's commission on struck systemic structural change that I've referred to a lot this year and that the board's been reading and the racial justice learning circle have been reading encourages these they really help in community. I wanted to make clear and in the document, we, you know, do this as well that this does not replace the bond of union, which was adopted by the congregation at its founding in 1879. That's really a beautiful statement. You, it's, it's up in the landmark auditorium as a reminder, and it stood the test of time it was updated for inclusive language around 1980. What this relational covenant would do is build on that platform be a little more specific, but, but be be an addition really an additional way of understanding relating with each other. The board of trustees approved a plan for a small team to work on this project with the goal of presenting for congregational vote in June. A relational covenant a draft covenant, and the process will include several opportunities for congregational input it's really important that this relational covenant. The thoughts and feelings of F us members. So that it's a, it's something that people really buy into. So that's kind of the process if it turns out it takes longer it takes longer that's fine. But the goal would be to have something in place by early June. So that's, that's the process and I would invite questions and it may work best. We have a minute or two before Terry says we need to move on. You might work best if you put your question in the chat. If that works for you. Yeah, I think we do have time for questions. The next question is on that committee and how will that be formed. Thanks, Lori. So the committee will be appointed by the board of trustees and report to the board of trustees. And the board is working on assembling who's on that committee it will include me and at least one board member. If you have an interest in that, you're certainly welcome to contact me or Terry. We'll probably get that going in the next week or two. And I'm not seeing other questions in the chat. So, all right. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Roger. Okay, and the leadership name leadership team is the next topic. Everyone can hear me all right. We are trying something a little bit new in the meeting material packet. I hope you all get a chance to take a look at that after this meeting if you haven't already. So each month, the staff leadership team shares with the board of trustees a written report that calls out some of the programmatic or operational highlights, especially those that are focused on the progress around this year's strategic priorities. I thought we would do the same for you. So Kelly is going to mention just a few of the programmatic elements that are highlighted there. But first, you'll notice that year to date financial highlights are also included. So you'll be able to read about those in greater length in the March edition of the Madison Unitarian, and hopefully many of you also recall the lengthier update at December's parish meeting on financials, and are looking forward to a very thorough overview on our financial landscape at the financial forum on May 23. But in the meantime today, I'll share just three things very quickly. The first is that $196,000 that we received from the paycheck protection program that was fully forgiven in January. Great. And second, just weeks ago, we were approved for an additional PPP loan of $207,000, which we also remain optimistic will be fully forgiven. And that would bring our total additional income to just over $400,000. And third, the not so hot news is that our pledge income to date is below about $144,000 below our parachute approved budget from last May. So of course the PPP funds will be really useful in this address projected end of year deficit. And as we prepare for the very exciting kickoff of next year's stewardship campaign in March, we'd ask that you all please give us generously as you're able. We can hopefully set us our set ourselves up to fully fund and support next year's programming and a very exciting new ministry team that we have ahead of us. So with that, let's hear from Kelly on some of the wonderful programming that we're doing this year. Kelly. All right, thank you. And you may see that Terry just put in the chat that if you're not speaking, if you could turn off your video for a minute and we're going to see if we can help Monica's internet connection Monica you were freezing just a little bit but I think everyone can do and you have questions you can put them in the chat and I can try to answer from what Monica just shared. So my piece of this is to let you know a little bit of the highlights that we've been doing programmatically with these initiatives the first one being nurturing a strong sense of community through the pandemic taking care of ourselves and one another with love. The things that you may or may not know. We wanted to highlight that the worship team and our worship tech team have been working to improve the quality of the worship experience on YouTube, and we hope that you have noticed some new cameras and how a difference that that can make. We've also been you know really keeping in the forefront the differences in worship that you all are watching on a screen instead of being with us in person in person. And so we're trying to make changes and adaptations for that. So there's a member of Facebook group, which our communications director Brittany Crawford began its fostering connections between members with intentional posts from both member administrators and staff. And it was national pet day so there was a post and thank you to Dorit Bergen for posting about her beautiful little to wall is. So it is just another sweet place of connection for folks. And then we've been making connections in a couple different ways lay ministers have been connecting with our elders, as well as some of our children's RE classes have been sending cards and making cards and sending those out. And I hope all of you received the postcard from a lay ministry around the solstice reminding you how you can get in touch with lay ministers if that would support you at this time. And under dismantling systems of oppression and particularly racism to a couple things to highlight that there are 21 F us members who are currently taking the black history for a new day course from me and Maya and justified anger. We're taking that together in two f us cohorts, and one of the lovely pieces we know that we have other members who are currently taking it on their own with me and Maya, the special piece about taking it together at f us is that there are some questions that are for specifically for congregations. So I will be really interested to see what those folks have learned and their thoughts on, on what we can do as a congregation when that course is over. But thank you to everyone and thank you to our facilitation team of Merrily work lake and Sue how and Susan Canig and Becky burns and Lori Schwartz. So a special shout out to them for making this black history for a new day f us cohort possible. I hope that you all enjoyed zester Alex Capitan from the transforming hearts collective and Alex was with us to do both a the service and also a workshop after and that workman that workman series is a gift to our community. So thanks to bill still for setting that up. And we do have our racial justice learning circle and we just spent three sessions looking at widening the circle which is the report from the institution. The commission on institutional change from the Unitarian Universalist Association you can find widening the circle as a free PDF on the ua website if you haven't had a chance to look at it. The racial justice circle continues in April they meet once a month information is on the website and in the red floors and we'd love to have everybody join us. And then our final. So this is a strategic initiative about practicing adaptability and supporting our search team again just to thank you and a shout out to the incredible search team that we have here I have been hearing from colleagues that interact with our search team. Just how wonderful that our group and strong and respectful and just committed to this process they are. So the board held two sessions on the new ministry model one on their own and then one with Reverend John Cresswell when he was both here for worship and then again, and then Candidating week April 25 through May 2. So please mark your calendars that's going to be a really special week for us here. So thank you so those are just some of the highlights and just to give you a flavor of the kinds of things programmatically that the leadership team is sending to the board. Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you Kelly. And there's a longer report as well. I mentioned a number of times so much we appreciate the new format. And so that the leadership team report is a similar similar format to what the board has been receiving every month. And it's a really nice clear connection between strategic priorities and the various programming activities going on. So Tim and Roger. On to the staff compensation. Hello everyone. My name is Tim Conroy. I'm the chair of the personnel committee. Thank you. And good afternoon. I'll be going through some talking points about what we're going to be talking about in the personnel committee and and Roger will be here as well to help answer some different questions that that you may have as we go if we want to kind of save some of those to the end that would be that would be ideal. So, first off, F us board of trustees and its personnel committee have committed the congregation to taking a thoughtful and systematic approach to compensation, keeping the values of equity, economic justice and integrity at the heart of our deliberations. F us leadership adopted the Unitarian Universalist Association compensation guidelines, which are adjusted geographically, according to per capita income as a benchmark. So here's where we are currently. Although the congregation has expressed a desire and made some attempts over the last 15 years to get fair compensation for all employees, the leadership team assesses that eight of our 17 staff are paid below the UUA minimum for their positions. This includes associated costs, such as payroll taxes. It would require $63,000 additionally every year to bring staff to at least the minimum, taking into account the length of service 13 staff members are paid below their recommended compensation amount. That would require an additional $114,000 annually to bring all staff to recommendations. This can make significant progress toward compensating our staff fairly in a few ways. One is increasing revenue. Two is cutting expenses, or three is a combination of both. F us budgets quite their bones when it comes to programming and building up keep. So cutting expenses enough to make progress and fair compensation would necessitate shrinking the staff size. Note, F us is already over the past eight years significantly shrunk its staff. So we feel that it's time to wrestle with this dilemma. Our preferred mode to address it is through increasing revenue. Absent increased revenue, we will have a choice of our mission and speak to our uu values to have more staff paid wages. We will provide many cases lack equity and fairness, or should we move to having fewer staff who are fairly paid. We will broaden this discussion beyond F us leadership this winter and spring, beginning with the presentation of these points today at this meeting. A listening session with staff on March 10 and to zoom listening session for the congregation on March 14. We look forward to this issue as our revenue picture for the 2021 2022 year becomes clearer with our annual stewardship drive. A successful drive makes this conversation a lot easier. We anticipate that this conversation, as well as the stewardship drive results will have an impact on the proposed 21 22 budget and 22 23 budget. This is an important role to play in this. We hope F us number affiliates will first and foremost submit their 2021 and 2022 pledges as quickly as possible in March, and that everyone will strive to be as generous as possible. Now we understand that the pandemic induced economic downturn has impacted some folks financially, and those folks cannot increase their bid their pledges and may need to cut them. We also know that many people in F us have not been adversely impacted by the downturn and continued and increased generosity from these folks will help immensely. Second, F us members and affiliates can engage in the listening session on March 14. The process of creating the 21 22 budget and other opportunities for congregational input so please speak up. We can engage by participating in the staff listening session, and more broadly, by continuing to be good stewards of the congregations generosity. So if the increased in revenue doesn't pan out as we wish, what happens who makes those decisions after engaging with the congregation, the board of trustees will ultimately make the decision about whether to prioritize a larger staff. They will be compensated across the board in accordance with UUA guidelines, or a smaller staff that is fairly compensated. The leadership team, the ministers and executive director, working with the personnel committee and the finance committee will follow the board directive in creating the proposed budget for 21 22 and 22 23. The board and then the congregation will act on the proposed budgets in June 2021 and June 2022. So if you have questions. Now, you can ask me now, as well as board member Lorna Aronson, or any member of F us leadership team. Reverend Kelly, Reverend Roger and executive director Monica. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. So if there are questions can put them in, in chat now. And the listening session coming up also I know that was a lot to take in verbally so there, there will be a listening session as well in was it March 14, what March. Not thank you very much not not seeing anything come in and chat right now. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I can speak to that that one from Paul and Carol has you as F us ever looked at the way compensation guidelines to see if we agree they are appropriate for F us, given all the factors that go into compensation. So that's a continuing focus, especially for the personnel committee to evaluate the correlation to the local market, for example, as well as the impact of a national market, which on the ministerial search processes is very significant. What I want to talk about briefly is that the, the got the ua compensation guidelines have specific positions and descriptions of those positions, and some of F us is don't fit exactly. We continue the conversation of what makes sense from those to sort of mix and match, put together, talk with supervisors talk with staff, see what makes sense and we also know that staff positions evolve over time. So what made sense two years ago may not make sense next year. So that's an ongoing conversation. So it's great question. I want to jump in about the finance committee role in this discussion. I know the finance committee continues to have concerns about the budget and sustainability. And then the, the conversation about this ethical choice about a larger staff that's not compensated with a new UI guidelines or a smaller staff that is that'll eventually with lots of conversation really be decided by the board. And then that gives a directive to the finance committee and the leadership team in creating the budgets for the upcoming years. You know, so then that's, that's where the rubber hits the road right in the budget process. And then eventually it, it's the congregation that passes the budget or changes the budget. Other questions in the chat, I think cover, you know, cover the last two presentations. I'll let Roger monica and Kelly and take a look at those if you want to reply now or come back come back later. There's a topic on the nursery school there's a I think I think Roger just answer the question about the flow of information how the committee and board and congregation are involved. Kathy Lucas question how does the finance and leadership team view the deficit in pledge income currently and the desire or need for more pledge income next year. I could see that one briefly. So, this is it's really hard to get a handle on where we are in terms of the, the pledge income this year in the middle of a pandemic and economic downturn and ministerial transition. It's, there's a lot of factors that go into where we are. We're also midway through the fiscal year so the fist, then, you know, these next months could unfold differently than the previous months. So there's there's a sense of a moving target on all this. What I can say is I think the, the board, the finance team, the leadership team continue to monitor it to try to get a sense very hard to make predictions but we do our best. And then another important piece of data will be how this stewardship drive goes that starts next month. The next is that we'll know a whole lot more about F us is finances in June of 2022, then we're going to know in June of 2021 that with a new ministry team with hopefully an economic upturn at coming out of the pandemic. It could be quite a different situation. That's what I'd say I don't know if others want to add anything to that. Yeah, I appreciate. I appreciate hearing this kind of long term perspective and I know this is also, you know, in response to the, you know, the conversation that's been ongoing for several years where, you know, to make to make these kinds of changes we need, you know, we need discussion early on and to, you know, to, to face it directly that we are talking about number of staff members, you know, because that's a, that's a long term thing to, you know, to raise the money required to have the staffing support staffing at current levels and fair wages. So, you know, so I know that there's been the desire for transparency. So, so this is it. This is a lot of detail. And again, multiple opportunities to discuss, you know, to really look really look long term at this. And, you know, and this of course is kind of the, you know, hopefully, the more difficult time in the next several years where, you know, we're, we're, you know, in the midst of many transitions and, and a year of pandemic as well, you know, difficult in many ways. So, so we are this is, you know, this is a conversation that's going to take place over the next several fiscal years. All right. Yes, thank you again, Tim. All right. Yeah, let's bring up the next topic. Thank you. So, those of you who were on the December parish meeting remember that we had an open question about centering people of color. And we have a on this slide there's just a definition again of centering people of color is about shifting power control, well being in comfort to people of color. So the question that we talked about in small groups was what would it look like for F us to center people of color. And there was a lot of great discussion. The board members and members of the racial justice team brought that discussion back to the board with the notes that they took. And a summary of all of those small group discussions appeared in our January newsletter. We wanted to go deeper into this. I think a lot of people expressed to us during that that they'd like to have more time to continue this discussion. I think it's an important one. So, so we'll continue on with the open question that really is meant to just provide conversation within the congregation about issues that matter. However, Roger facilitated a conversation with the board to continue this conversation with these questions, and we'll put these into the chat to and we'll be using these in breakout groups as well. But we wanted to share a summary of that discussion from the board, so that we can have kind of an open reflection of that. And then again, continue that conversation and then breakout groups either answering these questions as, as, as you'd like to answer them or what you see from them or reactions to the board discussion. Any of those would be appropriate. So, so looking at these questions, the board had a lot of discussion that brought us back to the original idea of center and people of color. And as a congregation, you know, there's, there's a lot of talk about philanthropy and giving in, in these questions. So we do give financial resources and volunteer time to organizations led by and that serve people of color. But we also discussed and question a little bit whether we always trusted those organizations with our funding and our time will sometimes contribute to specific projects that allow us to dictate how the organizations are using our resources, whether that's money or time. And sometimes those efforts allow us to focus the project on our interest areas beyond anti racism work, which, which can be a nice thing to have multiple issues tackled at once. We also acknowledge that this approach is not really centering people of color and trusting their judgment to deliver what's needed to address the effects of racism in the community as they see them. And we also discussed the community interviews that were conducted as part of the interim process in February 2020. While a lot of organizations in in our area appreciated the support that we offer. There was also the opinion among community leaders that that some of us may find it easier to give money and offer our time and talents. But that may be about some of us trying to give to maybe white guilt. They, they told us that the community wants to see more involvement in the blood work that's behind the scenes so sweeping the floor serving the meals, picking up trash and even serving on boards, but, but asking organizations what their highest priorities are and then listening when they say what type of support would actually help the most. In, in question number two, we had a lot of discussion around the words, giving up a lot of control, and wanted to just bring bring that transparently to the congregation we, we wondered how people would experience that phrase, and if we were far enough along on our journey in anti racism and anti oppression work to recognize that that giving up control is a positive action and moving towards centering people of color. So we hope that that folks can be vulnerable to discuss any discomfort with that phrase and small groups and talk through it. In our discussion we saw giving up control as an act of shifting our focus from helping to empowering. And when we feel the need to maintain control or only participate in efforts where we see ourselves as leaders rather than follow. We even disempower people of color. So as a board, we believe that kind of looking at at question three we believe that anti racism anti oppression work is not only critical to our communities, the greater community but it's critical to our congregation itself. This work is really needed in our community at us it's an important and urgent as some people of color in their families in our own congregation have experienced race based harm, often in the form of micro aggressions at us. And we know that we're not living out our mission or are you you principles without focused work in this area as a congregation. I was also energized by the great work that US staff and some of our congregants are taking on a lot of it but that Reverend Kelly mentioned so the racial justice team racial justice learning circle, the justified anger black history for a new day force, the transforming workshop, accepting the call to host the interfaith at Mount P service co sponsoring the talk and history of race based slavery in America. And organizing a statement from Wisconsin faith leaders that tied into the insurrection of tied into the intersection of racial justice issues in the instruction on January 6. So, so that's our that's our summary of kind of where where we felt it was important to focus and have more discussion about these questions. So at this point, I think we're going to move into breakout groups to discuss the questions. And board members or members of the racial justice team will be there to listen and take notes as well so we'll bring those notes again back to the board and the congregation. So, Kelly, are you, you're organizing breakout groups. I am I am open all rooms. And let me also just chat the questions here so that in case you lose them. I think they're in already Monica put them in already Alyssa. Sorry, I can't see. All right, yeah, will you stop share Alyssa and then we can see everybody. Thank you. Okay, so we see an invitation to go to a breakout room. Not sure what's happening Jim. That's a monica it looks looks like a lot of people have left so my carefully planned my carefully planned breakout rooms are are of all random sizes now. Hold on let me unmute myself. So you can see how many people are in each of the groups right now hey we have an invitation to go to breakout room number one it looks like Karen's already in there. You can reroute people. I don't yeah I'd have to move them now just group is down to two, because it looks like most of the folks in his group left. Other groups are bigger but I, I don't want to move them now I think will. Yeah, I think our biggest group is still six people. Okay, I wonder, Jim, do you want to go to a group. I'm going to ask you to unmute Jim and let's see if you get that noise again. Yeah, do you know what that high pitch noise is about. Do you have two sources of audio maybe like your computer and a telephone. Joy and Alan, you should have an invitation to go to room four. Yeah, we can't hear you Jim we're just here in that high pitch noise. Always do. We didn't have the questions in chat either they don't transfer over to the small groups. No they don't. Maybe for us, the people is shaking their heads yes that they just for over three questions for group together. So maybe you miss seeing them. We didn't have any of it so just, I don't know why that is. But it was great. I, it was great to be able to be together today. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to do more talking about this in the future. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Charlotte. Bye bye. I think Kelly has a closing for us. I do. So this is a humorous and tender piece written by a colleague of mine and Rogers, actually the, the minister who was his associate, when he was in Appleton and she's still there. So this is from Leah on Geary, and it is called just a building. The automatic light flickering in the front lobby bathroom is caused by either a dying light bulb, or be a serial killer waiting patiently for my brief weekly visit to the office. This once vibrant place feels hollow, confused without its steady stream of whatever used to keep it humming. The finally got it right second marriages, the committee's eating pizza and hanging art, the staff laughing at the stress and pleasure of it all as only co workers do. So many people make the congregation, and the building is just a building. And it is true that no squawking comes from the nursery these days. And yet in my over full life, these quiet hallways and this big dark room with its empty chairs, still constitute a place of peace. The building is haunted by the good and faithful people who wait patiently to file in and find name tags who are content to worship with one another, even when they don't always get along. I find my calm center all alone here every Thursday from nine to one in the quiet and peace of this place, assuming of course a successful resolution of the bulb replacement and murder question. Thank you Kelly. Thank you. Thanks everyone for joining and continuing discussion. Good to see you. That was beautiful Kelly. Thank you.