 I always want to do that sometimes during service, just wave at people. I can do it now though. Thank you all for staying. A special thank you to the food hollers once again for the delicious lunch. I know, yay. Thank you, food holler. Homer, a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the month wrote these words in a column and they kind of rang true to me today. He says, November in the upper Midwest often feels like a fifth season to me, different from autumn and winter in ways that are not easily described. But the poem praise song by Barbara Crooker helps me see that November is about the abundance to be found in times that may seem full of scarcity. He says, it is in the trees stripped of their leaves, allowing me to see the astonishing intricacy of these everyday companions. It's in the way life carries on even as the cold deepens and the greenery disappears. It's in the fact that even a little sunlight can warm me all over, body and soul. It's in the way the nights get longer reminding me that in dark times the eye begins to see. And as the following poem makes clear, it is in learning to praise, despite the brevity of my days, to count my blessings no matter how small. As I do, my blessings seem to grow larger. So I think that this poem that I will read to you in a second spoke to me because we are entering this transitional time here. And the number of days we have remaining with the guy who just sat down there may seem brief, yet in these coming months this poem reminds me to focus on the blessings that he has given to us because they are many. So the poem is praise song by Barbara Crooker. Praise the light of late November, the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones. Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees, though they are clothed in night, they do not despair. Praise what little there's left, the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls, shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow of dried weeds, goldenrod, chicory, the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down behind the beach nuts. Praise the quilt of leaves that covers the grass, scarlet oak, sweet gum, sugar maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy fallen world. It's all we have, and it's never enough, yet it is enough to keep us brave. Thanks, Kelly. You'll see the agenda behind us here. I'm going to let you know that we are recording this. It's not being broadcast, but we thought that way board members and people like that don't have to sit and take notes, but we'll be able to go back and hear all the comments. So Michael. Thanks to you all. Thank you, Curt, for that vote of confidence. Thank you all for sticking around. Hey, it's 19 months and 10 days yet. So we're not going to say goodbye quite yet. It said June 2018. That's June 30th, 2018. So I'm going to be here for a while, but I made my announcement early enough so that there can be plenty of time to engage in a discernment process and figure out exactly what the next steps are going to be, because after what will have been a 30-year ministry, there's a lot of thinking that needs to be done, a lot of options to be entertained. My own plan is, number one, is that I've still got a lot of work to do. It is not in my nature to be a lame duck, and as some of you know, there's going to be a capital campaign on our horizon, and we would like to be able to raise some extra money for work that really very much needs to be done here, and I hope to help the congregation to accomplish that. In addition, as we are moving through this transitional phase, I think that I can be of some value in providing some insight and some advice based on my 40-plus years in the Unitarian Universalist movement and my experience having succeeded. My predecessor, Max Gabler, who was just right back here in 1988, and that was a very smooth transition, and the congregation did amazing work to prepare itself after 35 years of Max's distinguished ministry for the next phase of its existence, and I had the benefit of having an extremely helpful colleague who was here to really kind of give me some insights that I needed in order to be successful and to receive his very warm and sincere wishes that I be successful. So it was a wonderful experience for me, and I would want this to be a wonderful experience for whoever takes my place and occupies my office after 2018. It has not been often that we've been involved in a full-scale conventional search for a new minister here. I was brought on board through the search process that is recommended by the Unitarian Universal Association. Ruth Gibson was brought on board using the same strategy, the same protocols, but the last person who was actually brought aboard initially as a called minister was a woman by the name of Joan Armstrong, whom some of you remember. That turned out to be not the best experience with her in the congregation. She left after two years, and we decided at that point in time that henceforth we would be engaging in what we call a higher-to-call process, that our ministers would be hired by the Board of Trustees after a more limited kind of search, and then if the ministry proved to be successful that after two years, then if the minister was willing and the congregation was willing, then the call would actually be extended. But that's a very different process from what we're looking at at this point. I cannot imagine that we would do a higher-to-call process for the senior minister. So we haven't embarked on this very often, and so this will be kind of a new experience for most of the people within this congregation, and hopefully I can be of some help in managing it. So Rob's going to, you know, acquaint you next with the kind of the timetable that we intend to follow, and some of the options that might be available to us from the very outset. It is not incumbent on us as an independent congregation, you know, within the association to follow the lead of the denomination, to accept their assistance, or to, you know, adopt the recommended procedures that they give to us. There will be somebody coming here from the denomination, I'm sure, that will kind of walk us through what is normally done, but that doesn't oblige us to necessarily agree with what they have to present. But generally speaking, congregations do feel that the assistance of the UUA is extremely important in settling a new minister. They are the gatekeepers. They're the ones that know who the ministers are that are in search. They can do some initial sifting and winnowing of candidates to try to ensure that we have a group of candidates that are really prepared to serve a congregation of this size and this complexity. So it would certainly be wise on our part at least to hear them out with what they have to say. There are situations in large congregations, and I just was talking to my colleague in Albuquerque, who started her ministry in Albuquerque at the same time that I began here. She's retiring a little before me. They're not going to undertake a conventional search because they have an associate minister that they expect is going to step up to the senior position. It's called a successional ministry. Sometimes congregations do that. Sometimes congregations groom the associate for that kind of transition. But it is one of those kind of ideas that needs to be looked at at least when you had a long-standing associate as talented as Kelly Crocker has been these last 16 years. There has been also some, I don't know, concern about whether the society should just move directly from my ministry to another called minister rather than going through an interim period in which you have someone who is a temporary placeholder who has experience with helping congregations to look at the issues that confront them, to look at the challenges that they're going to have to face moving forward. And personally, I think that the interim period is an extremely important one. First of all, because I would hate to be here and still in my office while the congregation is undertaking a search for my successor. It doesn't work so well. So you want to have that space where I'm gone and the congregation has got the opportunity with another minister a different voice, a different set of perspectives that can really help to guide the congregation through that process. So the interim ministry is really important, whether it lasts a year as it did between Max and me, or whether it lasts two years, which is often the case after a long time ministry. So there are a lot of things to look at. My pledge is to continue working diligently on your behalf. I still love my work. You know, one of the great things is to be able to kind of step off the stage when you still like what you're doing and you're not just marking time. And that is certainly the case with respect to me. And I would rather, much rather go out on a high note than kind of be showing the door as it were. And I presume that that is not going to be the case. So anyway, thank you for all the support over the years that I have been here. And I look forward to continuing to work with you for the next 19 months. So Michael covered everything I was going to talk about and you can all go home now. So as Michael said, there's a lot to think about as we want to move forward. And I really appreciate Michael's care in giving us this much time to stop and think about it so it's not an emergency, you know, I'm leaving in June. It's already November. Oh my goodness, what do we do now? So I thank Michael for that. We've made some good progress already. We've consulted with the UUA Transitions Office. I've been in consultation with Michael and Kelly. We have consulted with some of the past leaders of FUS. And we've called a Transition Planning Task Force. And I think the goal we'll talk about in a minute. And we have this forum right here, partly to keep you informed and give you a chance to keep us informed. And I already remind you that we are recording this, so if anybody's worried about that. The committee is, and I'll ask them to stand up, and most of them are here. Kathy's going to chair the committee. She's a past president and was involved in a previous search. Maureen, is Maureen around? There she is, Maureen, thank you. And Matthew is right there. Carol Roan is on the board. She's our secretary right now, and she's a Saturday person. One of the goals I had was to have people of various ages and various services so that we could really be well represented. And I think we are, and I'm going to be on there as well, but not chairing. That's Kathy. Did I push the right button? I did. So we've got a charter. Our goal is not to find a new minister. Our goal is to figure out, do we want to follow with the normal practice of an interim? Or is there a reason not to? What's the process for the search? Do we follow the one that's laid out by the UUA, adapt it, maybe come up with a different one? And then what's the timeline for the process? Now, you can start to worry, which I started to do as soon as Michael sort of let us know that how much time we have in these kinds of things. I skipped a slide in my head. So, what we're going to do is we're going to review that guidance. There's a fairly good set of documents on the UUA website. And they have a transitions office. We're going to be consulting with the ministers and the staff. We're going to consult with you. We're going to have some informal gatherings. We may have some more gatherings. We'll probably have a situation where we have another forum, where we sit down and walk through some discussions and decisions. We're also going to consult with other large congregations that have gone through searches. How this happened, I don't know, but there is a southern congregations, large Southern UU congregations president's cluster. And somehow I got invited onto that a while back. Now, maybe it's because we're south of Canada. I don't know. So, I have put the question out and we'll see if I can get any information from that group of folks. We'll also look around if there are other congregations near us that we can chat with. And we may consult with other ministers that are out there in either the UU church or other folks. So, this is the process that the UUA recommends. And it is one of the ones that we're going to look at. And I'm going to use this as an example in a minute so you can sort of see what kind of progress would happen. Pardon me if I turn around, but I can't remember the slides. Basically, as Michael said, there's a really good reason why we probably will favor an interim. It puts that buffer between the two incoming and outgoing. It facilitates our self-examination. You know, most of us have been around for a long time. We're pretty comfortable with where we at. But maybe somebody should ask us, is this exactly where you want to stay? Or are there things that you want to think about as well? The interim minister is trained to facilitate that discussion with us and to help us work through those other issues. And it also gives us some breathing room to have a good search process. And I hadn't even thought about, you know, what it would be like for Michael if we were doing the search process while he's still sitting in his office and getting ready for some of these sermons. So yet another reason that we might really lean towards the interim. When we actually have the interim, we will do that search and the search will take as long as it's going to take, and then we will call the minister. So what's that look like in timeline? So I understand that if you go through the UUA for an interim minister, it is a fairly tight process. You basically put your application in, you put together a little packet that says, why are we so great and what are we looking for? The UUA goes, okay, we've got these six candidates that are interested in coming to your place. And you have about two weeks after they give you this to pick one, which can be, it's going to be a really narrow, narrow time frame. If you don't pick fast enough, there are probably six other congregations out there that are looking at that same pool of candidates. Remember that we would be hiring them probably for two years. Typically the UUA recommends that you hire them with a one-year contract with a renewal. Just in case things don't work out as well as they should. I'm not so good with microphones. That'll be better. So we would begin the search sometime around April 2018 before Michael leaves. Make the offer and hire sometime in June 2018, and that person would start sometime around August 2018. You would begin the search sometime, and this is just hypothetical, in this early winter of 2019. And you go through several steps, and I'll talk about those a little bit more, I think on the next slide, but basically discernment. Where are we going? Where do we want to go? The active search. And then actually having the candidates, and that's part of the active search. Then we would select our candidates and probably make the offer in April or May of 2020. So in terms of the senior minister's search, there's the discernment. Michael talked about this a little bit. It's where are we going? Where do we want to go? This process is sort of figuring out what it is we want from a minister, where we would like to go. The get ready is okay, we've figured out more or less, now we have to start putting down the groundwork. We're going to have to write up a packet that says these are the characteristics of our church. These are the characteristics we're looking for in a minister. We have to work with other congregations who will support us by letting us have the candidates out there giving sermons in a neutral zone. There's a whole bunch of stuff that's involved in that sort of getting ready. Once we get ready and we put all the stuff out, basically the UU8, if we follow their process exactly, we'll look at our stuff and look at the candidates that are out there and send us a pool of people and we would do more active investigation of them, listen to them, go out and hear some sermons after we've narrowed it down a little bit and then we make the call. So, what do we want to hear from you? And, you know, there's going to be a lot of points in the process and we will seek formal input from you. I'm sure it'll be, you know, whether it'll be congregational forums, small group discussions, whatever again that's part of the stuff that we're asking the task force to come up with is a plan for how we want to proceed. If you have thoughts, you can certainly talk to me. You can talk to any member of the task force with your thoughts. I've had a number of people who come up to me, you know, with one idea or another and we're trying to keep all of those in mind. We're going to need some people who are willing to be on the different search teams. So, you know, that interim search team, that's going to be a very intense but very time limited effort. We're going to want people that know about our congregation who are able to go out there and actually put that couple of three weeks in really hard and help us pick somebody that's going to work out. We're also going to need, you know, the search team for when we're actually going for the senior minister. That's going to be a longer process and, you know, it's going to be a while away but those are all places that, you know, I would like to look at all of you and others who aren't here today to be involved in that effort. We're going to certainly probably have another forum after when we start the search to do the discernment. So, a lot of things are still going on and that's the end of my slides. And now what I would like to do is I would like to get comments, questions from you and if you'll raise your hand I will run around the room with the microphone and you can speak. So, I have somebody behind you, Tom, actually who's the winner. I was wondering about the availability of some of our ministerial interns. For instance, Eric, who's here now. To be the interim minister or to be to replay. So, Michael can address that. There is a rule in the UUA that intern ministers can not then be hired by congregations. It would give them an unfair advantage over other candidates because the congregation already knows them so intimately. We at one time got a special dispensation on that and it was actually after Joni Armstrong crashed and burned our intern while she was here last year was Marianne Macklin. And because of the circumstances and Marianne was willing to stay, the UUA gave us a special dispensation for her to be hired as the assistant minister afterwards. Typically they recommend strongly against it and it kind of puts you in a bad position with regard to both the UUA and the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. The minister who did that would find that they enjoyed a problematic relationship with our professional association. Like you, I have a similar question. We've had folks in the past and present who are friends and we know. So, I'm not lobbying hard yet. I already tried this on Robin's front of my house on the sidewalk. It didn't work well. First, I would ask the committee consider Kelly Crocker at least in discussions and I'm sure you're doing that. Second, Marianne Macklin was just mentioned and she and Scott Pinster were associate ministers for several years at different times I believe and well loved and I don't know if they're available but just suggestions for folks we already know. Thank you. Sometimes what happens with large congregations is that they use the resources that are available from the UUA and the pool that are recommended there. But then it's always possible to take the initiative to approach any particular individuals that you think might be a good fit and ask them whether they would submit themselves to the UUA and be part of that pool, which the UUA will do. So, if there were an interest in particular people, that is completely kosher. A full disclosure, after I've been here 10 years, I was approached by two congregations and had to make up my mind whether I wanted to spend the rest of my career on the West Coast or not and did go through a process of some initial interviews with them and decided that we all wanted to stay here in Madison. But they approached me directly rather than through the general network of the UUA and that is something that oftentimes large congregations do do. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking that we could compress that schedule a little bit that you had up there. I understand the desire to have some space but it just seemed too long to me. I couldn't be wrong about this. My recollection is that Scotty Meek was just here for a year. I don't know, I'm thinking a year would be long enough. Just a thought. And when it comes time to hire the permanent minister, let's just not pick somebody who plays the guitar at his interview. Is the possibility of a co-ministry being considered at all that Kelly and whoever we bring in would co-minister? All of these things are going to be part of the stuff that is discussed by this task force. And so that's really good that all of you are coming up with these suggestions because I think that's really, our goal is to do the best job that we can do on your behalf. So, yes. And I had somebody up here, let's, you can go first. I just had a question. Are the interim candidates, is that a special pool of people who would not necessarily then put in for the permanent? Excellent question. The interim ministers are trained and certified and their training and job is to be an interim minister. So they will come for that time period. They will, they are trained to work with the congregation to work through if there are issues that are left over from, you know, experiences to previous minister or to help you sit down and organize your thoughts on where you want to go next. And their job is to stay there until the end of their period and then to go on to something else. They do not want to become. Sometimes congregations fall in love with the interim but they are prohibited from being a candidate for the permanent position. Yeah, I just had a question as to why is it so important to have this period of buffering between the incumbent and a successor, particularly in a case like this where there has been an announced retirement date. And I mean, there's basically no controversy about that fact. So if the departure is more or less voluntary, then is there really any, going to be any awkwardness about transition? I think, you know, I think the whole point is that we're going to explore the choices and that is one of the choices that we're looking at. You know, I think that this task force is really going to go back and talk to Michael and talk to UUA and try to come up with the best approach. And I think, you know, I'm hopeful that we can. I think that Chuck is next and then I'm going to move over to this side over here because Chuck has had his hand up patiently for a while. I wondered if you'd consider following the contemporary trends and hiring someone without any experience or training and ministry or religion? Only if they have bad hair. Okay. If they'll, yeah, if you can retire our debt with a billion dollars when we know this. Okay, first. I just wanted to speak in favor of the interim process. I think it's really important. I was involved last time round and Max Gabler was a much loved minister. Michael became a much loved minister, but he was very different from Max. And it was important to have that time in between and to carefully study all of the options out there before we made our choice. The power here. I'd like to speak strongly in favor of Kelly. And I think there are two concerns that we're talking, planning all this interim ministry and Kelly's going to be here. So I think we have to figure that out whether Kelly would accept a call from us and what that kind of ministry would look like. I guess that's what I got. Okay. Let's see. We'll do. I'm going to work my way back, Jake and then. Yeah, I have a question as in terms of what I call the FUS ministry model. We spent some time as you know, investigating the FUS ministry model and the senior minister model has worked very effectively. So I'm wondering at what stage do you discuss different kinds of models, including a co-ministry? Will the transition discuss that or do you wait until you hire the interim or any thoughts about that? I've been thinking about this a lot, but I'm only one person. I think that's one of the questions that will be addressed by the task force. I think that there's a bunch of stuff that's out there that we have to think about and there are too many choices. We're going to have to sort of pick a path and go for the best route. So that's good. I just want to second what Nancy said, that the transition period is really, really important and I do think that a two-year transition is perfectly reasonable. Having been involved in the last major transition, I think you'd be amazed the level of discussion and also the emotional process of the congregation as well as the individuals within it go through with that kind of a transition and we really do need that amount of time to make this major of a transition. And also I think I want to second what Jake said and someone over there said too, to really take this opportunity to look at how we structure our ministry. And we did that in the last major transition and settled. I thought, because at that point I was one of the young people in the congregation and argued very strongly for coal ministry, and I thought we came to that we wouldn't have a senior minister that we would have a parish minister and a minister of religious education and I think I'm the only one who remembers it that way. So I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time to revisit that question and I hope we do that with great seriousness. The question I have is rather than going through the UUA, is it possible if we are aware of really good ministers at other UUA churches to just approach them directly about their interest? So Michael's shaking his head, yes, it's possible. Yes. Okay. It's called Robin the Cradle. Yeah. I'm a member of the UUA, and I'm an official member of the UUA, and I'm in support of the importance of an interim period. I've worked closely with about four interim ministers in a couple of different denominations, both as a staff member and as a very involved church member. And one important thing to realize about the interim period is it's easy to jump to looking outward to what make and model of minister do we want to acquire. But a lot of the interim period really begins in looking inward first for what kind of congregation are we now? What word do we want to go to the future? And you know, when I first, well actually when both Rachel and I, my wife read the letter about Michael's retirement, our immediate knee jerk reaction was we'll probably need a three-year interim. And just, it's a longer discussion, but one of the brief comments, I appreciate the comment about co-ministry, you know, I've attended a lot of workshops at General Assembly about alternative staff models, you know, associate minister, senior minister is certainly not the only model for professional staff and for professional ministry and, you know, I hope a congregation of our size and influence will look very broadly about what folks are doing because we're in a very important position to really shape not just our congregation, but to shape our movement. Thank you. I have a question. Can an interim minister also become a candidate? Cannot. Okay. Another comment, Michael will be a very difficult act to fulfill, to refill. Just as Jack Taylor was back in Ithaca, a tough act to follow. Thanks. It seems that that's just a great segue for what I was going to say. Now some of you remember back when Stefan Jonasen was here for the first time, he used to be the large congregation consultant for the UUA. So he was talking and he said, you know, there's always some people in a congregation where they've had a minister for a long time and they're always going to say, oh so and so is good, but you know, the previous minister was so much better. So we want to make sure that this time we're spiritually mature, okay? I'm talking to everybody about this, that we need a two year interim because let's face it, we're going to be so sad and we're going to grieve. I mean, you know, let yourself understand that, that we're going to do that, right? And we need somebody who's specially trained. Interim ministers go to special training, they go to conferences that are not open to other ministers. They know how to go through our history, find out what kind of congregation we are, figure out what we want. So if the first time the interim minister speaks and you're not happy, you know, I heard that some people when they first heard Karen Gustafson, they didn't like her. You know what, they never listened to her again. She was here for five or six years, right? They never gave her another chance. So be sure that you don't do that, don't come once or twice and go, oh, this person's not like Michael. You know, we got to all be open, right? Another thing we got to be open about, I think that every parish minister we've had has been a straight white male. Every senior minister has been a straight white male. You got to start thinking, what if somebody's trans? What if somebody's a lesbian? What if somebody's this or that? You know, we can really think outside the box. We just need time to do that. And then the last thing I want to say is there is also, I don't think there is another minister like Michael. Do you still spend 25 hours a week working on your sermon? Because I don't think anybody else does that. I probably spend 25 to 30 hours a week cumulatively working on every sermon, but not in a particular week, because I start working on my sermons weeks in advance. Exactly. See, I don't think anybody else does that. You know, I think we're really going to have to be open to what's going on today. Just make sure spiritual maturity, okay? Hi, everyone. I'm Mel. So I have two questions. The first, I'm newer. I've only been here a year. If someone could just run through the current model of ministry and what those responsibilities actually are between Michael and Kelly, that would be great, because I haven't gotten that. And then a question more for the team. Very excited to see you both on there and everyone else. But kind of curious how we're going to balance, you know, respect for folks who have been here a long time and the wisdom they have about the congregation with opportunities for newer folks to share, you know, our visions for what it could become. Kind of building off of Elizabeth's point. So, you want to talk about the ministerial? Did you have a question there you wanted answered, actually, or was it just kind of a comment about balancing the interest of longer term and younger members and... Yeah. Oh, how they're split up. Well, that's a kind of a complicated question. But under our model of governance, I'm the chief of staff. And so, you know, essentially I'm responsible for the overall organization and functioning of the institution. And that means that Kelly, as the associate, she actually reports to me. And although we are co-evaluated by the congregation, there is at least a certain difference in terms of hierarchy between her position and mine. There are some difficulties inherent in a co-minister. If neither one is necessarily the boss of the other, is that if the congregation becomes disenchanted with one or the other, then the co-minister has no control over their destiny. It ends up being the congregation or the board that actually has to figure out how to terminate that ministry if that's what it comes down to. So, but again, those are questions that all have to be addressed, I think. My job, though, is distinctly different from Kelly's, and that I'm primarily responsible for the worship life of the congregation, even if I don't preach all the time, and I only preach about 60% of the time, I still am responsible for how the worship life of the congregation unfolds. Is that something that Kelly would want to have primary responsibility for? Would she want extra administrative responsibilities and supervisory responsibilities that would be, you know, the kinds of things that you would normally expect a senior to do? So, she would have to decide whether this would be a good fit for her, regardless of the affection that the congregation feels for, and whether this is the kind of job that she wants to have moving forward. So, that's part of her discernment process, too. Better show. Sorry. I'm just wondering if the transition task force are all going to GA this year, because I think it's an important thing for you people and the next task force and the next search committee to be going to GA, meeting ministers, feeling out the possibilities, and I just want to suggest that as an idea. This is Rob, and I had already been planning on that. I think that there are probably some other folks, too, that will be going to GA. But, certainly, I plan to go there and do some window shopping. Oh, good. Good. Okay, Tony? I guess this question just occurred to me after the discussion about spiritual maturity. And I think maturity is easier if you've got guidance from a trusted source. So, I guess I'd like to ask Michael individually, given the nature of the obligations of a senior pastor, well, we know that sermons are important because so much time is spent on them and because of that sort of public speaking is important. Plus, it's often the most public thing that a pastor does, but how would you rate, in terms of percentage of effort that we should reasonably expect somebody to invest in visitation for members of the congregation, counseling, doing the weekly homily sermon, and then also, of course, the administrative aspect? How would you rate them in terms of percentage of effort and priority? In a congregation of this size, it's generally presumed that the senior minister is not going to be heavily involved in pastoral care unless the individual is in extremis. In other words, have a very serious illness, an accident. They're in hospice and the family needs, you know, care and support, you know, prior to an individual's death. That's why we have a very effective and I think very invested lay ministry committee that Kelly helps to manage and so for the kind of routine pastoral care, the shawl ministry, the lay ministers take care of many of those responsibilities. But still, senior minister oftentimes is going to do most of the memorial services, although if Kelly sticks around, even if she wasn't the senior, because people know her, she's going to end up carrying more of the responsibility for doing weddings or memorial services than she is currently. She's a known quantity and she's beloved, so that's going to happen. You know, for the senior minister, again in a situation like this, the first priority is going to be the preaching ministry, and the second one after that is going to be the high level managerial responsibilities and the relationship working with the board. In a community like ours in Madison, where Max Gabler was extremely high profile in the larger community, and I've enjoyed a lot of reflected glory from that and have that profile, you're expected to be the face of the congregation in the larger world. And so that's important as well. And so those would be the three major things that you would be talking about in a new senior. In the search for a senior minister, for such a large congregation as ours, he was also the public face of the Unitarians in the Madison community. And I think that has something that has to be taken into account by the search committee that he's going to be the public face, our she, thank you, the person. We should take that into consideration and that in the coming years, it's going to be a difficult time period in the next four years at least and someone who's going to be providing the leadership to the community, to this congregation. Those are important considerations for anyone coming in. The First Unitarian Society now is very different, I think, than the society was when we hired Michael. I remember being on the board in the early years that Michael was here when the First Unitarian Society was predominantly a member-run organization in terms of fulfilling a lot of the administrative roles that we now hire professionals to do. And my question is, do we expect there to be a big pool of ministers who are experienced in an organization like this? And secondly, what size of pool of candidates do we expect to have given the size and prominence of our organization? Is that going to attract more candidates or is that going to keep people away? Well, I have to say that I have hope that there will be a good pool. I don't know, you know, I haven't been out there, maybe Michael knows better than I, but you know, I think that this would be a place, if I were a minister, I would want to come unless I wanted to stay in a little church. So, yeah, I'm optimistic. Somebody has to be. The initial pool usually can be as many as 20 people names that you would receive from the UUA of perspectives. Some of those people would be people that specifically asked the UUA to be considered. Other ones would be ones that they think are equipped to be able to serve a large church. In the case of First Unitarian Society, it's hard to know. I actually had a little bit of an advantage when I was the pre-candidate here because a lot of my colleagues were very, very leery about following Max and they didn't even try to apply for this congregation. And so, there were people out there who could have been very, very good that would have made the situation more competitive, but again, they were charry about the chances of succeeding a 35-year ministry. In 1988, it was kind of considered axiomatic that if you followed a long ministry like Max's, you were only going to last for four or five years. It would be an extension of the interim period because there was a lot of stuff that the congregation was still trying to process. We would hope that that wouldn't be the case now, but, you know, time will tell. Well, I would say we were lucky. Well, whatever. I'm just wondering what kind of effort the committee is going to put into defining kind of the job responsibilities of the various ministers and so on. As part of this discernment period, are you going to be looking at things like maybe the senior minister isn't necessarily the person that should have all the management responsibility? Is that split among some other people? Does the member services person take a bigger role in some of that? How is that process going to work? Let me briefly just respond to that. When I say that I've got upper-level managerial responsibilities, that is at the very upper level, Monica Nolan is sitting over there next to the window. Monica is the person that handles virtually all of the day-to-day business, which she then delegates to other people like her office manager Tracy Grady and Mark Renner who does all of our calendaring. So I am free, you know, in my position of all those kind of routine things and she and I check in with each other every Wednesday for an hour and a half or so and I'm apprised of what's going on. There are decisions at the executive level I need to make to help her out, I do, but that's not going to change with anybody else. You know, our executive director Monica Nolan will still be responsible for the basic operational life of the church. If people don't know Monica, Monica, do you want to stand up? Some people probably don't know you. Yeah. So you can correct me if I'm wrong, or two of you. I see the transition task force to really examine, learn about, listen to a lot of groups about process. What process do we want to recommend to the board? We're going to recommend an interim and what do we want to happen? What kind of interim do we want to look for? And then process around what we'd want that interim to be doing because to answer the questions that you raise needs a lot more discernment than I think this task force is going to do, but it's going to discern how we want to move forward with process for this ministerial transition. Do you guys agree? Okay. Yeah, just a brief question. I was interested in knowing is it anticipated that any successful candidate for successor will have a doctoral degree? I have no idea about that. That's not on my list of things. So that will be part of the decision of the search committee and the congregation when we say we would like to have a minister who is left-handed or has no hair or has too much hair or what it is that we want and that's part of that discernment that will happen during the preparation for the search committee. In terms of a PhD, I think Michael was perfect for us when he came 28 years ago because a lot of us had PhDs and a lot of us were emeritus professors at the university or professors at the university, but we've changed. So I'm not sure that we absolutely must have a PhD as our minister. So I could apply. Just two comments. I also would strongly support an interim minister. I think that's very important to have that time in between and I would strongly support that these committees be populated with members of this congregation from the next generation. If you hire somebody in the next few years and that person serves 25 or 30 years, I am not going to be around for that whole time. So there should be people on those committees who are of the next generation of leaders at this society. That was key to the people that got invited to this task force. I really went out and looked for folks who are engaged in our congregation who are really committed to it but have that younger perspective. And so I think that it will be the plan going forward at least if I have anything to say about it. So although after July it will be Joe who will be the president. So Joe Kremmer with the president. Go ahead and stand up Joe. Hey Joe! He didn't know what he was getting in for which is why I said yes when they asked me. So another question? Okay I got one coming right over here. I'm Charles Stinger just curious about the responsibilities of the overall responsibilities we look to an interim minister to engage with. Is this a kind of caretaker position? Or is there staffing issues that emerge? What does the person do? I'm just curious about the role and responsibilities and the leadership that would be expected of an interim. Rule of thumb, the interim minister in the process of engaging them would ask questions and the congregation, the search committee would apprise that person of what they believe the expectations of that interim would be moving forward. In the absence of any glaring problems or dysfunction within the congregation then it's oftentimes going to be the discernment about what do we want to do in the future rather than correcting some things that are going desperately wrong here. There are congregations obviously where the ministry doesn't end on the harmonious note that I expect mine to and so there's damage to be dealt with. In this particular case that individual is going to be kind of looking with Monica and Kelly at the staffing structures, looking at the efficiencies in the organization and helping the congregation to kind of decide the level of change that they would like to see moving into the future. That would be my basic assumption as well as just as you say a caretaking they're going to continue to be the major preaching ministry here and working the most closely with Monica in the transition period. I think that at the same time we should trust that interim ministers are capable of helping us handle the discomfort and with the highly successful minister a good transition for all the right reasons even with that there's going to be discomfort and we need to understand that discomfort and we will have an interim minister who will help us through that discomfort. So I wouldn't want people to be lulled into the fact that just because we're functioning so well that there's nothing more for us to do. I just wanted to make the comment that I've learned a lot from being at this meeting about why an interim minister would be a wise choice but wasn't something instinctive to me and there's a lot of congregational members that for reasons of young children at home a variety of things that aren't at this particular meeting and I think it would be helpful to do some kind of education about that if the path is to have an interim to help people understand why there's wisdom in that. Well I guess I know what my January newsletter article probably be about. I have to tell you that the worst part about being president of this congregation is that every month I get a little e-mail from Alyssa now and says, so you know it's due on Monday. What's my topic going to be this time? So I'm thinking that my goal for the next few is going to be sort of focusing on informational what's up. We're talking about interim ministry. I've only got 500 words so you aren't going to have to worry about some long dissertation but certainly that's an excellent point. So okay. And then there was somebody over here too which we'll get in a minute. Following up on your suggestion. We're taping this. Will this be, can we make this accessible to members to listen? Just like folks that weren't able to be here. Anybody opposed? It's okay. If somebody says no we'll not do it but we wanted to make sure that we could get, we could go back and look at it. But if you are all okay with it. Monica. So you don't have to stand up right now and say, oh I don't think that's a good idea. But if you just let Monica or I know that you are uncomfortable with it then we will not broadcast it but you know we try to be sensitive here. So just a second I got Elizabeth first and then her and then her. I know I already spoke so I'm just going to say one short thing is we were talking about this restaurant before and I remember when it came time to vote as to whether we wanted her to be a minister here and I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Absolutely horrible. But I couldn't articulate what the problem was and I said, I voted yes. And I think that my gut knew and I just want everybody to, if you have a gut reaction rather than an intellectual, oh I don't think this person knows enough about the third principle that that's important too and don't forget that. I just wanted to clarify I didn't necessarily mean that you'd create a program where this would be broadcast and people can come and if somebody requests to listen to the tape then they could. You could do it either way but I wasn't necessarily meaning you, I think of broadcast meaning you set up a program where you could come listen rather than it's available for anyone who's interested. Monica, can it be set up so that somebody could go to a link? Can it be set up so that it's available as a link on the web page or if you can just look into it that would be great. Just a second. You're next. This is back a number of comments ago but a question came up about the health of the pastoral ministry and I was actually going to send I was going to send Kelly a note so I'm just going to tell you this so you don't have to deal with your email but I was looking in the I know this to be true and I was looking in the red floors today and what occurred to me is that the pastoral ministry at First Unitarian Society since 1985 I've been here my tag says 1985 I think that the pastoral ministry is in the best position and in the best shape that it's been in all of those years in all of their iterations and I think we have an incredibly solid and capable ministry group with Kelly's nurturing and leadership that is actually doing remarkable things so I believe our pastoral ministry is in the best hands right now and as somebody who has benefited from it I would agree completely and on that note I wouldn't make a plug for the report that went on the website if you want a description of the current perceptions of the members regarding the FUS ministry I would encourage you to read that report it's a very linked linkly report but there is a 21 page portion followed by the words from the individuals that we interviewed it's a rich source of information about the current status of the FUS ministry and that's been posted on the website and it was really, really well done and I want to thank Jake and other folks on his team now up on the web I urge you to go and look at it what's the link where is it Monica the link is on the front page of the web on the website I think it's been loaded hasn't it it was up this week I think the triennial report of the FUS ministry we made it sound official it was really well done and then some last question I don't remember under what circumstances that Karen Gustafson became our associate minister could someone just fill me in was like her predecessors brought here on a higher to call basis so she was hired as a minister and assistant minister for two years after that period the congregation and she both felt they'd like to continue with that and then she was then voted in by the congregation as an associate minister she was the immediate successor to Scott who decided shortly after he had been voted in as an associate minister that he wanted to go back and get his PhD in the history of science and so he left in our active ministry so there was Scott and then there was Karen this for me as one of the committee members it was really useful it's really interesting because all of the comments that have come up today have been ones that have sort of noodled around in my head and other members of the task force's head so Michael's got one more thing to say I just had the interesting thing about Karen was is that when we decided that we needed to find a successor to Scott we went through the channels of the UUA and we looked at a number of people and I got a call from John Birans the former president of the UUA who said I think you really need to look at this woman from Duluth, Minnesota Karen Gustafson who at the time we kind of thought we got this wonderful group of younger ministers between the ages of 26 and 45 and here's 62 year old Karen Gustafson that John Birans is telling us we should take a look at and lo and behold and she wasn't even looking we reached out to her because she intended to finish her career in Duluth and so it was only at our behest that we actually then were able to engage her so that is one of those examples of someone where we went looking on the advice of somebody that I respected and we ended up with Karen so I want to thank you all for spending this oh, it's now sunny Sunday afternoon in here don't hesitate to send me emails you can send them also to Kathy Luker or if you know the committee members you can walk up to any of the task force members and bend our ear we're really going to take this seriously we're going to try to do a thoughtful process where we really go through and examine all the possibilities and come up with a recommendation to the board that will be help us move forward so thank you, thank you, thank you