 Thank you again everyone for your patience this morning. It is a great joy to welcome you here today. We've traveled a long way together to get to this very moment. We join with deep gratitude for all that has brought us here, for the ministries of all who have come before, for the leadership of our board of trustees, for the work of our search team and their dedication and passion for this work. Together, we're here for one reason only, to vote on the calling of the Reverend Kelly Weisman Asbruth Jackson as our co-senior minister. After a week of getting to know Reverend Kelly AJ, you are here to decide if you would like him to join us in creating the future of our community. When we call a minister, we ask them to become a part of our lives, through preaching and teaching and their presence among us. We ask them to celebrate our joys and grieve, our losses reminding us that we are never alone on this journey of life. We ask them to remind us of the great teachings, the poetry and the rituals and the words of the ages. So we might apply them to our own lives in this time and this place. We join with them to envision future possibilities, to help us face our limitations, to continue to dream in spite of them. In days of social isolation ministers are asked to remind us of the need for community, helping us to find those others who want to also leave this world a better place than we found it. In the calling of a minister, we invite them into our lives, into our stories, our memories, the history of this place and these people and all those who came before and helped us get to this time. It has been my great privilege to serve here among you for the past 20 years, to be with you in all of these ways. And now I look forward to continuing that journey in some of the same ways and in some new ones as well. Into the future you have envisioned for this beloved and blessed community that we share. Today you vote to call our next minister. For the first time ever, you are voting to call a co-senior minister. This is indeed a momentous and exciting day. So may we gather in celebration, in recognition and in hope, calling to mind all that we have done to get to this moment, all the struggle, all the tears, the joys, the grace, the dreams and the unyielding and fierce belief in the power of who we can be together. Thank you Kelly and welcome again everyone. So we have one agenda item and that is to vote on the calling of our minister. We will hear from our search committee with some words about how we arrived at this place and some words of endorsement of Reverend Kelly Weisman-Ethspruth Jackson as the candidate. So the actual voting process, so there will be a lot of step-by-step instructions and it's going to be a multi-step process to allow for different methods of voting. And so we're gonna take the time we need. It's gonna be a little bit slower than it might be if we were just raising our hands all in the same room together. But so please hang in there as we get to each step of this. And we do have a very detailed process when we get to that. But before we get there, we want to go over a few rules of just as a formality to review the rules of procedure. So just to say it out loud here, this is our official Paris meeting. We are meeting virtually because of the pandemic. We would normally meet in the auditorium on the FUS campus. And I think we have certainly established quorum. We have well over 200 people on this call. So we, and we've, thank you sir for everyone's patience as we took the time to get kind of a virtual sign-in sheet so we know who's here. So we're trying to keep the meeting logistics as similar as possible to what we might do if we were in person with some obvious differences since we are online. So we're going to use the Zoom functionality and you'll notice that for this meeting since we have so many people on the line, if you do have questions or for discussion, the chat function is available and you'll notice that that goes just to the meeting hosts just to help us manage this large meeting. And thank you to everyone who is assisting with this. We have about 15 people helping run the meeting in various roles. And also thank you very much to Mike May who will be our parliamentarian. All right, so let's move into hearing from our search committee. The search for, excuse me, the search for a new settled minister is a profound undertaking in the life of our congregation. On May 31st last year, you appointed us as your ministerial search committee. The Unitarian Universalist Ministerial Settlement Handbook guided us. We thank the hundreds of you who participated in the congregational responsibilities of that process. You shared your hopes and dreams for FUS with each other and with us. We listened and carried your values with us throughout the search and discernment process. Our work together has brought us to this exciting moment. We now present to you Reverend Kelly Weisman Aspruth Jackson, our candidate for the position of co-senior minister at First Unitarian Society of Madison. Throughout the past week, you had opportunities to learn about Reverend Kelly AJ in various ways. After eight hours of interviews as well as numerous meetings, reference checks and worship services, we as your search committee have concluded that he is an excellent fit for our congregation. We were drawn to his leadership style which involves leading from the front. There is no aspect of ministry that he feels above or separate from. A commitment to sharing ministerial work equitably. A detailed attention to process as well as the wellbeing of those involved in the process. Being adaptive and skilled with creative imagining. Listening deeply and compassionately and communicating directly with clear vision. Reverend Kelly AJ shared with us his hopes for a ministry with FUS that is truly shared, defined by power with more than power over. Taking seriously the democratic ideals of our tradition. Hold social justice at the center rather than the periphery. Is committed to anti-racism and counter-oppressive practice. Dismantling white supremacy and heteropatriarchy and challenging us to grow deeper into the ethical imperative of our faith. Serves the larger Unitarian Universalism movement and forwards our unique calling as a faith without dogma. That is inclusive of a wide variety of theological orientations much needed in these times. Acts as a steward to work that is larger than himself. And that belongs to us, the congregation. In Reverend Kelly AJ, we observe a strong sense of mission along with deep interest in the ideas and feelings of others. His services reflect deep thinking on topics of religion, social justice, and spirituality. Primary among the reasons he feels called to serve FUS is the desire and excitement to partner with Reverend Kelly Crocker in creating this new equitable co-ministry model. He is eager to accompany us as we grow into the bold, beautiful, and radical faith we confess to be. Expand our internal work of confronting and uprooting white supremacy within ourselves. Increase our public witness, particularly in areas where who we are in our bones meets the painful needs of our time. And strengthen our unflinching commitment to truth in the face of relativism and the dismissal of inconvenient facts. A deep faith in democracy amidst rising autocracy and a radical love and wonder that transcends the divisions of faith and tribalism. Therefore, your ministerial search committee wholeheartedly and unanimously recommends calling the Reverend Kelly Wiseman Aspreuth Jackson as our co-senior minister. So I wanna say just before we get to our actual motion, just wanna say a few words about the voting process. So just to cue this up so you know what to expect. All right, so welcome to everyone on the call. Again, we have over 200 people. So thank you to everyone who has joined. And when we get to the actual vote, please vote only if you're a member. And we need your help and patience as we go through the voting process. So just wanna say just a few words about how you can help with this. So this will be a little bit slow. We do want to have an actual count, which is a little bit different than some of our votes where we just want to know kind of yay or nay because this is a momentous vote and an important part of our history. We do want an actual count, even if they're all yes. So we're going to take the time to do that. And so I'll say a few words about how we will do that. And one common question here, if there are multiple people on the same connection, that's fine, there will be ways to record each vote. But the most important thing is as we go through this process, each person only votes once because there will be three different methods for voting. We will do those in sequence. So each individual only needs to participate in one of those phases. And just so everyone, once you have voted, please stay in the meeting so that we can all be here together as we would if we were meeting in person. Okay, so the three phases, we're hoping this will work for most people. If you're set up at a computer or phone where you'll be able to vote via a link that we'll provide, we have an online form. With so many people, that's the fastest way to record everyone's vote. It's very clear, we'll have a record of it. So we're hoping that works for most people. If it doesn't, that's okay. We also have most people joining on video. The second phase will be a chance for you to raise your hand as we would in the room. So that's the next phase. And again, you do either or you don't need to do both. And then we do have some people joining by audio only. And that's why we were very careful at the beginning of the meeting to know who's here. We will call on those folks individually to record their votes. So those are the three phases that we'll go through and each person only needs to do whatever works best for them. All right. So now we're back to the search committee to officially propose the motion. Yes, this is Emily Smith and as co-chair of the search committee, I move in the democratic spirit of our Unitarian Universalist Values to call the Reverend Kelly Wiseman, Asprey Jackson as co-senior minister of First Unitarian Society of Madison. And as co-chair of that committee, I second that motion. Thank you, Emily and Sandy. So now we will open things up for discussion. If you have a question, please put it in the chat. If you are on a phone only, there is a star nine function to raise your hand. And maybe, Alyssa, if you could go back to the last slide, we're not quite voting yet. Thank you. And Creel, I think you're monitoring the chat if you could unmute if anyone would like to speak or make a comment or a question. Nothing so far. There's one question in the chat. Where is the link? Sarah, are you saying discussion to vote? Yeah, this is discussion, yeah. Yeah, it'll come out. The link to vote will come out after the discussion. And Jane, what percentage of us need to yes vote? It's 95%. Andrew asked, and I'm not entirely sure I understand. He says, ask for my vote shortly, comma, if I were to raise my hand. Sure, Andrew, if you raise your hand, meaning that the form didn't work or you couldn't use the form, if you raise your hand, I will look for those and I will call on folks on the phone and also anybody who raised their hand or who has difficulty with the form. We're gonna take the time to make sure all the votes are counted. So any discussion on the motion itself? All right, let's move into voting. Gail, okay. Is there a question? No, Gail. Being a co-senior minister could be challenging. How does Kelly Crocker feel about the ability of the two Kellys to work together closely daily to serve FUS? Kelly Crocker feels fantastic about it. If you didn't watch our coffee with the co-ministers from yesterday, that will be, that's on the website. You can watch that video Kelly and I spent about an hour talking about how we plan to work together and our excitement about moving forward. And yeah, just to answer that question quick, Kelly feels great about it. Mike May in the chat says he would like to endorse this. This is Mike. I'm not sure I need to say anything more than this. I've paid quite a bit of attention this week and I think this is just an excellent choice. I think it's an extraordinary opportunity for First Unitarian Society and I hope everyone will also endorse this and vote. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mike. Any other comments or questions come in? Can you hear me? Hi, Leanne. Hi. Well, I've got this screen here. So when we start to vote, it just says your microphone is unmuted, your video is stopped. Am I going to be able to vote by raising my hand? We will, yeah, let's do this in each phase. Here. So to answer that question, it is helpful to know how to start and stop video, but we will make sure everyone's vote is counted in one of the phases. So if there aren't any other, if there isn't any other discussion on the motion, let's move into voting. Sorry, I'm going to mute all before we do that, okay? Yes. Terry, you're muted. Thank you. All right, so the link to the online form to vote, very short form. It is in the chat now. So we're going to take a few minutes. And again, if this, please use this if it works for you. And we're going to monitor the responses in real time here. So now's the time to click on that link to record votes. And we will stay here for just a few minutes. And if the link doesn't work for whatever reason, and there can be a variety of reasons, don't worry, you can vote in one of the other phases. And let's see if you could show the next slide real quick. So this is what you'll just a preview of what you'll see. This is a few screenshots of what the survey or the form looks like. And you'll see once you've submitted the form, there's a little link that says submit another response. So if you have two people sharing a computer or a phone, you can submit the next response. And so this will take a few minutes. You might have a little musical interlude as well. Rachel has her harp in the same room with me. So we are going to take a few minutes just to let these votes come in. Can you share the link one more time in the body of the chat? There are a couple of people who have been admitted since you shared at the original time. And I don't think they would be able to see it the first time you did it. Thank you. What am I supposed to do? How can I vote? Oh, because I can't make anything work. And do you see the link in the chat? Hang on one second. There you go. If you unmute first. Oh, I got muted again. There are three different things and I don't know which one I should do. Okay, if you've got problems with it or it's not working. And do you see where it says HTTPS under Terry Pepper's name? Terry Pepper, yeah. And do you see under that it says HTTPS? Right. Okay, click on that one. They're all the same. There are three things there. Yes, click on one of them. It doesn't matter which one. Okay. And this is just a reminder too if you're unable to vote in this form we will be letting you vote in another manner in just a minute. Kathy Lugar, I see your note in the chat so I will write your name down that we can just do a roll call if it's not working for you, okay? A message that the verification boxes are not functioning easily. I didn't have any issue when I did it or folks having that problem. Yes. No. No, okay. Okay. And some other folks are putting in the chat that they're doing okay that they're fine. Okay. A copy of the response. Remember, if it doesn't seem to be working you can always raise your hand and we'll get you in round two. Okay, the response seems to be coming. It's in three different places looks like it's still been received. Okay. Yep. And if you've got that screen that says thank you your response has been submitted. You are good to go. Yeah. There isn't any other, there isn't any other, there isn't a button. It's just that if you look at the, what the list is showing on the screen now that your response has been recorded that lower screen shot. That's all you'll see. Just a second. They're still coming in. The number is still going up. The form is working quite well but I'm just gonna give it a couple more minutes so that everyone that it works for. So we have 251 responses so far and I'm getting a couple of voice votes that we had arranged in advance to call our board secretary. So I'm just going to add those in as well. Perfect. Thanks for doing that, John. Terry, could you put that link to the form in the chat one more time? Yes. As long as you hit submit Tom Detmer you should be fine. We can always ask. Okay. I just couldn't see anything when I went off there too fast. Okay. Nope, you're good. You hit submit and Terry can check the spreadsheet too. Yeah, I'll export the spreadsheet before we move on. We have votes still coming in slowly. So let's give this just a couple of minutes. And if you are on the phone with a 262 phone number if you could unmute and tell us who you are. Yeah. I'd have to leave for an important family meeting. You voted, Meg? Yes. Thank you so much. Okay. All right, thanks for coming, Meg. Terry, I have a few folks on the chat who are not sure if their vote via the form was actually submitted or worked. I'm not sure if they voted or not. I don't know if they voted or not. I don't know if they voted or not. I don't know if they voted or not. They actually submitted or worked. I've told a couple of these folks to just hold tight and vote by hand instead. Is that okay? Well, I think my guess is it's probably worked. We have quite a few. So, Creole, I'm gonna email you the spreadsheet right now if you could check for those names. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, thanks. Ready for me to start doing voice votes. Yes, let's do that part next. I don't give Creole a chance to check these names. Let's do that now. Thank you. And there are a couple of people that have come in since. So you can, you can. All right, no. If you're a new addition, vote by hand. I'm gonna start scrolling through my screen. Creole, if you could also look on your list for Erin Glick, G-L-U-E-C-K. And you can let us know if that one worked. Okay, I am scrolling for hands. Just put your hand up in front of the screen if you need a voice vote. Charlotte. So you can just, when I call your name, if you will just unmute and tell us your vote. There you go, Charlotte. Your vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Charlotte. And if it's simple enough for you, if you're comfortable doing this, feel free to turn your video off. So it's a little easier for us to scroll and see the people that need to do voice votes. If that's a challenge, don't worry about it. Kathy Luker. Yes. Thank you, Kathy. Hang on, I'm gonna give it a minute while folks are turning off their video because you're jumping around on my screen. Okay. Kelly, do you want me to have the slide up for the voice vote or the hand vote? Right now we're doing hand and then I'll get to the four on the phone. No. Elaine Lohr. Elaine, I see your hand. No way. Kelly, are you doing, I thought you were doing voice. I'm doing people's hands at the moment. Okay, okay. But I lost Elaine Lohr on my screen. Folks are moving around. Is there a way to like freeze people? Yes, yes. Elaine Lohr, yes. Elaine, thank you. Anne Fleming, Carolyn Sanders, your votes. Yes. Yes. All right, let me write down Carolyn. Thank you both. All right. You're raised hands. I'm looking for more hands. I am not seeing any more hands. I will go to our folks on the phone. Morris and Carolyn, you can unmute and give us your votes. Go ahead, you're unmuted. Yep, we gotcha. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yes. Yes for Carolyn and yes for Morris. No, I'm sorry. I interrupted. I'm not Carolyn or Morris. Okay, can you tell me who you are? Laurel Smith. Laurel Smith and are you voting yes, Laurel? Yes, I am. What happened to Morris and Carolyn? I saw them on video at one point. Maybe they've already voted that way. They are there. I voted on the internet and I voted on video. So don't count us twice, but count for two. All right, we got you Morris. Thank you. Maureen and Scott, thank you both. Thank you. Gene twos, unmute Gene. Gene twos, okay. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Gene. Thank you, Gene. And Sue Denauer and Will Salvie. Yes, oh, yes for Sue and yes for Will. All right, thank you. Kelly, is that all for voting? Should I mute everybody now? Give me one second. Eva, did you and Bob, were you able to do it online? No, I mean, here we are. I've been going, can I vote yes for both of us? I got you down, Eva, Bob Uzecki. Good, thank you. Gary Leesman, were you able to see the form? I know you just came in. Do you want to vote by voice? I would like to vote by voice and my vote is yes. Thanks so much, Gary. Kelly, did you get Mark and Nick Schweitzer? March and Nick Schweitzer. I did not. Are you there? Yeses, they put that in the chat, so. All right, perfect. March and Nick, thank you both. David, Kenzie, did you get- Kelly, did you get, Kelly, did you get Bev do so? Yes, fabulous yes, wow. Thank you, Bev. I got down a fabulous yes. David, Kenzie, you came in after? Yeah, I just used the link here that I saw, so I voted online. Thanks, David. Thank you for your vote, yeah. All right, that is all that I am seeing for hands or phones. All right, Kelly. And I'm sorry, Kelly, you had asked me to double check someone on the list. Can you tell me who that was again? Sure, Erin Glick, G-L-U-E-C-K. Oh, okay. Yeah, that vote is recorded, thanks. Okay, Erin, your vote's good. I'll be right in on it. And Kelly, can you tell us the total you have? I can. And then let's check on the Webster's who are waving once we're done. Terry, I have 17 yeses. John and Nancy Webster, are you waving? There you are, hello. Hi, if you unmute, I'll record your votes. Oh, you gotta unmute first, Nancy. Hi, do you see an unmute button on your screen? And we're voting yes. Thank you so much. It's great to see you both. It's great to see you, Kelly, it's a good day. It is. Terry, that gives me 19 yes voice votes. It's harder to say than I thought it would be. And Kelly, does that include everyone who raised their hand on the screen or do we need to do that phase? I got them all. Okay, so we have at this point and we will, let's just stop to make sure, has anyone not yet voted? Could we make sure and raise your hand on the screen or unmute if you have not yet voted? And I think everyone, the forum seems to be working just fine. I think everyone who's who had a question, the vote was recorded. We have a nice neat list on the online forum. Oh, Mary. Yeah, I'm still voting, I'm sorry. Are you doing the forum online, Mary? Yes, I am. Perfect, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else who would like to raise their hand to vote or vote by voice or as anyone, please note in the chat if you are still using the online forum. All right, meeting hosts, anything else? Any other remaining questions? So we verified everyone who had a question. So the grand total, we have 286 yes votes, one nay and one abstention. So we have an overwhelming endorsement of calling Reverend Kelly AJ as our co-senior minister. Hallelujah. Yay. Can we unmute to, can we unmute and share the PowerPoint? Yay. I believe Kelly may join us Sandy and Emily. Can we start video or not? I'm calling him now. Yeah, if you stay on the call, Kelly AJ will be here in a minute. Yay. If you can hang with us for a minute. Wonderful news. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't even know we could get so lucky. Just great. That's so happy. Here they are. Wait. I'm looking at the video. I'm looking at the video. That's a little, that was a subcrime. It's not, it's related to us. It's related to us. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. Me? That's not me. It's not me. I will say what I'm saying. Tom, don't mind if you want to mute again. That would be great. I got to mute. I got to mute. Sometimes I... Thanks to the search team, they are calling Kelly AJ now and I believe he's going to join us on the Zoom. So hang in there. We will thank the search team much more formally later, but for now, yay. A question and a chat of when he'll start. I think it'll be in the fall, but I don't know exactly. August 1st. Not that Kelly Crocker's counting down the days or anything. Team Kelly's ready to go. I think she's counting the hours. Maybe. If you all join, I hope you know I am. And here's our harpist. Thank you, Rachel, for the musical interludes, so we didn't just have to watch everyone stare at the screen. And here he comes. Kelly's coming in. The other part of team Kelly's coming in. Hello, everyone. I am so overjoyed and deeply humbled to accept your call. So glad to be a part of your community. So just really, really profoundly grateful to get to start to build this partnership with Kelly. That's all right. Then leave it. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. This is so exciting. Yay. Very much, very much on my side too. We have so much wonderful, nourishing, exciting work to do together. And I look forward to being your partner in it, co-creating something new as a community. And I'm just really deeply moved to be a part of the story lineage of FUS. Thank you for this honor. Oh, glad you're here. And it's not quite the same. If we were in the same room, you would hear the thunderous applause of nearly 300 people in a fitting UU fashion. You had the quiet, patient attention of nearly 300 people for an hour while we conducted the vote. So I hope that conveys our excitement and enthusiasm. And very much does. It very much does. It conveys it exactly that so many of you would spend so much time on something that I know had to be at least at times a little bit difficult or tiring. So thank you very deeply, that especially in these strange and challenging days of the pandemic, the gift of your attention is a rare and precious thing. So I take it very much to heart. Some day we'll get to celebrate in person, but for now, I celebrate with you from a distance. There might be some hugs waiting for you. I think, Kelly, I don't know what you think, but I think we're gonna have to have like a debt. Whenever it is possible for us to do it without any sort of reservation or concern, we're just gonna have to have a designated like hug time, right? Just like form a line and get a hug, you get a handshake and get a fist bump, whatever it is that you've been waiting in order to greet in an in-person way. I really look forward to whenever we reach that moment together. It's gonna be a great day. And there's lots of things coming in directly from the chat. Congratulations to team Kelly. We're thrilled. Thank you all so much. Thank you, thank you. Yes. All right. You're ready for it. There was a thanks to Terri for such good leadership. Thanks, Terri. Thank you, Krill. Thanks to all the entire board for helping run the Zoom meeting here, following all the very detailed instructions. Thank you. It worked, you all. It worked. Thank you for the patience, especially of folks joining by phone only. I know it's not ideal, but we appreciate your doing this live all together. And lots of hugs and thanks and congratulations coming into the chat. Are you ready for closing words? We are. Thank you, Kelly. Please. All right. These are adapted from Alicia Ford. When we pause to remember who we are, companions on this grand experiment called life. When we take a moment to hear our stories, hear and see each other into existence, into community. When we take a moment to embrace, to practice a different way of being. When we answer the call of love, saying no to voices of fear and separation, then we are living into the promise of building the world of our dreams. It is beautiful to dream, to cast a vision, to stretch our minds into the future and imagine what may be if we were to build a new way of being, not someday, but beginning today. Beginning again every day that we have breath. Taking courage with these hands and hearts to make real the dream of a more equitable world, to journey together, seeking to be transformed even as we transform. Becoming explorers and learners in this new world around us, humbled by what we do not yet know. Fulfilling the promise of healing a fragmented world. Laboring not just in hope, but also in love. May we go forth today and all days to make it so. Blessed be and Amen. Go team Kelly. Thanks everybody. Thanks everyone, thanks for joining. You know, I mean, I can change. Most of the time you're just on your own. Love you all. Thank you for being here. Hi, thanks everyone. Love you too. Thank you all. Ready to leave? Bye Chris, bye Erin. Thank you and congratulations. Thanks Tom. I love that somebody changed their name to Woo-Hoo. I just got a direct message from Woo-Hoo. Hi Kelly's. I look forward to meeting you new Kelly. I look forward to Kelly too is fine. Kelly one and Kelly two. I just want to say talk on top and have a safe trip back East. I can't wait to see you back in Madison. Yes, this was a beautiful ceremony. Really, really love it. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Or do you of us just don't want to leave? We just want to hold this moment as long as we can. Yeah. Welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tim. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to it. Joyful day. Audrey, thank you.