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UU World reports from the annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Click here for a comprehensive guide to our 2011 General Assembly coverage.
A mini-assembly on three business items to come before GA delegates this week generated only a modest amount of interest Thursday. The three business items would:
- permit offsite voting by GA delegates;
- broaden the definition of a congregation; and
- change the composition of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee.
Around 40 people attended the mini-assembly. The proposal to allow offsite voting generated the most interest. UUA Trustee Linda Laskowski from the Pacific Central District explained that the proposal simply allows people who are not physically present at GA to vote by means of remote communication. The change is meant to allow people who cannot come to GA because of financial issues or reasons of physical disability or lack of time off from work to participate in the work of the Association.
Continue reading Business items move through mini-assembly
Around 100 people attended the mini-assembly Thursday on Ethical Eating, the Statement of Conscience that GA delegates will vote on Friday morning. (The draft statement also appears on pages 10-12 of the Business Agenda; PDF.)
The issue was selected by delegates at GA 2008 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There have been GA workshops on it in 2009 and 2010. Hundreds of congregations have submitted comments as well since 2008. The Commission on Social Witness took all that input and created a Draft Statement of Conscience on Ethical Eating.
That document was further massaged at Thursday’s session. More than 50 proposed changes in wording were submitted to the CSW, whose members expected to labor into the evening Thursday deciding which changes to include. The final document will be available Friday morning.
Continue reading ‘Ethical Eating’ Statement of Conscience refined
What will the 2012 Justice General Assembly look like?
That’s the question more than 100 people came together to ask and to begin to answer in a Thursday afternoon workshop called “Looking Ahead to General Assembly 2012.”
Planners have delivered a clear message that the 2012 GA will not be business as usual. At last year’s Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in Minneapolis, delegates overwhelming passed a business resolution to dedicate the 2012 General Assembly in Phoenix to “witnessing on immigration, racial, and economic justice.” The business resolution was passed in response to Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law SB 1070, which had inspired calls for the UUA to boycott the state. The resolution states also that the 2012 GA will include a minimum of official business.
The session was led by Lynda Shannon Bluestein, chair of the GA Planning Committee, the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, minister of the UU Congregation of Phoenix, Ariz., and Carolyn Saunders, a member of the UU Church of Tucson, Ariz.
They begin by inviting people to ask what they needed to know about the Justice GA. For the next 20 minutes, attendees posed a wide range of questions, including:
- What will the role of youth be?
- How will the planning committee balance witness, civil disobedience, and service activites?
- What provisions are being made for the extreme heat in Arizona in June?
- How will they avoid cultural appropriation?
- How will the large numbers of youth and young adults afford to go?
- How will they select which organizations to partner with?
Continue reading 2012 ‘Justice General Assembly’ begins to take shape
A vocal group of delegates to the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly met in a Mini-Assembly Thursday afternoon to discuss a proposed bylaw amendment that would shrink the size of the UUA board to 14 people from the current 26 (PDF; pages 22-28 in the Business Agenda).
Delegates spoke both for and against the amendment, which would also end the election of trustees by district. People speaking in favor of the amendment got several rounds of hearty applause.
Several amendments were offered to the proposal, but just one passed. The amendment, offered by delegate Phil Reed of Cleveland, Ohio, was added to section 9.4 (see page 25), creating a new paragraph in the section of the bylaw regarding nomination by the Nominating Committee.
Continue reading Amendment to board restructuring bylaw passes in Mini-Assembly
Delegates at a business mini-assembly Thursday morning at the UUA General Assembly in Charlotte, N.C., focused on a proposed bylaw change to Article XV of the UUA bylaws, which dictates the procedure for amending other bylaws. Article XV came under scrutiny after delegates at the 2009 General Assembly in Salt Lake City narrowly rejected a proposed revision to Article II, the Principles and Purposes, because they were not able to amend the revisions or vote on them in sections under the rules outlined in Article XV.
Under Article XV’s current language, any change in Article II must be considered by a review and study commission and be approved by two consecutive GAs. The Commission on Appraisal had prepared an amended version of Article II, but Article XV prohibited delegates from proposing any changes to that proposal. When the proposal failed, delegates passed a responsive resolution asking for clarification of “the process and limitations of a proposal to amend a bylaw in Article II.”
The proposed amendment to Article XV would keep the current process for amending Article II, with a study commission followed by votes at consecutive General Assemblies. However, under the revised process, amendments could be proposed to the study commission’s Article II language using a mini-assembly process, and no revisions would be allowed at the second GA.
Continue reading Delegates examine proposed changes to Article XV
At Friday afternoon’s mini-assembly on proposed changes to the elections process for the UUA president and moderator, delegates recommended several amendments.
A substantial amendment offered by the Board of Trustees explicitly lays out the transition from the current system—which allows a president or moderator to serve for two four-year terms—to the new system of single six-year [...]
By Jane Greer in General Assembly 2010 June 24, 2010 at 11:50 am At this morning’s plenary, UUA Moderator Gini Courter and David May, chair of the Commission on Social Witness, presented the slate of mini-assemblies that will be held over the course of this GA. Mini-assemblies give delegates an opportunity to amend bylaw and rule changes, business resolutions, Actions of Immediate Witness, and Statements of Conscience before they [...]
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