View source for FUUCSL minutes April 2008

UUSL Leadership Group
Minutes for 4/2/08

Leadership Group Members present: Etaoin Barcelona, Sofia Freenote, Otenth Paderborn, Beacon Questi, Pomona Writer 
Visitors (for some or part of meeting):  Reverend LeShelle, Thisbe Blackadder, Alex Bradley, Lynn Writer, Cyfer Braess

The meeting was held in the conference center in Zoshchenko and began shortly after 6:30 pm.  Otenth sent a group IM to the UUSL group to invite visitors to the meeting. Sofia read opening words, and lit a chalice.  Introductions were made and we shared joys and concerns.  There was some concern about a member of the leadership group who has not been on-line for a month.  Pomona will try to contact him in RL.

There were no changes to last month’s minutes.

Worship:  We have openings for service leaders for April 10 & 12 and for May 8 & 10.  Sofia will send a notice to UU of SL group to try to get a leader for next week.  We should continue the regular practice of inviting new service leaders during Thursday and Saturday services.
For a list of openings, see the box under the calendar in Lovelace or http://www.uuism.net/uuwiki/index.php?title=FUUCSL_Schedule.   

The calendar is still not working. Otenth will take it down and will explore the possibility of using the new ability to paste webpages on a prim as a means of linking our googlecalendar to the welcome area in Lovelace.

Publicity:  Both the classified ad attached to UUGuru and the land description show up prominently in Search.  Last month Sofia volunteered to ask Biz and to modify the classified ad and to ask CoyoteAngel to modify the land description in Lovelace so that the times of services were listed.  She asked but the changes have not yet been made.  Otenth volunteered to do so.

Treasurer:  Sofia asked that the topic of creating a treasurer affiliated with the Leadership Group (or its successor) be placed on a future agenda.

General Assembly:  .  A new draft of Etaoin’s GA (in two parts) is available at http://groups.google.com/group/fuucsl.  Reverend LeChelle and Etaoin and Sofia met last week to go over the presentation and refine it.  Etaoin and Sofia will present it at GA.  As well as the presentation, Etaoin will stream SL into his hotel room at GA and extend an open invitation to attendees.

Membership:  No meetings have been held.  Pomona send out a notice asking for people interested in working on this topic.   Thisbe and AnnaQuay Heart responded.  They discussed (1) creating a new group for paying voting members only, (2) setting a price for yearly membership dues and (3) sending money to UUA or CLF.  In the subsequent discussion some advocated becoming a UUA affiliated congregation with bylaws.  However, Pomona noted that an earlier inquiry to some “insurance people” resulted in the advice that we should not organize as a RL congregation because of the cost.  Instead they advised affiliating with some RL church.  One of the questions Etaoin and Sofia will raise at GA will be to ask for suggestions and guidance about some kind of creative middle ground.  Rev LeChelle recommended checking out what the UCC church has done instead of re-creating the wheel.  After much discussion of everyone’s schedule, it was decided to hold another membership discussion on Wednesday, April 9 at 6:30 PM SLT in the Lovelace sanctuary.   This will be an open meeting and all are invited.

Voice:  There was a long discussion about various mechanisms for using voice in our regular services.  Some service leaders have already experimented using SL Voice.  Others advocate using Shoutcast. Shoutcast has a wider range and can be heard by anyone who is now capable of hearing hymns played over the parcel’s media player.  However, Shoutcast is not free and it requires some outside-of-SL technical preconditions, such as having a server or purchasing the service.  SL Voice has a more limited range but it is easily available through the SL application.  Whatever the mechanism for voice, it was felt that voice should not be the only means of participating in our services.  Some may lack headphones and be unable to participate because there are other individuals within hearing range of one’s computer who might be disturbed or they may not be in a private place.  Some participants in this discussion expressed a fondness for the tradition of using chat during services.  From the heated discussion, it was clear that we could only offer interim advice for service leaders about using voice.  Otenth proposed that we encourage experimentation with voice in the services and that we temporarily adopt this guideline:  that service leaders are allowed to use whatever technology available to them in order to lead services in voice, as long as a text version is available, and that dialog or many-to-many voice communication during the service should not be encouraged at this time.  Etaoin offers a free notecard readers to potential service leaders.  

Some thought that this decision might discourage service leaders who are unable to provide a parallel text version.  It was noted that the text need not be “complete” but just sufficient so that “text-only” participants will not be disadvantaged.  The proposal passed 4 to 1.  The discussion ran on after our closing time and we agreed that this was probably a temporary resolution and that the subject should continue to be on our agenda.  

Otenth agreed to do the opening and closing words at our next meeting.  Sofia read the closing words and we ended at 8: 13 PM. The next meeting will be May 7, 2008, at 6:30 PM SLT in the Conference Center (Zoshchenko 35, 206, 92). Our next agenda will include plans for the upcoming election of for the successors of the temporary Leadership Group whose terms expire at the end of June 2008.