Conference Call Minutes

C*UUYAN Steering Committee Conference Call
Sunday, November 23, 2008
6:00-7:05 pm

Present: Andrew Mertz, Linnea Huston, Liz Weber (Facilitator), Tom Bozeman

Agenda:
•    Task Forces update
•    Nancy on Listserve
•    Open At-Large position
•    UUA Presidential candidates info

Decisions:
•    To ask Nancy to remain on the list and actively reading it/staying up to date, with the understanding that it can take some time and that we will continue to contact office folks directly when direct questions arise.
•    At-Large position: To both advertise broadly and encourage qualified folks we may know to apply.
•    At-Large application:  To state that we would love to have someone appointed and able to attend the Dec 20 weekend meeting without including a strict deadline.
•    At-Large position should be advertised on YA News, CYF, FUUSE, and through district staff.
•    To compile info on and questions for UUA Pres candidates; to send questions to candidates; to write a voters’ guide; to endorse a candidate if we feel called to do so.

Continuing discussions for email:
See “Decisions” above.

Action items:
ALL: let good candidates know about the open At-Large position
Andrew:  Follow up with Nancy about facilitators for TFs.
Andrew: send UUA Pres Candidate notes to SC.
Andrew: draft letter of questions and concerns to SC/Liz.
Andrew: send minutes to Liz
Liz: respond to Nancy’s email about YahooGroup
Liz:  Use At-Large job description to draft wording for new position; send to SC for feedback.
Liz: send Candidate notes to SC
Liz: contact Erik about YA news for open position, and UUYAN.org is up and running.

Minutes
Check-in
Task Force Update
Liz-  Sent emails to each TF to check in; haven’t heard back yet but wasn’t necessarily expecting to.
Tom-  Any news from the large one since GA?
Liz- No.
Andrew-  At LREDA Conference, talked to Nancy and asked if office knows any professional facilitators that can help out the TFs.  Not followed up about that.
Action Item: Andrew will follow up with Nancy.

Nancy on Listserve
Liz- We have had staff on the lists before, and Nancy would like to know if we still want her on it, and if we want her to weigh in on it.
Liz- we are doing popcorn style conference call discussion
Liz- Nancy has been on the list as long as she has worked on it.
Linnea- doesn’t see reason, or harm.
Liz- would like to keep her on list.
Andrew- feels we should keep an office member on the list, and be clear if we expect them to read it or not, and how we will be connecting with them.
Tom- feels we should keep status quo.
Liz- sounds like we are Ok with keeping an office person on list.
All agreed
Liz- feels Nancy should be reading everything on list if she gets it.
Andrew- feels she should read it all, but know she has 2 weeks or so to get to it.  And time sensitive stuff will be direct email.
Liz- feels Facilitator is often the main contact and should continue that.
Consensus to ask Nancy to remain on the list and actively reading it/staying up to date, with the understanding that it can take some time and that we will continue to contact office folks directly when direct questions arise.

At-Large Position/Sadie’s departure:
Liz- Any comments about Sadie’s stepping down, or can we move on to next steps for replacement?
Liz- Next steps:  Does anyone feel we should be a 4 person committee?
All agreed we should be at 5.
Brainstorm: Potential advertise on YA News, CYF, FUUSE (but has less traffic), district staff could be helpful. Any runners up for positions earlier that we could contact?  Former committee members like Mary- who wouldn’t, Raegan who is done, Tomoko- project person, Anthony-?, 2 folks who ran against Andrew for his position.
Linnea- perhaps we should advertise first
Andrew- maybe Jan 1st as an application deadline
Liz- since we appoint, we should have folks fill out volunteer application sheet.  We should advertise broadly, but also encourage specific people, just be careful we are encouraging folks to apply but not offering them the position or recruiting per se.
Consensus to both advertise broadly and encourage qualified folks we may know to apply.
Jan 15th as a good date for applications in.
Action item- Liz will contact Erik about YA news for open position, and UUYAN.org is up and running.
Action item- Andrew will follow up with Nancy about facilitator for TF.
Action item- all, let good candidates know about the position
Liz- let folks know about position, deadline jan 15th, but let us know ASAP just in case we might select you before the Dec meeting.
Andrew- or, say the position is open, and get in touch with us shortly, but not give a deadline, just in case a good candidate shows up before December meeting.
Andrew- say dec 7th is when we start reviewing candidates.
Linnea- what’s driving this discussion is having someone in place for the December meeting.  So we could say our goal is to have someone in place by Dec 19th,
Liz- concern is when district staff can get the word out, it might be late, so stating the hope of having someone at the meeting but that we will continue to review appications until the position is filled sounds good.
Consensus to state that we would love to have someone appointed and able to attend the Dec 20 weekend meeting without including a strict deadline.

Liz- Can we continue for 5 mins past our end time?
Agreement: We are going until 7:05

UUA Presidential Candidates
Our 2 candidates:
Liz- it’s fine to endorse candidate, YRUU has done it before.  Not sure if CUUYAN has done it for presidential candidates, but we have taken positions on various issues through GA YAC.  It’s ok for us to do, especially b/c we are not employed by or getting money directly from the UUA at this point.
Andrew- thinks we should say a guide is just from the SC of CUUYAN (not generic CUUYAN).  We should also send a letter to each campaign to allow them to clear up areas we are concerned about, or answer direct questions.  And then go from there.
Liz- What’s our experience with each candidate?  I did the GA stuff and invited peter to YA caucus.
Linnea- limited experience
Tom- slightly more impressed with peter, but would rather put out voters’ guide.
Action item- Andrew and Liz will both send notes to SC.
Action item- Andrew, draft letter of questions and concerns to SC/Liz.
Liz- Once we get all this together, and review letter over email, we can send them.  And only if we feel called to do so, endorse a candidate.
All agreed
Action item- Liz will look at job description and draft wording for new position.

Call Logistics
Action item- Andrew will send minutes to Liz
Next meeting Sunday, Dec 7th 4pm.

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