I have to tell you that we accountants and other financial types have not had to wait until 1984 to try “Being Human in an Age of Technology.”
“We are traveling with tremendous speed toward a star in the Milky Way. A great repose is visible on the face of the earth. My heart’s a little fast. Otherwise, everything’s fine.”
Those words from Bertolt Brecht. To me, he is talking about our rush into the future -- the speed of it --our outward calm and confidence -- our inner nervousness and uncertainty. Why shouldn’t we be confident? Why shouldn’t we be nervous?
We know that to be curious about the future, to dream and to wonder how much that future can be influenced by our efforts are all essential and differentiating characteristics of our humanity. We cannot help trying to plan. But the old certainties are gone. The unitary view of life to which we have lately subscribed is, I suspect, on the way out. The confirmation and encouragement we once could look for from science is no longer there.
My reading is from an essay by Flora Lewis, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. She writes:
“The extraordinary insight of modern physics about the way the world really works is that: the world is a mass of uncertainties piling up into likelihoods. Science has discovered that: prediction of reality must be based only on waves of probability,”
Ms. Lewis goes on to say, “While science has marched on in this direction, social philosophy has been left far behind. There is no longer a unified world view. We non-scientists still think we know what we are doing and look to science for confirmation, even as science -- with quantum mechanics at its pinnacle -- tells us the point is we don’t know and can’t know.”
So, do we then give up on the future? Of course not. We deal with it. As a matter of fact, it is a UU kind of future -- just right for our particular mind set. The givens: Change and Uncertainty.
Now you may be asking yourselves what all this has to do with finance -- and the answer is -- a lot. And it is the future about which I want to speak this morning.
FIRST -- financial support. This is the year in which we began a new and major drive for additional funds over and beyond the solid base we have established in the Annual Program Fund.
Conceived initially as a traditional capital fund drive, with most of the proceeds earmarked for endowment, the Visions for Growth Campaign has been modified as the Development Office and the Administration have talked with and listened to our constitutency. What they heard was concern about our immediate and near term ability to pursue growth and to carry out our basic mission.
The set of objectives to be funded by Visions for Growth include $1 million out of the $4 million target for endowment, to add to our ongoing strength. Roughly $1.7 million will go to programs with long-term impact, from which we have some reasonable expectation of recovering our investment, namely extension, $450,000, new congregational development $450,000, a new hymnal, $300,000, and the Beacon Press, $500,000.
The remaining $1.3 million will go toward -- field services to congregations and districts, $1,000,000, and peace issues, $300,000. But of this latter $1.3 million, we cannot fairly expect ever to recover our investment in terms of hard cash or greater future income. They may, of course, be a return on investment -- but it will not be in dollars.
I said in my first report to you two years ago, and I believed it important enough to repeat last year, “The membership of this association, directly and through sources it can influence, has the resources to do whatever we want it to do.” The needs are there for all to see. But seeing them is not enough. Membership in this association is not a spectator sport. We need team spirit and intensive participation in our fund raising efforts -- and we need it from all. Otherwise this -- and all our concerns -- is a lot of sound and fury. If we really care -- if we really believe in what we are doing -- we should be proud to give -- and equally important -- we should be proud to ask others to give.
Showing posts with label 1983-Columbus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1983-Columbus. Show all posts
Columbus II
SECOND: Planning as a disciplined function.
We have done a lot of futuring in this denomination. We need to do a lot more and to coordinate that effort more than we ever have -- so that all our articulated parts are moving in the same direction.
In the past year, the Board approved the addition of a planning staff person to lead and coordinate an ongoing long-range planning effort. This is a most important beginning. It will (1) focus our efforts on those things we believe are of greatest importance, (2) muster our resources in the most effective manner to deal with them, and (3) coordinate the interrelationship of our various programs in our organic plan.
We need to send a message that we want a plan for our future. We need to send a message that we want this to have a high priority. Let’s not just call this a movement. Let’s figure out where we want it to go and make it a movement!
THIRD: I want to talk about the proposed new field services program. I’m concerned that it may be an even more potentially dangerous program in which to invest our effort and money because it is a much more appealing idea -- delivery of field services -- how could anyone be against that? I cannot help but think of Theodore Parker’s comment,”Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.”
My concern is that there was no broadly representative committee to study this proposal as there was for DR2. There was no comprehensive survey -- consistently conducted across our denomination -- to evaluate this proposal as there was for DR2. There is no detailed financial plan -- as there was for DR2 -- that shows how much this will really work in each District and for the Association as a whole.
I didn’t clock the actual amount of time spent on this at the April board meeting. It was certainly less than an hour -- but I do remember that the Board members listed on a blackboard some ten or twelve concerns about the proposal, discussed briefly the first of these -- and then the whole question was called.
Now I know that there is no shortage of critical faculties among my fellow board members -- witness the number of concerns about this program they listed -- and I have great respect for the way they normally tackle an issue and shake it ‘til its ears fall off. But I have to tell you I don’t know what happened that afternoon.
I do know I would have felt a lot better about being on the losing side of the issue if the vote had followed profound and extended discussion worthy of the importance of the issue.
Now, this may well be the best idea for reorganization of this Association to have come along since merger, and the decision to go forward with it may well be the best decision taken since merger. But we didn’t study it in an open and democratic manner. We didn’t consider it with study materials, District and congregational meetings, feedback mechanisms and alternate final models, as we did with our new Purposes and Principles. We went ahead even though many questions remain with many District leaders. It was not our finest hour.
We have done a lot of futuring in this denomination. We need to do a lot more and to coordinate that effort more than we ever have -- so that all our articulated parts are moving in the same direction.
In the past year, the Board approved the addition of a planning staff person to lead and coordinate an ongoing long-range planning effort. This is a most important beginning. It will (1) focus our efforts on those things we believe are of greatest importance, (2) muster our resources in the most effective manner to deal with them, and (3) coordinate the interrelationship of our various programs in our organic plan.
We need to send a message that we want a plan for our future. We need to send a message that we want this to have a high priority. Let’s not just call this a movement. Let’s figure out where we want it to go and make it a movement!
THIRD: I want to talk about the proposed new field services program. I’m concerned that it may be an even more potentially dangerous program in which to invest our effort and money because it is a much more appealing idea -- delivery of field services -- how could anyone be against that? I cannot help but think of Theodore Parker’s comment,”Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.”
My concern is that there was no broadly representative committee to study this proposal as there was for DR2. There was no comprehensive survey -- consistently conducted across our denomination -- to evaluate this proposal as there was for DR2. There is no detailed financial plan -- as there was for DR2 -- that shows how much this will really work in each District and for the Association as a whole.
I didn’t clock the actual amount of time spent on this at the April board meeting. It was certainly less than an hour -- but I do remember that the Board members listed on a blackboard some ten or twelve concerns about the proposal, discussed briefly the first of these -- and then the whole question was called.
Now I know that there is no shortage of critical faculties among my fellow board members -- witness the number of concerns about this program they listed -- and I have great respect for the way they normally tackle an issue and shake it ‘til its ears fall off. But I have to tell you I don’t know what happened that afternoon.
I do know I would have felt a lot better about being on the losing side of the issue if the vote had followed profound and extended discussion worthy of the importance of the issue.
Now, this may well be the best idea for reorganization of this Association to have come along since merger, and the decision to go forward with it may well be the best decision taken since merger. But we didn’t study it in an open and democratic manner. We didn’t consider it with study materials, District and congregational meetings, feedback mechanisms and alternate final models, as we did with our new Purposes and Principles. We went ahead even though many questions remain with many District leaders. It was not our finest hour.
Columbus III
We all know the one about the pilot who radioed: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is we’re making excellent time. The bad news is we’re lost.”
Now we are not totally lost, but we need a lot more involvement and a lot more study of this program and you, my friends, are the ones who are going to have to insist on it, and you are going to have to do that by talking to your District Trustees about costs and organization rationale, asking your District Boards what the financial impact on your District will be, and demanding alternate approaches from among which to choose. Field Services really needs your attention and concern.
Those who work in finance ae used to dealing with the seemingly finite. But we suffered two major losses this year, losses which won’t show up in our financial statements. Ted MacRae, chair of the Finance Committee, died last October. As if we had no limit on our ability to come to grips with coincident tragedy, Mary Hart, Ted’s successor as Committee chair, died this past April.
They were each such different people in temperament, in convictions, and in leadership style, that it may not seem to do either justice to speak of both in the same breadth. Yet, they were alike in the intensity of their devotion to this institution, and in their ability to work for the common good with those with whom they did not always agree. I cannot think they are no longer with us.
These words from Victor Hugo’s “Toilers of the Sea:”
“These are times when the unknown reveals itself to the spirit of man in visions...those that depart still remain near us--they are in a world of light but they, as tender witnesses, hover about our world of darkness. Though invisible to some they are not absent. Sweet is their presence, holy is their converse with us.”
Let us join in a moment of consideration and aspiration. We have the leadership of our Denomination in this room. If we hold out our hand, we have the future in it. If we think of the connection of hand to mind to heart, we have the potential to shape that future. The potential, I say, only the potential. We must give life to that potential: we have to make our hands move.
Good intentions will not do it, good thoughts will not do it, good talk will not do it. The heart has to feel it. The mind has to want it. The hand has to do it.
One week ago last Sunday, I attended the concluding service in our Church year in my own congregation, The Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut. We have been privileged to have had an award winning minister serve us in an interim year. I say award winning, because on Thursday, the UUA is going to honor him with the Award for Distinguished Service to the Cause of Unitarian Universalism.
It’s a matter of public record that Duncan Howlett has 78 years on the odometer. He could reasonably be expected to be looking loyally to the past rather than to the future. The theme of that service, the title of his sermon: “The Way Leads On.”
Duncan Howlett knows about uncertainty--he does not fear change. He knows that our Church in Westport and our Association have the potential for the way which leads on -- you’ll get a sense of that on Thursday.
Let me share with you in closing, the final verse of the hymn with which we closed that service. The words by Sam Wright, to the music of Sibelius’ Finlandia.
We would be one
In building for tomorrow
A nobler world
Than we have known today,
We would be one
In searching for that meaning
That binds our hearts
And points us on our way.
As one we pledge
Ourselves to greater service
To build with love
A world which shall be free.
Now we are not totally lost, but we need a lot more involvement and a lot more study of this program and you, my friends, are the ones who are going to have to insist on it, and you are going to have to do that by talking to your District Trustees about costs and organization rationale, asking your District Boards what the financial impact on your District will be, and demanding alternate approaches from among which to choose. Field Services really needs your attention and concern.
Those who work in finance ae used to dealing with the seemingly finite. But we suffered two major losses this year, losses which won’t show up in our financial statements. Ted MacRae, chair of the Finance Committee, died last October. As if we had no limit on our ability to come to grips with coincident tragedy, Mary Hart, Ted’s successor as Committee chair, died this past April.
They were each such different people in temperament, in convictions, and in leadership style, that it may not seem to do either justice to speak of both in the same breadth. Yet, they were alike in the intensity of their devotion to this institution, and in their ability to work for the common good with those with whom they did not always agree. I cannot think they are no longer with us.
These words from Victor Hugo’s “Toilers of the Sea:”
“These are times when the unknown reveals itself to the spirit of man in visions...those that depart still remain near us--they are in a world of light but they, as tender witnesses, hover about our world of darkness. Though invisible to some they are not absent. Sweet is their presence, holy is their converse with us.”
Let us join in a moment of consideration and aspiration. We have the leadership of our Denomination in this room. If we hold out our hand, we have the future in it. If we think of the connection of hand to mind to heart, we have the potential to shape that future. The potential, I say, only the potential. We must give life to that potential: we have to make our hands move.
Good intentions will not do it, good thoughts will not do it, good talk will not do it. The heart has to feel it. The mind has to want it. The hand has to do it.
One week ago last Sunday, I attended the concluding service in our Church year in my own congregation, The Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut. We have been privileged to have had an award winning minister serve us in an interim year. I say award winning, because on Thursday, the UUA is going to honor him with the Award for Distinguished Service to the Cause of Unitarian Universalism.
It’s a matter of public record that Duncan Howlett has 78 years on the odometer. He could reasonably be expected to be looking loyally to the past rather than to the future. The theme of that service, the title of his sermon: “The Way Leads On.”
Duncan Howlett knows about uncertainty--he does not fear change. He knows that our Church in Westport and our Association have the potential for the way which leads on -- you’ll get a sense of that on Thursday.
Let me share with you in closing, the final verse of the hymn with which we closed that service. The words by Sam Wright, to the music of Sibelius’ Finlandia.
We would be one
In building for tomorrow
A nobler world
Than we have known today,
We would be one
In searching for that meaning
That binds our hearts
And points us on our way.
As one we pledge
Ourselves to greater service
To build with love
A world which shall be free.
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