Among the Board’s goals for this fiscal year is launching a process to ensure that we as a Board, and each of you as members of the Congregation, share an understanding of the current priorities of the Congregation as a whole. To accomplish this, we plan to hold a series of Listening Circles over the next few months, that will provide each of you with an opportunity to share your perspectives and feelings, about what is most important to you about FUUSN, and to learn from each other about what is most important for the Congregation as a whole. For the Board, understanding your hopes and aspirations as members of this faith community is essential both to our annual budgeting process and to inform the Board, as we move forward with the launch of a multi-year visioning and strategic planning process.

Beginning this weekend at FUUSN’s annual Ferry Beach Retreat, and at subsequent gatherings to be scheduled in the next few months, each of you will have the opportunity to respond to a series of questions, in meetings facilitated by members of the Board. We hope many of you will participate.

Listening Circle questions:

1- What do you love most about FUUSN and why is it so important to you?

2- What do you long for/wish for at FUUSN that does not currently exist and why is it so important to you?

3- Looking forward, what do you envision will be the greatest challenges for you personally and how might the FUUSN community support you to successfully meet those challenges?

4. What challenges do you see FUUSN as a community facing and how might we overcome them together?

Please don’t hesitate to contact any one of us if you have questions. Christine Lookner will facilitate the Ferry Beach Listening Circle and additional Listening Circle times will be posted on the FUUSN biz list and Facebook page in the next couple of weeks. A reminder that these listening circles are an opportunity to share your responses, uninterrupted, to the above questions and to listen deeply to the various viewpoints of members of our congregation.

Thanks in advance for your participation! Sincerely, Chris Krebs, Josie Greene, Brooke Foucault Welles, Demie Stathoplos, Christine Lookner, Jon Reuman, Leah Lakomski and Theo Burba.