Annual Meeting 2000
The Annual Meeting of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, Inc. (CUUPS) was held on June 21, 2000 at the Downtown Sheraton Hotel, Nashville, TN.
- President's Report (below)
- Financial Report
President's Report
Friends,
It has been a rather momentous year since General Assembly 1999. Active membership has reached an all-time high, publication efforts are expanding, religious education efforts have been active, and part-time paid contract staff had to be brought on board to help handle it all.
The biggest news was the January 2000 gift to CUUPS of the magazine Connections, which has now become the voice of CUUPS. Gifted by Robin and Summer Woodsong of Colorado, the magazine is a 52+ page, four-color cover, full-sized, quarterly publication. CUUPS' ownership of Connections became official January 1, 2000. Connections has been in print since 1992 and is sold by subscription and through bookstores and newsstands nationally and internationally. The magazine has won awards from the Wiccan/Pagan Press Alliance, including the Most Popular Pagan Magazine and Best Editor Awards. A subscription to the magazine is now a benefit of CUUPS membership. Individual subscriptions are also available. Robin and Summer Woodsong are members of the First Unitarian Society of Denver and CUUPS Continental. Also in January, Robin Woodsong became CUUPS' Director of Publications.
The Board of CUUPS views the magazine donation as an excellent opportunity to expand its education and outreach efforts to the broader community while representing the interests and needs of CUUPS' members.
CUUPS also received a grant from the Fund for Unitarian Universalism to facilitate the publication of a new annual journal of thea/ological and philosophical discussion titled Sacred Cosmos. The journal for 2000 has been formatted and is now in the final stages of editing. It is scheduled for publication and distribution in July 2000, immediately following General Assembly.
Membership in CUUPS reached an all-time high this spring when we recorded over 675 active single and family memberships. This growth might be attributed to interest in the new magazine combined with the extraordinary efforts of Vice President David Pollard to get word out about the new magazine and the work of Membership Services Coordinator Jerry Wagenman to create efficient office processes and an orderly membership database. Jerry Wagenman became CUUPS contracted Membership Services Coordinator in March 2000 when our previous Coordinator resigned for health reasons.
Most of our Chapters are still doing quite well, with the current number of known active chapters standing at 59. There are some Chapters which are probably still active but we haven't officially heard from them in over a year, so we can't count them in the total. In Spring 2000, the Board created a new category of Chapter membership, Provisional, to enable us to formally assist in the development of those Chapters experiencing difficulty in formation or maintenance of status for one reason or another. We currently have three Provisional Chapters.
In fall 1999, the CUUPS Religious Education committee worked with the authors of a new children's curriculum based on the Wheel of the Year in facilitating the field testing of the material. The field testing brought it to our attention that UU RE directors were actively seeking material to supplement current curricula already in use in the congregations. This inspired our current GA workshop on weaving Pagan elements into current RE programs.
No CUUPS Chapter or group of members were able to take on the task of hosting Convocation in 2000. Convocation is dependent on the willingness of individual Chapters or groups to organize and run the event with Board assistance. Very reluctantly, the Board decided to cancel this year's Convo rather than hold an inadequately organized event. Three CUUPS chapters in Denver and Boulder, Colorado, have volunteered, however, to host Convo 2001 in the Mountain Desert District.
CUUPS has no current debt and the bank account is healthily in the black. Plans are already underway for next year's General Assembly and prospects for the coming year look very good.
Blessings to all,
Joan Van Becelaere
President
