General Assembly

General Assembly number 49.

We gathered in Minneapolis for our annual business meeting; we gathered to learn, we gathered to socialize, we gathered to worship.

A total of 3,880 of us (1,957 delegates, 367 ministers, 581 congregations) gathered. And then we went back to our home congregations to spread the enthusiasm, to share what we learned, to report back on what we all did at GA.

So, what did we do?

Some of us participated in a pre-GA meeting organized by the District Presidents’ Association (DPA) that included all the district presidents and many district board members as well as members of the UUA Board of Trustees. We talked a lot about governance, what it means, roles of the districts in governance and how governance in our association could be improved. Pretty much everybody agreed that there’s room for improvement. There was less agreement about how to improve or what to change. District presidents and board members agreed to discuss with their boards regionalization, how to better provide services to congregations and to report back on next steps. The meeting was historic – we’ve never had a similar meeting in the history of the Association.

We honored the Rev. Jane Rzepka, retiring senior minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship for her long and dedicated service to the CLF and to UUism.

To Phoenix or not to Phoenix. The listservs have been busy carrying on the debate, various UU and UU-related organizations prepared positions on GA12 in Phoenix – or not. The Board had a meeting to resolve some of the policy divergences around Phoenix. After much negotiating (well into the night, umm, early morning) among advocates for the various positions agreement was reached and a substantial amendment was proposed to the Assembly. With some minor wording changes, here’s the agreed upon text:

“Whereas the state of Arizona has recently enacted a law—SB 1070—that runs counter to our First Principle, affirming the worth and dignity of every person; and

Whereas we have been invited to enter into an historic partnership with Puente and National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) to work for human rights and against racial profiling; and

“Whereas the UUA Bylaws specify that the power to call and locate a General Assembly belongs solely to the UUA Board of Trustees;

Be it resolved, the Assembly hereby:

“1. Calls on the UUA Board to gather Unitarian Universalists for the purposes of witnessing on immigration, racial and economic justice—a “Justice” General Assembly in which business is limited to the minimum required by our bylaws—in June 2012, to be held in Phoenix, AZ.

“2. Calls on the UUA Administration to work with leaders in Arizona UU congregations to establish an Arizona immigration ministry to partner with other groups in Arizona working for immigration reform to strengthen those partnerships in preparation for our arrival in 2012.

“3. Recognizing people with historically marginalized identities will be exposed to increased risk and inaccessibility, instructs the UUA Board to work in accountable relationship with Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM), Latina/o Unitarian Universalist Networking Association (LUUNA), EQUUAL ACCESS, Transgender Religious Professional Unitarian Universalists Together (TRUUST) and other stakeholders to identify measures that can be taken to increase safety and accessibility at the 2012 “Justice” GA.

“4. Calls on the UUA Board to direct the economic impact of our presence in Phoenix toward our partners and allies as much as is feasible.

“5. Calls on the UUA Board to provide the resources needed to build the capacity of Unitarian Universalists to stand in opposition to systemic racism in our congregations, local communities, and in our own lives.”

So what a “Justice GA” and what is the “minimum business” that must be conducted at a GA. Stay tuned – many details to be worked out, but GA12 will not be GA as usual. I expect that almost everything we do there will be focused on immigrant rights including economic, social and legal issues.

It’s no coincidence that we adopted a Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI) entitled, “Immigration, a Moral Imperative.” Expect more information on this soon, but this CSAI will give us all the opportunity to do our homework as we approach GA12.

That’s enuf for now. More soon.