Are You Thinking About GA Yet?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but I’m committed to reenergizing this trustee blog as a key tool of my communication with the people and congregations that I represent as the Metro New York District trustee.  For those of you who didn’t know your trustee had a blog, she does! Our District Executive, Andrea Lerner and I, along with Laurie Golson, intrepid District Administrator, are putting our heads together to make Trustee Talk a more obvious source of information for you (perhaps an RSS feed is in order?)

In the meantime, let me start by reminding you all that it’s time to start thinking about General Assembly 2009–this year in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah, from June 24 through June 28.

Yes, GA is a long way away, and finances may be a concern for some of you.  But let me encourage every one of you who has enough vacation time to get away to start thinking about coming to our annual meeting of congregations.  I’m as excited about going to this year’s GA as I was unhappy about last year’s GA.  Why? There are so many reasons I can’t blog about them all, but I’m glad to give some highlights:

• Though Salt Lake City is the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), key supporters of the dreaded Proposition 8, most of the people who live in Salt Lake are NOT Mormons.  We who are liberal religious people have an opportunity to model what an open, affirming and positive religious gathering can be in a city that probably doesn’t get to see that a great deal.
• The wonderful lay leadership education module known as UU University is now embedded directly into General Assembly at no extra charge.  Instead of coming two days early and paying an extra fee, registrants get a choice of learning tracks that can help them be better leaders back home.
• This year’s Ware Lecturer is a Metro District resident:  the fabulous Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University (and part of the Princeton congregation!)  You’ve seen and heard her brilliant political and social analysis on MSNBC throughout the last Presidential election cycle.  If you come to GA, you can hear her in person.
• We get to vote for a new UUA President!  The Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman and the Rev. Peter Morales are both candidates for leadership in our movement. Ministers and delegates to General Assembly are the voters who will determine our new president. (Yes, absentee voting is permitted, but isn’t it more fun to come so you can see our democratic process in action?)

I’ll have more to say in a future post about my own Presidential choice.  But for now, let me encourage you to find your own reasons to attend our annual General Assembly in Salt Lake City; I look forward to seeing you at our District Ingathering!