In early 2020, before the pandemic wrought so many changes in congregational life, we began the process of “calling” our minister, Reverend Nicoline Guerrier.

As the UUA Transitional Ministry Handbook states, “A called minister becomes less like a ‘consultant’ and evolves into a vested leadership partner, mutually engaged with the congregation for the fulfillment of its long-term mission.”

While the pandemic slowed our call process down, we nonetheless held small and large group meetings over Zoom with congregation members to discuss the idea of calling Rev. Nicoline. There was overwhelming support for this step and no opposition. The only issue that we faced was the challenge of developing a financial plan to support a minister long term, without drawing down our savings. With the recent sale of our Elm St. house and the establishment of an endowment fund, the Board believes that we are now in the financial position to move forward with the call process.

Therefore, we have scheduled a meeting for Sunday, April 10, at 11:45 a.m. (following the Sunday service) to hold a congregational vote on calling Rev. Nicoline.

If it is not possible for you to attend the meeting but you want to vote, you can vote by proxy. Send your vote by e-mail to Connie Shemo at shemoconnie@gmail.com. Put PROXY VOTE in capital letters in the subject line. We will count all votes received by the beginning of the meeting (April 10 at 11:45 a.m.)

However, please be aware that if you vote by proxy, you will not be counted in the quorum. We need a quorum for any decisions made at Congregational Meetings to be valid.

So please come for this momentous occasion if at all possible. We promise to keep the meeting short!

The Zoom link will be the same as that for our Sunday service (http://bit.ly/UUFP_Service).