At its meeting on February 21, the Board approved a policy for appointing a Minister Search committee when a vacancy occurs. Our bylaws say merely that the Board appoints the search committee; this policy spells out how that is to happen. Updates about the settled minister search will be provided as they develop.

Questions from Fellowship Town Hall Meeting on January 23, 2022.

At the Town Hall Zoom session on January 23, there were a few questions about the budget (the focus of the meeting) that also related to the minister transition. Here are the questions and the answers.

• Q. Minister’s sabbatical fund: Didn’t Rev. Duffy earn the right to take a sabbatical? Is the unspent money in the Minister’s Sabbatical Reserve ours to use or is it for him?
• A. Yes, he did “earn the right” to take a sabbatical, but Covid made it impractical for him to find appropriate activities to pursue. We had been setting aside in the reserve one month’s compensation each year to cover the cost of paying for a replacement minister while he was away. So those funds belong to the Fellowship to use. We always recognized that if for any reason he did not take a sabbatical we would have funds available to pay for the next minister search.
  
• Q. Funds for minister search: I understand there are funds for the interim minister search. Are there additional funds reserved for the permanent minister search?
  A. We have about $26,000 in the sabbatical reserve fund, of which we’ll use about $10,000 for the interim search. The rest will be available for the settled minister search. According to UUA estimates, this should be almost enough for the two searches and the two sets of relocation expenses. It’s possible a little more would be needed in 2023.

One other question was asked at the Town Hall about the transition.

• Q. What is the Interim Minister process?
• A. You can find out more on the UUFB website (uufbozeman.org). Under both the “Members and Friends” and the “News” tab there is a heading for “Minister Transition.” All documents and updates will be posted there, so check back often. Briefly, we are assembling an electronic packet now and potential ministers are doing the same, and the “match” will happen in late April or early May.

Timeline

Here is the timeline. We are currently between steps 1 and 2, busily working on filling in the Congregational Interim Record Sheet, which we received from the UUA on February 12. We hope to be ready to publish ours on April 7. These dates are from the UUA website: uua.org/careers/ministers/interim

1. Feb 1 – earliest date to submit an e-mail to the Ministry Search System to start the search process. – DONE
2. Apr 7 – earliest date to publish our Congregational Interim Record Sheet
3. Apr 21 – deadline for submitting Congregational Interim Record Sheet
4. May 2 – we receive from the UUA Transitions office the 1st round list of candidates with up to 8 names of those interested in us.
5. May 16 – we must send our list of yes/no/maybe responses for 1st round candidates back to UUA
6. May 18 – by noon Eastern time we must make the offer if we selected one of the 1st round candidates
7. May 18 – 20 – if we haven’t made an offer in 1st round, we let UUA know we want to proceed with the 2nd round
8.  May 23 – we receive the 2nd round list of candidates
9. June 6 – we must send list of yes/no/maybe for 2nd round candidates back to UUA
10. June 8 – by noon Eastern time we must make the offer if we selected one of the 2nd round candidates
11. June 8 – 10 – if we still haven’t made an offer, we set up a consultation with UUA to see what to do next