By Linda Fippin, President of the Board of Trustees
This Monday was the first day of spring, though it didn’t feel all that spring-like, and winter took a last couple of bites on Monday and Tuesday nights. At least I hope they were the last bites. I do not want to see another freeze warning for a good long time.
A lot of things come along with springtime, some welcome, like blooming dogwoods and returning hummingbirds, some not so welcome, like tax time and whatever it is in my yard that gives me itchy welts on my face when I start working outside. At Westside, springtime also means meetings. If you are a member of Westside, you will have received the announcement in the March 15th newsletter for the Congregational Meeting this coming Sunday, March 26th. Unless you are so new to Westside that you have never attended a Congregational Meeting before, you will know that this is the meeting at which the congregation votes for members of Board of Trustees and the Nominating and Endowment Committees. It is also the time when you will have the opportunity to discuss and ask questions about the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. Then, before you know it, there will be another Congregational Meeting on May 21st when the congregation will vote on the final budget.
I don’t know anyone who is an actual fan of meetings, though, as they say, there is no accounting for taste, so there may be some meeting lovers out there somewhere. But the two Congregational Meetings allow the members of Westside to have a voice in matters important to the functioning of the church, so please attend if you can. In person is best, but there will be an option to attend by Zoom. If you cannot attend at all, you can vote by proxy. You can find information on how to attend by Zoom and how to vote by proxy in the March 15th newsletter.
While I am on the subject of meetings, the reconstituted Stewardship Committee met for the first time last week. This committee is composed of representatives from what we are calling the 4 M’s: Ministries, Membership, Marketing and, last but not least, Money. The purpose of this committee is to guide Westside in both the short term and long term to meet demographic, technological and sociological changes and ensure that Westside can not only survive, but thrive well into the future. Guide is the operative word here. The challenges that these changes present cannot be addressed by directives from above. Instead, they will require collaboration between Westside’s members, staff and church leaders. So stay tuned.