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January Board Report

From Janice Zazinski

Church Administrator










A belated Happy New Year to all of you and thanks for all the work you do. 

I’ve been working closely with the Membership Database Committee,

Martha Read, and Mark Thurber to get accurate contribution statements in

the mail by January 31. I also ensure staff and contractors get their tax forms

on time as well. 

I’m also doing some support for our hardworking Stewardship and Auction

Committees though they are all mostly self-sufficient.

Something that’s come up on my radar recently is building security, and

Laurie Graham and I have met to go over the Belmont Police Department’s

recommendations to see what we can do to ensure the building is accessible

when it needs to be and secure at other times.

With Brian Caputo’s help, we should have a summer lease for the BASEC

program over to them by early February. At their request and with Brian’s

agreement, they will have a three-year lease with us to ensure continuity for

their program staff and families. They are wonderful tenants to have.

The UUA’s retirement plan will have a new plan administrator called

Empower, a switch away from TIAA CREF. This switch will happen

to start in February and be finalized by March. While that switch is

happening, there will be some training I need to do to ensure we are able to

make pension contributions correctly. The UUA will be providing those

trainings soon.

I feel like there is so much more I could get into, but I’ll stop here.


From Ian Garvie

Director of Music

As I write this, I am just back from a much-needed vacation, where I spent

four days in the Colorado Rockies, skiing with some family members. The

sun is streaming through the windows, and I’m feeling rested and

rejuvenated. 


The winter is always a time of rest and planning for the music program. So

much has just happened, with the musical, the Christmas services, and the

first Major Music service. The next few major events are in March and

beyond, and while it feels quiet, there is still much to do behind the scenes to

prepare for what’s coming next. 

A group of parents will be meeting soon to begin talking about next year’s

musical, and starting to organize all of the tasks that need to be done to make

it even more of a success than this year. One of the challenges this year was

the number of tasks that fell to me, personally, because of a lack of

organization. Our goal is to have systems in place so that the parent body

can organize most of the tasks such as set building, food, supervision,

programs, setup, etc.

Planning is also underway for the Children’s Choir Festival, a day-long

music festival and activity in May for all of our kids’ choir members. We’ll

have games, activities, concerts, and more. Some of Boston’s best musicians

and teachers will be involved, as well as some guest choirs. 

The spring Major Music service is right around the corner on March 19th, so

Camila and I have already started hiring an orchestra for that. We’ll be