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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