Staff Board Report 25-11-11

Staff Board Report 

November 11^th, 2025

Introduction

Hello Dear Board,

I am sending you all love as the fall fades into the abundant past and we hear the faint distant trumpets of the holidays approach. It has been a wonderful beginning to the church year. So many wonderful programs, so many new people, so many leaders stepping up and stepping in, so much is going so well. As we will discuss later in the report, we do have some challenges associated with these good beginnings, but those are wonderful challenges to have. 

This is, to be sure, a complicated and trying moment we are facing. I am so grateful for the many ways that we are showing up. In protest, in strategy, in resistance and response. There are so many ways for people to engage, so many ways for people to be supported and held, fed and loved. 

The church is needed now more than ever. Our precious combinations of community and care, inspiration and support, witness and wonder, are lifelines to people in this moment. It is a n honor and a joy to serve you all in this difficult time in the life of our nation and world. 

In this next part, I will touch on the beginning of our 9:00 worship experiment, I will dig into some good challenges we are having in the world of Religious Education, I will share some updates on the Legacy of Slavery Project, I will discuss some of the many ways we are organizing and resisting, and then finally we will have our deep dive into the world of Lifespan RE at First Church. 

9:00 Worship Update  

As many of you know, we have started a fascinating experiment with our 9:00 service. For many years we have had nearly identical music in both the 9:00 and 11:00 services. This year, driven by budgetary constraints around the hiring of Casey, our new accompanist, we decided to invite a rotating bunch of First Church folk musicians to share music at the 9:00 service. It is off to a wonderful start!

We have had a huge number of congregants including (our very own Board Member) Heather Quay, Jon Svetkey, Jason Redi, Richard Curzi, Jane Minassian, Bayard Klimasmith, Matt Meyerchak, Paul Judge, Laura Wooster and Jim Wooster already in the months of September and October. 

The services have been wonderful and most of the musicians have return dates scheduled later in the year. We have been connecting with them well in advance, and many have been learning music especially for the service they are helping create. 

For those of us on the worship team it has been fascinating and joyful to have two very different but both wonderful services on a Sunday. 

Ever since I first came to you all as your minister seven years ago, I have shared my deep love for eclectic music. I cherish so many genres of music and am very enthusiastic, just like Ian and Martha about having a rich variety of music in worship. All I care about is worship being good, engaging, high quality and consistent, and we are achieving these qualities. 

We will report out specific attendance numbers in our Administrative deep dive, but the numbers started small and are growing as the word spreads that 9:00 is also a wonderful service. More soon on the attendance numbers but we are off to a great start with this service. In addition, the volunteer musicians seem to be enjoying the collaborations and seem to be looking forward to their next scheduled worship dates, which is a good sign. 

Good Problems In RE 

It can not be overemphasized enough that the conversations that follow are good problems to have, and that the vast majority of churches would trade problems with us in a heartbeat. That said, they do merit attention and some Board discussion. 

When we hired Rev. Martha two years ago we were in a very troubling place in our ministry to children, youth and families. We had no RE Committee. We had just a few adult volunteers helping in a Sunday morning program which often had just a handful of children in attendance. 

In just a year and a half Rev. Martha has turned the program around. 

We now have a fully staffed and engaged RE Committee helping Martha. We have dozens of adult volunteer teachers engaged in all ages of an RE program which is exponentially larger than just a few years ago. 

And wonderfully, we have reached the sacred tipping point in which people are inviting their friends. We are regularly seeing visiting families who enjoy the church, who’s kids enjoy the program and they return. 

Which was and is our goal. It is perhaps happening more quickly than we thought, but this is what we hoped for. 

And it is coming with some challenges. While Rev. Martha did an incredible job recruiting volunteer teachers for our classes, we still need a few more in order to have rotating and fresh volunteers. In addition, we need more staff support on Sunday mornings. Elliot, our new Youth and RE Coordinator is wonderful and has a full plate already with their very part time role. 

These kinds of moments are crucial. If we can strategize and accommodate this growth it will continue. We can support these families which have arrived and found us, and it will take some investment and intention. Later in this report in the RE Deep Dive Rev. Martha will discuss some possible ways forward. 

Again, these are wonderful challenges! They are a result of our discussions and decisions years ago as a Board, they are a result of Rev. Martha and her RE Committee and her volunteer teachers, they are a result of so many people’s hard work. And how we respond to this moment is crucial. 

The Legacy of Slavery Project 

I am so pleased to report wonderful progress with our Legacy of Slavery Project. We will hear from Gina at our upcoming meeting, but I wanted to share some exciting developments and have you all mark your calendars for our summit on March 21^st. We will be gathering five groups to share their stories of engagement with the legacy of slavery in their communities. 

The UU Urban Ministry, First Parish Cambridge, First Unitarian in Providence, Kings Chapel and First Church Belmont will all share our stories. We will share about the impetus of engaging in this work, some of the learnings and challenges we have faced, where we are in our processes, and what comes next. 

We will invite our whole community, members of all the presenting congregations and members from the wider world. This will be an invaluable opportunity especially for groups which are just starting to look at these issues together, as well as a great chance for these congregations to learn from one another. More soon on this as well as the other plans for this year from the Legacy of Slavery Project when they come to our upcoming meeting. 

Our Resistance and Response 

This is, to be sure, a unique and challenging moment. There are so many needs for organizing and action, for resistance and replenishment. I am deeply grateful for our Social Action Team and their hard work this year. We recently had a wonderful zoom event inviting the community to engage with some of our ongoing projects and initiatives. 

The opportunities were many, and clustered in the overarching areas of Defending our Democracy, Standing up for Immigrants, Fighting for Our Climate and Supporting Our Community. There were lots of new people there, seeking to engage more deeply. And in addition to new people engaging, it was also just a lovely reminder of all the good work which is afoot. This is an overwhelming moment to be sure, and there are so many ways for us all to help and to engage, and our hard-working Social Action Committee is helping pave the way for so much engagement. 

Building a Belmont Community Fridge

One new initiative which has come our way is the possibility of building a Belmont Community Fridge and hosting it on our campus. As you may know, in Belmont there are 700 families who receive SNAP benefits, representing 1,100 individuals who are facing food insecurity. As we know this reality is only getting worse with recent measures from our government. 

And so, Amber Porter, a new leader in the community came to me with an idea to start a Community Fridge in Belmont. She has met with the Belmont Town government who is open to and encouraging the project. She is looking for a home for it and hopes that we will be that home. 

A very successful Community Fridge has been in existence in Watertown at what used to be the Methodist church there. 

We will share a more specific proposal from her at our meeting, but the idea is that anyone can bring food to donate, and anyone can come to take food at any time. While the existing food pantry is wonderful, the hours are sometimes limiting. People have found the openness and accessibility of the Community Fridge model effective. 

What we would be asked to provide is the space for a fridge, a well-lit space outside with a hard-wired power source (more than just an extension cord for safety purposes) and volunteers to help manage it. In addition, we would be asked to build a shed to house the fridge. We will provide specs and some images from Watertown’s location. 

My daughter’s Girl Scout troop helped to fill the Watertown Community Fridge a number of times and loved the project. It is a concrete, hyper-local way to help meet this moment and make a real difference in the lives of our neighbors. 

For now, at this upcoming Board Meeting we can discuss it and if you all are open, empower a group consisting of members of the property care team, Social Action team and staff to come up with a more detailed proposal including location, costs, volunteer staffing plans and so on. The idea of any of our Belmont children going hungry in this already difficult moment, makes me so sad, and anything we can do to help meet this need I am very happy to do. I look forward to our discussion. 

Conclusion

And so, dear Board, here we are. 

About to hurtle into another holiday season, on the precipice of the gauntlet, full of so much beauty and so much connection. Full of so many sweet traditions and reminders of all that is most important. 

I am so grateful to you all. 

I am so grateful to you and all our other leaders, volunteers of every stripe, brand new members stepping into service for the very first time, longtime leaders enjoying their first break in many years, singers preparing soon for this year’s major music service, musical volunteers climbing scaffolding with steamers in hand preparing projection screens, Friday Folders coming together to fold their many thousandth Orders of Services, soup and spaghetti makers pouring their love into food and serving it out freely, protesters and uprisers showing up and showing out, gentle visits to our many beloveds coming to the end of their lives, there are so many ways we are showing up. 

There are so many ways we are serving one another and our world. 

And I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve you all, to service this moment, to rise to this occasion together. 

So much love to you all, 

Chris 

And now, for the Lifespan Religious Education Department deep dive…

From Rev. Martha Durkee-Neuman                                                                   Assistant Minister for Lifespan Faith Formation 

Hello board! What a joy to get to write to you as we settle into this Fall. I am delighted to be in my second year of ministry here at First Church and what a year it is shaping up to be. Below I will detail some key program updates, as well as the strategic considerations that come with them, and asks I have for you all. We are off to an exciting start to the year. 

Key High-Level Update: Growth (ahh!) 

The biggest update I have to share with you all is that the Religious Education Program for children and youth at FCB is exploding in growth. YAY! This is really exciting. It means a lot of what we have put in place is working, it also comes with some new strategic challenges that are outlined as well below. 

I spent last year bringing a new model and structure of the Religious Education program to FCB and organizing the infrastructure needed to set up volunteering, new children’s classes, and cross-church collaboration. Now that this model is more or less in place and becoming more integrated across the community, momentum is building and the numbers of children and youth attending are increasing in many different program areas. 

Children’s Religious Education

Last year we had 48 children registered for the CRE program and attendance across a Sunday morning usually varied between 15 to 30 children on an average Sunday. This year we currently have nearly 60 children registered in CRE and that number doesn’t actually reflect all the children who are engaging regularly in the program, that number is higher. Every Sunday we have new families, children are bringing their friends, new families are coming to explore our program offerings and check out the community. So each week, steadily throughout the Fall, the numbers of children participating in RE have increased. 

CRE Monthly Structure 

Here is an outline, as a reminder, of the structure across each month. This program model is chosen intentionally to meet several goals: create intergenerational community, create sustainable volunteer asks on participating adults, meet different developmental and educational needs of children, and foster collaboration across the congregation. Each Month:

• We have one Sunday where the faith formation program is Multigenerational Worship. This means children are invited to stay in the Sanctuary and take part in worship. A coloring station and games are available in the Sanctuary. The nursery is open for children 0-6. Additional programming is not offered to encourage participation in worship. The intention is to create multigenerational worship experiences, be one church together, and help children to know and experience that worship is also for them. 

• One Sunday a month the faith formation program is All Ages Children's Chapel. This means all children depart together after the Story For All Ages and join in one class together to reflect on the worship themes and do a lesson or game together. This program will happen during both the 9am and 11am services. This helps children connect to each other across ages and to the worship themes the community is exploring so they can continue these conversations in their families at home. 

• Two Sundays a month, we will have Curriculum Sundays in which children will be invited to take part in Age-based Religious Education classes. These classes will primarily happen during the 11am service but a one-room schoolhouse style RE class also happens during the 9am service. More information on these classes next.

Current CRE Sunday Morning Program Structure

• Nursery Care — Alex Andrews Johnson is now our Welcoming Coordinator (previously Alex was our nursery care provider), so we have hired adult childcare provider Maura Holt-Ling who started in September

  • Nursery care needs have grown. Last year some Sundays it was just Rowan in the nursery. This year there are regularly 4-6 babies and toddlers in the nursery. There have been a few Sundays when our adult childcare provider has been absent and our teenage Youth Helpers were overwhelmed. I am working to get some additional support for the nursery by way of adult volunteers but I am also looking into potentially hiring more support. 

• Spirit Play Class (preK-K-1st) — Eleanor Sugarman lead teacher plus helpers

  • This class is open to preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders (geared to children ages 0-6). This is a Montessori-based class centering a story and wondering questions. Children are invited to engage the story, explore curiosity, and have open play.

  • Current attendance: 10 - 12 kids

• Elementary School Class (2nd - 4th) — MacKenzie Davis + Laurie Graham

  • This class is doing a curriculum this Fall on UU values called JETPIG Adventure, following the adventures of a plush pig navigating the galaxy while learning about justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, and generosity. We use games, crafts, art projects, stories, and other activities to help our young learners explore these values together.

  • Current attendance: 8 - 10 kids

• Middle School Class (5th-8th) — Doug Massida + Elliott Barnhill

  • This Fall, this class is exploring our values through a curriculum called UU Values Challenge. This is an active, experiential-based program designed for all types of learners. They will be answering the question: “How do our Unitarian Universalist Values challenge us — and what tools do they call and guide us to create, as we take on life’s challenges?”

  • In the Spring — the 5th/6th Graders will complete the OWL program with Elliott, and the 7th/8th Graders will continue as Junior High Group with Doug

  • Current attendance: 6 - 12 kids

• Coming Of Age (9th) — Stefan Frank + Martha Durkee-Neuman as lead teachers, Leslie Talmadge as regular substitute 

  • This year we are offering the Coming Of Age program for our 9th Graders. This is a wonderful UU program that invites our young people to explore their values, with the support of a mentor and cohort of peers. They will spend the year reflecting on what is important to them, what they wonder about, and who they are. At the end of the year, they will be invited to present a faith statement to the congregation in worship.

  • Attendance: 5 youth are registered for this class

Youth Group

Our Youth Group has been really strong this year. Last year 10 youth were registered and attendance was between 3 and 8 kids per Sunday evening. This year 14 youth are registered and attendance is between 12 - 14 youth per Sunday evening. The youth have been engaged and excited about being in the group and programming has been strong. Elliott and I lead the group together with support from youth advisor Lee Sisson. As this group grows and strengthens, we are in need of additional youth advisors and are working on recruiting them. But the youth are active, engaged, and participatory and it has been a joy to watch them gel with each other and form a new configuration of this group. 

For capacity reasons, we are not currently organizing a service trip this year. Rather we will engage in City Reach – a local program designed to build awareness around homelessness, and we will complete service projects in our own community. We are exploring taking a bonding trip to a local site in collaboration with the Youth Group from the Cambridge UU church. 

Our Whole Lives (OWL) 

We will launch two cohorts of the Our Whole Lives Sexuality Education program in the Spring. The 5th and 6th graders will complete their level of OWL January through March with Lynn Rosenbaum and Elliott Barnhill as the lead teachers. 

The 8th and 9th graders will complete their level of OWL January through June of 2026. This year we are running this program in collaboration with Kyle Belmont of First Parish in Watertown. Jennie Fitch, Mac Perkins-High, and Beth Tappen-deFrees are the lead teachers. 

Ways In: Anecdotal Evidence of How Families are Engaging

There are a lot of different ways that families are finding their way into our community at FCB. Sometimes families are simply exploring options for the spiritual nourishment of their children. But other times, there are specific pathways to connect. Below are a few examples of these pathways. 

Story One: Through Ritual – Through virtue of my role being that of a minister, I have connection and visibility to families from the larger community who are seeking ritual support. For example, I recently did a memorial service for a family from the larger Belmont community who felt supported by the children’s play area in the parlor. We incorporated it into the memorial service. The family has a connection to other children at church and after the service, started coming regularly, engaging, and participating in RE. 

Story Two: Through the Preschool – Last year, Iris Ponte from the Henry Frost School and I collaborated on a few key events between their community and ours in order to build relationships between us. This year a family from the preschool has been regularly coming to FCB for worship and RE because they encountered us through this collaboration. 

Story Three: Through Friends – As the program grows and stabilizes, children are starting to bring and invite their friends to check out programming. The pancake breakfast was an opportunity where a few families brought friends to check out the church. The Halloween party also had several new families who were exploring the church for the first time through friends. Several of these families have now started coming more regularly. 

There are many different avenues through which new children and families are finding and engaging with the church. When a program starts to grow and energize in this way, that growth and energy gives way to more. With Alex’s – our new Welcoming Coordinator – support we are working to help these new families land and connect. 

Multigenerational Programming

The opportunities for multigenerational engagement and community-building have also grown throughout last year and into this year. The Halloween Party which now invites families to celebrate together grew in numbers this year. We are collaborating with the Music Program to offer a joint Holiday Christmas concert and party. 

Spaghetti Dinners on the first Monday of each month have also grown to serve more children and their families as well as non-parenting adults. Last year these dinners were mostly serving families of children in the children’s choirs and this year have expanded to include families who are not members of the music program. Monday’s dinner on November 3rd fed 115 plates of spaghetti! The energy was wonderful, connective, and a lot of fun. 

Strategic Considerations Due to Growth

This shift in program numbers and energy is wonderful. It has also created some strategic considerations for me as I work to manage a program of this size within my hours and create infrastructure to handle the numbers of kids and their needs. 

We have grown the volunteer engagement in CRE from 0 adult volunteers to 14 last year and 16 volunteers this year. However, there are more needs for volunteers as the classrooms grow in size and capacity. As volunteers schedules shift, we need regular one-off subs in classrooms. We were able to find enough volunteers to run one section of OWL volunteer-led, but the other two teachers for the second section of OWL are paid. With more trained OWL facilitators, we could run this section also with volunteers. 

The multigenerational community-building events also need volunteer support, including chefs for Monday night dinners, helpers for holiday events, and decorators for the RE hallways. Over 20 different volunteers have engaged so far this year in helping with these kinds of events. And, there are so many more people in our community who want to volunteer, help, and support the RE program, and one of the challenges is creating the infrastructure that connects volunteers to needs. 

Youth Helpers in Sunday Morning CRE

The Sunday morning CRE program relies both on adult volunteers and on Youth Helpers, who are youth of the congregation who are paid to provide childcare, RE teaching, and support. Last year, we had about 5 regular Youth Helpers. This year we have 4 regular helpers. However, 6 youth from the Youth Group have expressed interest in becoming paid Sunday morning Youth Helpers. We are currently working on training and onboarding these young people. This will help support the growing Sunday morning program with additional classroom management support. 

Our new Youth Helpers need a bit of additional training. As the nursery grows, we need to skill up our young people. I have scheduled an Infant CPR/First Aid/Babysitting Class with the Red Cross to come to FCB in December and provide this training. The cost is $1985 for 10 participants. I am working to figure out how to fit this capacity-building cost into the RE budget. Having additional Sunday morning help will be a great support to the program, particularly in the nursery. And skilling up our young people is also an investment in their futures. 

Adult Programs

We are blessed at FCB with an amazing and robust set of Adult Programming Offerings. Because of the hard work that Lillian did over many years, we have both a wide variety of strong and regular adult programs, as well as a skilled group of leaders capable of organizing and liaising between groups and programs. 

This year, Nicole Griffin and Karen Brennan are the two co-chairs of the Adult Programs Committee. They are incredibly skilled and passionate leaders who are helping the committee adjust to a new structure of having ministry staff rather than programmatic staff support this area of congregational life. The members of the committee include: Ed Siegfried, Mark Davis, Martha Spaulding, Debbie Dobbins, Karl Klasson, Susan Galli, Bill Blumberg, and Jean O’Farrell. They are all working diligently to support the ongoing strength of both the adult program groups, as well as coordinate one-time events. 

We already have a full calendar of Adult Program offerings this fall including: Date With Death Club, a special history presentation, a WordSong music event in collaboration with the Music Committee, a Protest Music event in collaboration with the Music Committee and Social Action Committee, and a program featuring John Bell. We are working on supporting the forming of new groups, a new in-person meditation group, an environmental writing group, a poetry reflection group, the Living With Health Challenges group, a group exploring the spirituality of near death experiences, and the memoir writing group. That isn’t even to mention all the existing and ongoing groups such as the garden group, history group, the film discussion group, Family Members of Adult Children Who Are Struggling, and the Alliance. 

Nicole and Karen are working closely with Raeann to help streamline the publicity and connection to the community for all the adult programs offerings and this is going well. They are also working with Alex to help new people get oriented and connected to the offerings in the church that help them integrate into the community. 

As we work to adjust to a shift from programmatic staff support to ministry staff support, we are so blessed with the incredible leadership in the Adult Programs Committee who are stepping up to the plate in amazing ways to build new systems, skill up around the church-wide communications processes and databases, and identify needs and gaps. I feel enthusiastic and hopeful about the direction we are moving with the committee and with the program offerings. 

Small Group Ministry also continues to be strong with many ongoing groups that have been connected for many years. I am working on developing a system to help new folks connect into groups and help new groups to potentially form. This is ongoing and an exciting project. 

Staffing Structure Shift

Last year, the Lifespan Learning Department staff included myself (portfolio: children’s, youth, adult learning programs as well as congregational life ministry), Lilian (portfolio: adult programs), and Raeann (portfolio: youth ministry). This year the department staff has shifted to include me and Elliott whose portfolio includes children’s RE administrative support and youth ministry administrative support. 

With this shift this year, I am attentive to how staff time and capacity is used to support Lifespan Learning Programs at FCB. We are so lucky to have such amazing volunteer leadership across program areas and much of my leadership is focused on empowering and training volunteers. 

Elliott – our new RE Program and Youth Group Coordinator – started in August. He is wonderful and has been doing a great job at skilling up and learning the ropes of the congregation. He is particularly skilled in administration and organizational infrastructure. Having him on staff helps further my ability to devote my time to non-administrative functions of my ministry and helps build capacity across the Lifespan Learning Department. 

Religious Education Committee

The RE Committee has been a huge support to me this year and is a strong team of committed folks. The members include: Lauren Smith, Pam Eggart, Karsten Kuppenbender, Donna Ruvolo, Abby Donner, and Vicki Amalfitano. This year Mackenzie Davis stepped off the committee in order to lead a Sunday morning classroom and we welcomed Vicki Amalfitano to the committee. Lauren Smith is chairing the committee and we are working on bringing in an additional co-chair. They are an incredibly thoughtful, supportive, and driven group of people and have been helping me think through the strategic considerations of the RE program as it grows. 

Budget Considerations 

This year’s RE budget is $5,000, a decrease of $2,000 from last year. Last year, as I was still assessing all the different areas of the program, I did not spend the entire budget. This year I am working on getting some OWL facilitators and volunteer teachers access to training. I will also need to fund the Red Cross Safety course for the new Youth Helpers. I am working on navigating this into the budget with also the program supply needs of a growing program. 

With the growth of the program, what has become evident to me is the need for a little more additional Sunday morning support. With training up new Youth Helpers, this will build capacity there, and the support of another adult would go a long way in helping the babies in the nursery and having an adult that is deployable to other classrooms as necessary – especially given that Elliott and I are both leading a classroom. 

The nursery care line item in the budget has $$6,691. The cost for the year of one adult childcare provider in the nursery is $3,960. Usually I schedule two Youth Helpers per Sunday, the cost per year of this model is $7,200. If I were to add one additional Youth Helper to the schedule for the remaining Sundays, starting in December, it would cost an additional $2,240. If I were to hire an additional adult childcare provider in the nursery, starting in December, it would cost $2,700. 

I do believe that hiring additional support staff in the nursery and Sunday morning RE program would greatly benefit the program, decrease pressure on the volunteers and on staff to find substitute teachers, and create a model of deployable teen and adult helpers for the program. An increase of about $2,500 for this line item would support the continuing growth in this program. 

Martha’s RE Goals for This YearThe following are some of the goals that I set for this year in partnership with advice and guidance from the RE Committee. 

• Integrate children and youth into worship and other areas of congregational life, focusing on them feeling at home and comfortable at church and building community with each other and with FCB

• Support RE volunteers in deepening their relationships to teaching, approaching teaching RE as spiritual practice, work on empowering volunteers to manage classrooms and curriculum 

• Support onboarding new staff person Elliott as we work together to strengthen Youth Group and build relationships between youth and between youth and the church 

• Build relationships and help bridge gaps between programmatic areas in the congregation

Conclusion

I had a wonderful time arriving here last year, getting to know you all, and building up a new program model for Religious Education at First Church. Now that we are one year in, there are so many new opportunities and directions that are blossoming. I am so excited about all that is ahead in Lifespan Learning and enthusiastic about all that is possible for us. 

Now that the program model is better known in the community, it is able to have legs and momentum of its own. I have some work cut out ahead of me to sustain the momentum, nurture this growth, and transition us into a model grounded in sustainability and longevity. I am so grateful for all the support the congregation has shown for this vision of what integrated, community-based, religious education can look like for learners and journeyers of all ages and I am thrilled at all the possibilities ahead.