The Unitarian Annual Meetings

This month we’re looking at ‘The Unitarian Annual Meetings’, which three members of our congregation attended this year, including our treasurer (Sarah Boyce), our media manager (Robin Rees) and this year's delegate and Worship Development Coordinator, Natalie Davies. Representing and voting on behalf of South-East Wales Unitarian Society was Zac Baker. So what actually are the ‘Annual Meetings’, and what happens there? Sarah Boyce shares her take…

The Unitarian Annual meetings (4th-6th April) is the biggest event for UK Unitarians and visitors from overseas in the year’s calendar. This year it was held at the Staverton Park Hotel, Northamptonshire.

Above: The beautiful view from one of the bedroom windows

For me, the Annual Meetings succeed in mixing a rich dough as well as an assortment of loaves (bread analogy used by Liz Slade in her opening Chief Officer’s report!) The magical yeast is I believe the worship that binds the sessions together with morning devotions at 7.30 am before breakfast (If you’re up and ready), devotions before plenary sessions, and the day ending with Peace Vespers, the Anniversary Service or Closing Worship. How great it is to sing with hundreds of other Unitarians with an inspiring choir at the Anniversary Service too.

We had loaves concerning Worship (fab session from Erika Hewitt, Minister of Worship Arts for the Unitarian Universalist Association) and outward looking loaves for areas like social and climate justice. There was a battle of baton loaves (productive debate in the Motions) over the stance of UK Unitarians over issues like AI, No More Deaths campaign and events in Israel and Gaza.

There was an unexpectedly hot oven debate bubbling up from the Executive Committee over funding for the Innovation Challenge in what should have been a straightforward procedural motion over the accounts. I valued the support for our own smaller congregational ovens through the Thriving Congregations Workshop and introduction to the new Congregational Toolkit which will be accessed on the GA website.

The bakers need to socialise and network too; we snatched time for this when we could such as in queues, corridors, mealtimes and so on. I regret not having stamina for the bar at the end of the day. We all grabbed chances for fellowship to meet those we knew already and those met for the first time.

Liz pointed out that our Unitarian bread needs to be nourishing. Tastes change and maybe the loaves for future generations need to be different bread. We may need to let go of some loaves. As good ancestors we need to pass on the yeast for bread of the future generations.

There must have been many other terrific workshops but it’s only possible to go to one out of a choice of four held at the same time!! My highlights were the following:

·       Opening Words by Liz Slade, Chief Officer

·       All the debates for the Motions

·       Social Justice Network; Mental Health in Children and Adolescents, Professor Dubicka

·       Keynote Lecture: How can we become good ancestors? Roman Krznaric

·       Worship Workshop, Erika Hewitt

·       Thriving Congregations, GA Staff

If you’re interested in getting a more in-depth idea of some of the talks and services, you can find them on the People So Bold podcast, available on Spotify here. You can also read all about them thanks to ‘Roving Reporter’, Louise Reeves, of Newcastle Unitarians. Read Louise’s fantastic reports here.