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The Seven Eight Principles
  1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

  2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

  3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

  4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

  5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

  6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

  7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

  8. And our Eighth Principle... We affirm and promote the following 8th Principle:

    Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by building a diverse, multicultural Beloved Community that by our actions accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.

Board Covenant | April Board Minutes
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Board/8th Principle Team News: Covenant and Widening the Circle

In the past couple of years, we have changed our name and added a tagline to better reflect who we have become, and have revised our Mission and Vision to align with these and represent where we see ourselves heading and how we hope to get there in the near future. The last of this kind of foundational document is our Congregational Covenant, which specifies how we want to be with each other as we pursue our Mission and Vision. After the "Dinners" for 8th hosted by our 8th Principle Team we hope you will participate in a Town Meeting, probably on March 20th after the worship service, to revise and fine tune our Covenant. Contact Cathy M or Bruce PJ if you would like to be part of a team to draft a revision. We expect to then have a congregational vote on it, probably at the Budget meeting in May.

You are probably aware that we had conversations based on the UUA Commission on Institutional Change report called "Widening the Circle of Concern" about trying to dismantle aspects of our culture and ways of doing things that are Eurocentric or suggestive of white supremacy culture rather than reflecting the 8th Principle that we have adopted. We met every other week from January through June last year.

Cathy M wrote a report summarizing those sessions, and we had a discussion open to all of our congregation in December about where to go next. The Board and the 8th Principle Team are working to come up with a process for continuing these explorations. There seem to be 4 major areas so far that came up in this earlier work:
  1. Radical Hospitality,
  2. Decision-Making/Governance (such as possibly shifting to use Modified Consensus),
  3. Leadership Development (including how the Nominating Committee works), and
  4. Communication, plus all other aspects of congregational life.
The idea is to look at these areas of our life together, and brainstorm how we could do things in a way that is more inclusive of, and comfortable for, for example, people of color and Trans/nonbinary folks. In other words, look at each with an 8th Principle lens, and brainstorm how we might be able to be more inclusive at all levels of what we do. All congregants are invited to, and encouraged to, participate in any of these planning activities. Look in the newsletter for when events will be happening.
— Bruce & Cathy
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