MISSION STATEMENT

The Unitarian Coastal Fellowship: building a community that fosters free religious inquiry and universal social justice.

LONG RANGE PLAN SUMMARY
[A copy of the Long Range Plan adopted in October, 2006 can be

obtained by calling the church office.)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Unitarian Coastal Fellowship is a congregation in transition from a family to a pastoral church. Our new long range plan strives to meet the need to assimilate new members and friends, enhance religious experience and spiritual growth, and provide opportunities for fuller participation in the life of the Fellowship. This plan is built around a commitment to engage in the mission of the Fellowship: Building a community that fosters free religious inquiry and universal social justice. Four areas of church life where energy is focused have been identified: Governance, Programs, Facilities, and Staffing. We have proposed a series of changes in direction in these four areas over the next five years.

GOVERNANCE  The governance structure will be changed to reorganize the Board of Trustees as a strategic policy board and to establish a Leadership Council of committee chairs, chaired by the vice president, to act as a managerial board for activities. The newly approved decision process will be fully implemented. More effective governance will be achieved through development of a year round calendar, a database of essential Fellowship information, multiyear planning budgets, and timely review of changes in policy. A technologically capable system will be developed to communicate this information in a timely fashion within the congregation. Volunteer and staff roles will be integrated, and training formalized and enhanced.

PROGRAMMING  Programming encompasses all that occurs within the walls of the Unitarian Coastal Fellowship and without as this congregation works to fulfill our mission to serve our communities and better live out the seven UU principles. Our programs may be broadly described as educational, informational, spiritual, social outreach, and community building. We anticipate that by 2009, the Fellowship will have in place a Leadership Council charged to work with the Board of Trustees and the congregation to establish, implement, integrate, support, evaluate, and retire programs on an ongoing basis. Such a council is essential since there is now interest in more programs than we have current resources to support. The Leadership Council will include at a minimum, chairs of the worship, music, aesthetic, religious education, membership, facilities, and social outreach committees. The Leadership Council will be a focal point for ideas to better accomplish our mission.

FACILITIES  Facilities encompass the spaces used by the congregation and others to conduct the programs and activities that are the life of the Unitarian Coastal Fellowship. We anticipate that, within the next five years, the present Fellowship facilities are likely to be inadequate to meet our minimum needs for expected growth in membership, programs, and staff. Because expansion of our current facility, on its present site, is both impractical and cost prohibitive, we propose to acquire property in or near Morehead City that can be used to build a new facility, if the Fellowship so decides. The congregation will need to be a managing partner in the development of plans for that decision. Maintenance and care for our current facilities will need to be adequately funded in the interim.

STAFFING Over the next five years, we will add two part-time paid positions to the staff: Director of Religious Education, and Office Manager. Our current paid staff are the Minister and the Music Director with a contracted custodian. A personnel committee will be established to develop hiring policies and procedures and to prepare job descriptions for these positions. Equitable compensation will be our goal in striving to meet UUA salary guidelines. These positions are intended to redirect the minister's time to higher priority activities, to facilitate better communication within and outside of the Fellowship, to enhance volunteer effectivenss by providing professional expertise, and to clarify decision making and accountability in order to maintain effective operations.

These are ambitious goals that will require enhanced financial and volunteer support to bring to fruition. They will require us to change from the ways we have done things in the past and to open our hearts and minds to new possibilities. We will need to engage in open and vigorous conversation with one another and to enter into the future with hope, mutual respect, shared goodwill, and a spirit of generosity.