REPORTS for 2025 Annual Meeting March 9th
Our Community of Ministry Teams –
Highlights of 2024
USCL is Love in Action
Thank you to Each of You
who serve with such kindness & love
USCL ADMINISTRATION TEAM, Facilitator Jeff Benoit Highlight: Expanded Venue Rentals
Moved from QuickBooks desktop to QuickBooks online, continued to improve tracking of rental activities, kept a watchful eye on income and expenses, and fine-tuned operations for optimum efficiencies. Our staff for cleaning has been wonderfully flexible in adapting to the additional needs created by renting out our facility. Thank you Lisa Haston and LuAnne Champion.
Sub Team Venue Rental: The facility rental reached new heights this year, helped by joining “Choose Lansing” and new business from organizations, as well as showers, parties and weddings. New rental income exceeded budget by almost 300%. A dependable and hard-working crew have made tremendous contributions to this success. Thank you Chris Janson, Jill and Greg Dening, Karla Janing, Greg Edwards, Donnette Pinkerton, , Lisa Haston, LuAnne Champion for being such a great crew and a special thank you to Carol Case and Tricoci Chaney for taking on our weekly rental responsibilities.
USCL FACILITIES TEAM, Facilitator Jerry Podany Highlight: Completed upgrading Lower-Level Lodge
A year for some major facilities projects – new roofing (2/3 covered by our insurance), refurbishing of pump house (donations), as well as regular maintenance of our grounds and facilities. The lower-level lodge project was a huge accomplishment involving the activity room flooring and painting, wall repair, new restroom cabinets, toilet fixtures, partitions, flooring and lighting. The capital improvements were made possible by the generous donations of our congregation. We also installed several donated benches to our grounds, upgraded lighting in the Great Hall and added security cameras on the grounds.
Programmable thermostats were added to the Great Hall, an eco-friendly and convenient improvement. Maintenance activities encompass keeping our stable of lawn mowers and golf carts running, scoping our rain drains to minimize water entering our building, tending to the flower gardens, the never-ending job of gathering broken branches from the ground, mowing the lawns, carpet cleaning and maintenance cleaning, window washing and window repairs and more. All this happens because of the dedicated trio of Jerry Podany, Stacey Ames and Tom Cody, plus mower of the lawn Craig Young, and Jane Cloos, Chrissie Shearer, Jill & Greg Dening and Carol Maynard who adopted flower beds. If we didn’t have a community who loved and cherished our campus, it would not be the gem that it is.
Sub Team of Facilities: Design: facilitator Susan Winkelstern Highlight: Lowel Level Lodge Remodel.
The team continues to coordinate permanent décor as well as seasonal decorations and our building shows off their expertise.. They were key in choosing all of the components of the lower-lodge makeover and coordinating our Sunday table décor with the Heritage and/or holiday theme of the month.
We hold space in consciousness for a Youth & Family Ministry as well as a reformed Earthcare Team.
USCL CELEBRATION TEAM, Facilitator Jeff English Highlight: Professional style broadcast
Our Unity band and roster of soloists are a professional, inspiring component of our Sunday Service.. Sound, Lighting and Video Streaming continually improve thanks to AV Tech Michael Darnell and Sound Tech Steve Edwards. New speakers, additional lighting, and a new video switcher created a high caliber broadcast. In 2024. we averaged 52 people in person plus 55 YouTube views of our Sunday service. Greeters (Edmund Mack), Counting Team (Stacey Ames), Platform Assistants (Chris Janson), song leader Greg Dening continue to provide solid and inspired Sunday support.
USCL EDUCATION TEAM, Facilitator Donnette Pinkerton Highlight: Passion of the Creative Mind events
The Education Team structure reorganized to a team facilitator with 2 sub team leaders – SALT (Sunday Adult Learning Time) with an open leadership position (We thank the prior leader, Doug Eagle who stepped down after 10 years of service on this team.) If you have a passion for education and enjoy the SALT sessions, talk with Donnette about becoming the facilitator for this sub team. and SAGE with Dan Maynard, which manages special events and classes. Sage put together the first Passion of the Creative Mind event which involved art forms of every design – an art gallery, an open mike for poetry and writing, music, drama, a concert with Nashville’s StoweGood, a brass band and more
USCL Hospitality/Kitchen Team, facilitators Chris McEnhill & Nanette Podany Highlight: 90th Anniversary Celebration
Major project for the year was the 90th anniversary celebration which included a special luncheon with ice cream social, a timeline wall display and lots of guests. The team continued offering weekly Sunday refreshments, potlucks for Easter, Thanksgiving and the Annual Members Meeting. The team has been diligent about improving the functionality of the kitchen, storage, and procedures as they continue to provide key services for our community. . The team meets every Tuesday morning to work on the major project of kitchen cleaning and organizing. Thank you Jane Matos for being our back-up. And thanks to the support of congregational donations, the team was well under budget. Hospitality serves in excellence when each member of the Unity community realizes they too are part of this team and step in to help with coffee and snacks on Sundays and our potlucks.
USCL Social Team, Maggie Bishop & Lisa Hastings Highlight: Super Suppers started to accommodate availability
Connect, connect, connect. Those who work 9 to 5 can’t make Lunch Bunch, so Super Suppers were born. The 3rd Sunday Euchre has morphed into a focus on Games., Trunk or Treat brought us out in costume. Turkeyville was a Saturday of great food and fun music. The White Elephant Gift Exchange was the perfect post-Christmas get-together.
USCL Tech Team, facilitator Greg Dening Highlight: Blink camera system for grounds security
The world runs on technology, and we are so blessed to have great tech talent in our congregation to help us navigate existing programs and new ones! We currently run 6 computers and 2 tablets, 6 large televisions, an outdoor camera system and outdoor electronic sign. We operate a website, Facebook page and a “member-only” Facebook discussion group. Our Sunday services benefit from high-level sound, lighting and camera systems.
USCL Inclusion Team, facilitator Kathy Assiff: Highlight: Continued education through FB postings
The inclusion team continues to monitor all of our activities and teams’ work to insure we are not inadvertently creating “otherness” with any of our activities or endeavors. They also strive to educate us all on the important contribution of minority groups in our society through postings on Facebook, readings in Sunday Service and our electronic sign.
USCL’s Silent Prayer Team continues to prayer with congregants and on-line requests. They hold all prayer requests in prayer for 30 days and then the prayer requests are forwarded to Silent Unity.
Pastoral Care: Deborah Pennington actively reaches out to community members who can no longer attend in service. She also makes a point of sending cards to anyone in hospital.
Ombudsman Daniell McMahon: Highlight: Members’ Directory
In our first year of having an Ombudsperson, Danielle spearheaded creating the members’ directory in response to requests from the congregation. She has also been the listening ear for ideas, concerns and opportunities.