I was a social responsibility committee chair in 2005. That year the social responsibility committee sold soup to support a local home for at risk teenage girls. Our committee also initiated the Welcoming Congregation program which the rest of our church took over and I am happy to report successfully completed! The major event that I involved myself in fully, however, was the Guatemalan dinner fundraiser for an indigenous Mayan school in Guatemala. That event was definitely the highlight for me.n my other life, I have been a graduate student in the Masters in Environmental Studies program at York. I have also been a teaching assistant in the International Development Studies department. I am also part of the Volunteer Action Network. As a member of the network I lead the food security action team and sit on the Volunteer Advisory Council.

Past involvements:
CU*UL School , 2004

Current Involvements:
Economic Justice Social Responsibility Monitoring Group

Updated Jan/08

Monica Bennett  Monica is a Service Consultant in Congregational Wellness & Vitality (Growth & Conflict Management, Leadership) for the CUC in the Eastern Region.  She will enhance, nurture and promote the development of Unitarian and Universalism in congregations from Sarnia to Peterborough.  She is available to provide workshops, training, coaching and consultative services to congregations as requested by congregations.  Monica’s background includes the development and implementation of resources, training and consultation services for voluntary organizations and their volunteer programs.  She has worked with many Boards of Directors and their committees to establish policies, procedures and program priorities including issues related to volunteer management, screening and risk management.

Monica became a Unitarian Universalist in 1997.  Since then she has become a trainer for all five curricula of the positive, comprehensive lifespan sexuality education program, Our Whole Lives. This work has given her much insight into congregational life and a greater apreciation for our denomination.  Her background in sexuality includes working as a volunteer at the University of Waterloo Birth Control Centre and as senior staff at Planned Parenthood in both Hamilton and Kitchener.  She also has a strong background and experience in the anti-sexual violence movement which she says grounded her in anti-oppression theory and practice. 

She has 20 plus years of solid experience in community development work.  “I  believe in the power of community.  I’ve seen myself how people transform their lives through their involvement and personal investment their community.”   

Monica lives in Dundas, Ontario.

Elizabeth Bowen,
Elizabeth joined the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa in 1972.  She served two terms on the Congregation’s Board of Directors and has participated as a member or Chair of many of its Committees. As a result of her keen interest in denominational issues, Elizabeth often attends the CUC ACM each May. She has also participated in many international conferences including IARF, ICUU and UUA General Assembly. She holds university degrees in microbiology and biochemistry and worked in the federal public service until her retirement. She served on the CUC Board for seven years including the interesting years before, during and after the establishment of the current relationship between the CUC and UUA. She was CUC President in 2003/2004. Elizabeth’s efforts as a Board member led, among other accomplishments, to the production of the video Religious Education Spans a Lifetime and the CUC Refugee Sponsorship Agreement. Later she organized rallies on Parliament Hill and represented the CUC at press conferences and parliamentary committee hearings in support of equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians.
 
Elizabeth chaired the Host Committee for CUC ACM 2008 held in Ottawa; is a past Treasurer of the Canadian Unitarian and Universalist Historical Society; was a member of the CUC National Program Planning Committee; and serves on the CUC Nominating Committee. (November 2009)

Current Involvements:

• Chair of the Globalization monitoring group

Updated Dec/07

Barry Coburn UUA Compensation consultant position for Canada - East 

Introduction/UU involvement: 

I have been a member/friend of the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa since 1985, when I was married by Rev. Brian Kopke.  My social responsibility and spiritual beliefs have always meshed well with what First Ottawa and UUism is about and I look forward to many years of involvement in various activities in support of the Congregation and UUism. 

In the 1990s, I became more actively involved with the Congregation by teaching religious education, then becoming a member of the RE Committee – working with Rev. Liz Benjamin was a source of great satisfaction to me.  This led to a nomination to the Board in spring, 2003, where I currently serve as a member-at-large.  In my time on the Board, I have assisted with two important issues for First Ottawa - providing sanctuary to a refugee seeking redress with the Immigration system and contributing to the congregation’s financial campaign.  I am also a member of the UU-UNO group and recently attended the annual seminar at the UU-UNO office in New York City which provided me with a great opportunity to hear and discuss issues of concern to active UUs throughout North America. 

As First Ottawa are seeking a co-minister for August, 2005, in recent months, I have served as Board liaison to the Ministerial Search Committee along with being a member of the Search compensation team which must set a package for negotiation with a potential candidate.  Related to this, I have helped coordinate UUA search resources such as Pat Webber and Jean Armstrong for use by the Search Committee and, as such, have become somewhat familiar with the Search process. 

Background: 

My background in compensation includes working the past 15 years in compensation (primarily employee benefits) within a human resource policy area of the Canadian public service.  Along with experience in managing benefit plans for federal employees of Canada, I have also dealt with American compensation issues related to Canada’s local staff in the United States at the Canadian Embassy and consulates.  I feel that my experience with both Canadian and American compensation issues would be a good fit with the compensation consultant position opening, as I understand that Canadian Ministerial candidates are sometimes likely to be filled by Americans. 

I believe that I have an outgoing, consensus-building nature that would be well-suited to the compensation consultant role in working with the settlement representative to assist a Congregation with a ministerial search.

Current Involvements:

Peace Monitoring Group
Updated Dec/07

In my other life (non-church) I am in a permanent heterosexual partnership and have three lovely daughters aged 27, 15, and 11. Professionally I am the Director of the tissue typing Laboratory that serves all of the Toronto hospitals that perform solid organ (kidneys, hearts, lungs, liver) and bone marrow transplantations. Previously I was the Ontario Provincial Public Health Laboratory Immunologist with provincial responsibility for a wide range of infections including many Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI’s).

Current Involvements

• Member of the Globalization monitoring group

Updated Dec/07

Bob Dobbs I grew up in Seattle and completed my PhD in forestry at the University of Washington.  In 1966 I moved to Winnipeg where I began my career as a research scientist and manager for the Canadian Forest Service.  My career took me from Winnipeg to Victoria, to Ottawa and back to Victoria…attending and being variously involved in Unitarian churches along the way.  In 1995 I joined (for the second time) the First Unitarian Church of Victoria and I have been very active there since.  At First Unitarian Church of Victoria, I have served on the Board of Trustees for seven years, during two of which I was President and three of which I was the church’s  treasurer.  I have also chaired several other committees including the Ministerial Search Committee and two Ministerial Internship Committees.  In 2002, I was asked to join the CUC’s BC Regional Networking Group (RiNG) as its financial consultant, a position that I served in for two and a half years.  I remain active in my home church as chair of the Ministerial Internship Committee and Capital Campaign Task Force; and I am co-editor of the monthly newsletter

I believe my intellect and management background, as well as my experience as a church treasurer and as a CUC RiNG Financial Consultant, qualify me for the job of UUA Compensation Consultant.

Carolyn Garlich is the chair of the Green Action Committee of the First Unitarian Church of Winnipeg, where she has been a member since 1974.   

Carolyn is also active in other environmental and public issues committees in the community, most actively in the Council of Women of Winnipeg where she has served as the environment chair for several years and in Resource Conservation Manitoba, where she is a member and past chair  of the policy committee.  

CUC Consultant Services:
Welcoming & Engaging Guests and Members - one-day workshop

Margaret Insley has been an active member of the First Unitarian Congregation of Waterloo since 1993.  She has served on the Board and various committees including the Children’s Religious Education Committee and the Human Resources Committee.
 
In her work life, Margaret is a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo specializing in environmental and natural resource economics.  She is very interested in promoting sound environmental policy at all levels of government and is happy to be participating in the Environmental Monitoring Group.

The priority for the rest of my life will be to try to make the world a nicer place for my grandchildren and their generation worldwide to grow up in.

Current Involvements:

• member of the CUC Environment Monitoring Group.

-- December 2007

She was, until recently, a co-editor of the Canadian Unitarian and president of the Elora-Fergus Unitarian Church. She is currently on sabbatical from all outside obligations! She has worked in the mediation field, in women’s issues (pushing pay equity in Ontario) and for several unions over the past 20 years.

Nichola debated studying theology, decided not to, and she is now excited to find that issues of spirituality are being raised in the context of her studies. She is thrilled to be reading Paulo Freire and Edmund O'Sullivan, and to be thinking about feminism and Foucault. While she loves reading and theory her mind is always thinking about..."what action can come out of these theories?"

Rev. Wendy McNiven has been part of Unitarian churches since 1957, when she attended Sunday School at the Lakeshore congregation near Montréal.  UU values and communities have supported her throughout her life's journey.  Ordained in 1992 by the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Wendy served as minister of the Unitarian Fellowship of Kelowna, BC for 12 years.  She has also worked with the South Fraser Unitarian Congregation in Surrey, BC, and the Westwood Unitarian Society of Edmonton.   Rev. McNiven now serves as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Kamloops, part-time.  She also leads workshops such as Lay Chaplaincy training, Ministerial Start-Up seminars, and Worship Skills workshops.   Past UU association positions: Member of the CUC Statement of Principles Task Force for its entire duration, including as chair. UUA Ministerial Settlement Representative for Western Canada for 7 years.  Treasurer of the UU Ministers of Canada chapter for 4 years.   In Kelowna, where she lives, Wendy volunteers in the community as a hospital chaplain, and on the board of the local AIDS resource centre.  Wendy & her husband have two adult daughters.

Wendy & her husband have two adult daughters.

Current Involvements
Statement of Principles Task Force - Chair (this is winding down)
Leads congregational workshops such as Worship Leadership Skills and  Lay Chaplaincy training.
UU Ministers of Canada - treasurer
Environment Monitoring Group – Member

Updated February 2008

Rev. J. McRee (Mac) Elrod was born in Georgia in 1932. He obtained a B.A. (Magna cum laude), two M.A. degrees (one in theology) and an M.S. He  has worked in Korea, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, and British Columbia Canada, as minister and librarian.

Having served Black churches in the US South, he was active in the Southern civil rights movement in the United States. He moved to Canada in 1967, due to opposition to the conflict in Vietnam, and moved his ordination from Methodism to Unitarianism.

His beliefs and values have evolved from liberal Christian to Humanist. These values and beliefs translate themselves into support for liberal political causes, including universal medical care, a medical rather than a criminal approach to problems created by drug addiction, as well as racial and sexual orientation equity.

Alastair Mont. Congregational Networker ~ BC ~ Vancouver Island  

I serve with an ongoing eagerness my Vancouver Island constituents involving the congregations of Capital UU, 1St U Vic, Salt Spring UF, 1St Nanaimo UF & Comox Valley UF, along with the always potential of other 'emerging groups.  With the theme of liaison, vital linkages are created among the exciting variety of leadership enabling folk to be aware of belonging to the 'greater whole' of our Canadian Unitarian denomination, as well as receiving important CUC services whenever the need arises.

John Pater – Worship service consultant to BC and Western Regions. 

CUC Consultant Services: 

• Guidelines and consultation on lay worship services.

• Networking throughout B.C and Western region for resources on ritual and Sunday Services

• Workshops and consultation for congregations.

John has many years experience (10+) on Worship / Sunday Services Committees, with both lay-lead and professionally staffed churches. I

He routinely conducts services at the Unitarian Church of Edmonton, where he also serves on the Worship Committee.

John has a Masters of Theological Studies (MTS) degree. In his professional life, he has been a broadcast journalist, and currently works as a Communications specialist with Capital Health (the health authority in the Edmonton region). 

John is  interested in offering workshops that explore the challenges of developing worship/Sunday services for the diverse spiritual, intellectual, and emotional needs found in typical congregations. He has a passion for incorporating popular culture in our UU services.  

He’d also like to engage congregations in dialogue about providing worship / liturgical opportunities beyond Sunday mornings.

Karl Perrin
I try to be an environmental spiritual activist on many levels:  gardening and composting at church, cutting back on meat, recycling,  reducing energy use, voluntary simplicity in everyday life, reading,  writing, meeting.  I have been actively involved for years in  protecting Clayoquot Sound and Burns Bog.  Now the whole Fraser  valley and delta is threatened by the Gateway Project, so a group of  us are organizing a rally.  I try to be well informed primarily on  the Climate Crisis, and to find ways to both adapt to and mitigate  Climate Change: the biggest challenge of the century.  As Chair of  our Environment C'tee since 1995, I try to support emerging projects  until they can function independently.

• Conflict Resolution
• Committee Chair Workshop
• Creating a Congregational Covenant

Current Involvements:
BC Congregational Networker/Resource Contact
Financial Stewardship Service Consultant
Updated: Dec. 31/07