Hello, congregational presidents/ moderators -- thank you for your service to your congregation!

Welcome to the "home page" of the list-serve for presidents of UUA member congregations in the Pacific Northwest. There are links to the right which will take you to other features offered here -- be sure to view the "Pages" of resources we have posted for your perusal - Frequently Asked Questions, workshop materials and more.

The purpose of this list-serve and website is to facilitate communication with your leadership peers in the 60 member congregations of the Pacific Northwest District (PNWD) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The group website offers some quick links to a variety of resources you and your fellow congregational leaders may find useful. Feel free to share whatever you find here, and don't be shy about suggesting enhancements.

The email list does not tend to be overwhelmingly busy, and we have not found that it increases spam.  Please take advantage of the list to ask questions and share your experiences as a congregational president and lay leader. Your district staff (Janine Larsen, Tandi Rogers Koerger and Diane Brinson) are also members of the list, and we'll hop in when we have tidbits, too. We encourage you to share this information with your board, professional staff, and fellow lay leaders.

If you are not the current president of your congregation, or if you do not wish to be included in this list, it's easy to un-subscribe. You can let me know (jlarsen@uua.org) and I'll remove you from the list, or you can do it yourself: Simply send an email to PNWD-Presidents-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. You don't need a subject or message -- just sending the email to that address will be enough to do the trick.

We have a few past-presidents who have asked to remain on the list, and a few president-elects who are also subscribed, which is fine if it's o.k. with the current president.

As a reminder (you may cut & paste this info for your successor), here are the essentials of using this list:

     * Group name: PNWD-Presidents

     * Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/PNWD-Presidents

     * Group email address: PNWD-Presidents@googlegroups.com

     * To subscribe, send a message to PNWD-Presidents-subscribe@googlegroups.com

     * To unsubscribe, send a message to PNWD-Presidents-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

To send a message to the group, use the group email address above. The list does accept attachments, but including a web link or an invitation to contact you for an attachment is often more considerate than sending an unexpected item (which can fill up mailbox space and trigger spam filters).

To reply to a message, a simple "reply" will go to the individual sender only. If you use "reply all," the whole group will receive your message.

Anyone can post to this group (we do moderate the non-member postings), but only subscribers will receive these messages.

The District Office will do its best to keep this list current, and will auto-subscribe new Presidents when we become aware of a change. However, we encourage you to introduce your successor to the list and help them subscribe. Once new subscribers are added, they need do nothing else to continue to receive messages from this list.

Please note: We no longer require a "Google Groups" membership to access pages and discussion archives at this site, since too many found it confusing or irritating to require this additional step of security/ privacy. However, if you wish to see the list of subscribers, post documents to this site or make revisions to any of our pages, you must sign in with a Google Groups account. The link to "Members" is visible only after you've signed in with a Google Groups account. It will provide you with a listing of others subscribed to this list-serve, although it is masked to protect "phishing"-bots from grabbing our email addresses. So if you want to look up a specific subsriber's address, you'll need to sign in to Google Groups, click on the "Members" link on the right sidebar, click on the individual name you want, and then go through a few extra steps to prove you're a human user! 

If you choose to set up a free "Google Groups" account, you can do that by going to the group's Home Page (see above) and clicking the link that says "join" or "create a new account." Follow the directions from there. One of the options you'll have when create a Google Groups account is choose a nickname for your list subscription, which will be included when you send a message or reply to the list. I suggest that nicknames consist of your full name and your congregation's name so that we'll know right away who and where you are. Don't include a comma in this, or it won't work! Try this format: Firstname Lastname (Congregation Name - City ST).

We hope you find this resource helpful and useful! Again, please contact me directly if you need assistance or have a suggestion for the group's website.

Yours in faith,

Janine Larsen, District Executive (jlarsen@uua.org)

Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, Pacific Northwest District