Donna Fox

Secretary

Email: secretary@sedonauu.org

Donna Fox spent over 20 years working and volunteering in the areas of mental health, suicide prevention and postvention. She volunteered for seven years at Crisis Connection, Minnesota’s suicide hotline. There she served as a crisis counselor, public speaker, and member of the Board of Directors. She was the Director of Training and Development for the Minnesota CIT Officer’s Association (Crisis Intervention Team training for law enforcement,) and she ended her career after six years as the Program Director at NAMI Minnesota (The National Alliance on Mental Illness.) While at NAMI she over saw more than 60 support groups, conducted teacher and facilitator trainings, wrote curriculum, and offered seven nationally recognized best practice workshops, classes and presentations in suicide prevention and postvention. Donna and her husband retired to Sedona in January, 2017.

Ben Shor

Trustee-at-Large

Email: benshor7@gmail.com

After college, Ben worked in his family’s business for 15 years, then earned an MS in Social Work from Columbia University. He worked with seriously emotionally disturbed foster children, low-income seniors, and homeless adults for the next 10 years. For the past 20+ years, Ben has worked as a consultant, teaching QuickBooks and Quicken, and doing bookkeeping.

Mary McCaffrey

Trustee-at-Large

Email: mary.mccaffrey@gmail.com

Mary was born and raised in southern Minnesota and got her bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Irvine. She has worn many hats in the fifty plus years since, including:

• Community Services Officer for a police department ensuring shotguns did not blow up in officer’s faces
• Office Assistant from which she was fired for supporting a coworker’s desire for a divorce
• Prison counselor with one fine inmate who got her address from a guard and wrote her a threatening letter at home (he got transferred to a max facility)
• Parole agent with colorful characters – one killed his grandma because she wouldn’t give him cash, one killed a police officer in a 7/11 for being in the way of his robbing the joint, and a girl who killed both her parents and never shared why
• Stay-at-home mom with all the joy that entails
• Personal Trainer working mainly with post rehab clients
• Pilates Mat instructor

In Sedona, she volunteered with seniors before becoming one, is active with the Sedona Westerners Hiking Group including a term as president, and member of the Cottonwood Community Band, taking up the clarinet again after a 45 year absence.

Piya Jacob

Trustee-at-Large

Piya Jacob was born in India and grew up in New Delhi. Her father was a journalist and her mother was a principal of a girls’ high school. Piya was the principal of a small private elementary school housed in the Unitarian church in Paradise Valley, Phoenix for about forty years. She and her husband, Brad Kincaid, moved permanently to Sedona about eleven years ago. She is an active volunteer at the Sedona Community Center and serves on their board. Now that she has retired she enjoys traveling around the world. Her next trips are to Iceland and later in the summer, to England.

Board Covenant 

Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Covenant of the Board of Trustees as adopted on Sept 21, 2023

Framing Statement: This covenant will guide the SUUF Board of Trustees’ interactions with each other. We practice decision-making rooted in love.

*          *          *

We work as a team, so we will care for each other, recognizing our interdependence.  We will take time to welcome and check in with each other, and say goodbye upon leaving our meetings.

We will keep the best interests of the congregation at heart, and we will be prompt and prepared for board meetings. We will “make space, and take space,” both speak up and share airtime.

We will stay even-tempered, courteous, and thoughtful in our discussions to keep them safe and respectful.  We will affirm our common values and beliefs, rather than focus primarily on our differences.

When disagreements occur, we will assume each other’s good intentions and try to understand data and reasoning used by others. We will encourage people who disagree to communicate directly with each other and to seek a third party together, if needed.

We will acknowledge mistakes and ineffective policies when they occur and seek to learn from them, rather than denying or justifying them.

We are willing to be told if we appear to be violating one of these agreements, or if we don’t do what we agreed to do.  We will hold in confidence what people say at our meetings.

 

Two governance committees are established in our bylaws with 3 members each serving staggered 3 year terms:

Leadership Development Committee

The LDC ensures consistent and continuous leadership by selecting nominees for positions to be filled and by providing leadership training to SUUF members. They also deliver leadership development programs. Meeting are held on an as-needed basis.

Minister Support Committee

This committee reviews, evaluates, and offers support to a new minister for three years through direct, clear and constructive communication in an effort to create a successful and nurturing ministry based on trust and mutual support.  The MSC meets quarterly.