BFUU’s Nominating Committee presents the following slate of candidates for election to the Board:

Regular 2 year term
Gillian Fynn (she/her) joined BFUU in 2024 out of a deep need for a community that would embrace both spirituality and social justice and no longer finding those needs adequately met in mainstream churches.  She has enjoyed being a liturgist at services, and gave the address on Mother’s Day. Gillian has been a lifetime activist in causes ranging from the movement for a Bi-lateral Nuclear Freeze, to Witness for Peace in Nicaragua , and running for office to advocate for Health Care Access.  Currently,  she is fully involved in resistance to the Trump regime, and BFUU’s support of Immigrants.

If elected to the Board Gillian is interested in keeping BFUU strong, encouraging increased membership, and welcoming children into the community.

Sumi Hoshiko (she/her) was raised in a Unitarian household where she absorbed at least a bit of UU culture. Her early adulthood included an internship with AFSC, work as a community organizer and activist with the Jobs With Peace campaign, focusing on the connection between funding jobs/human needs versus the military. This theme still resonates, although now amid growing concerns about authoritarian rule. She is the author of an oral history book on abortion. For fun, she has performed original monologues at The Marsh theatre. She was drawn to BFUU because of its social activist focus, where she co-taught a class on Non-Violent Communication some years ago. After her retirement from public health as a research scientist, she became a life coach (and has been trying to keep up with technology by consulting for a software company). She has enjoyed meeting new friends at BFUU and teaching her class designed to help people make change in their life. Sumi is the mother of two children and now a granddaughter! She enjoys outdoor running, travel, art, and is an avid reader of books and news. As a potential Board member, she is interested in exploring ways to support and grow the BFUU community and its activities.

Alternates – 1 year term
Betsy Nachmann (she/her) grew up in Chicago as a Unitarian Universalist. She got a bachelors degree in International Relations and a masters degree in Teacher Education/ Early Childhood. Betsy directed Griffin Nursery School in Berkeley for twenty-four years. She especially loved helping children separate comfortably from their parents and resolve their conflicts. Now that she’s retired, Betsy owes it to the memories of her civically active parents and to this frightening and opportune time in history to be a political activist. She recently joined the BFUU to have more of a community than she’s had in recent years and to join with other BFUU members to restore, maintain, and improve the common good. Betsy loves writing, wildflower hunting, rudimentary geology, singing, stuff like that.

Hank Pellissier (he/him) is founder/director of Humanist Mutual Aid Network, a nonprofit working mostly in Africa. He’s been an activist with CodePink and Extinction Rebellion, and he rented Fellowship Hall twice for Peace Gatherings. He lives in Piedmont with his wife Carol, they raised two bio-daughters, and they’re now guardians of  a foster refugee girl from Ethiopia, plus Hank has a bio-son (he was the sperm donor to two lesbian friends). Hank is currently a contracted education writer for GreatSchools.org, he was previously managing director for a futurist think tank, the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology, and a columnist for Salon.com, SFGate.com, and NYTimes (SF edition)  His main interest is wealth distribution/global egalitarianism/poverty alleviation; he just launched a website titled Eat The Rich. He also writes limericks and doggerel, decades ago he was a performance artist and a SF Slam Poetry co-champion.