Nominees for BFUU Board of Trustees Election June 2023

Nominees for 2-year Board of Trustees Members (2 seats open):

JeanMarieJean Marie Stine (she/her)
Jean Marie Stine officially became a Unitarian-Universalist in 2002 in Northampton MA, though she had long admired UU principles and thought that if she ever joined a “church” it would be the UU. After moving to Berkeley CA, she discovered the BFUU and, along with her partner Frankie Hill, joined the congregation, where they served on the Sunday Services, Hospitality and Caring Committees, helped clean and straighten the Fellowship Hall after services each week. In the process, they developed an attachment to BFUU that has never waned. When circumstances caused them to move to Oregon, where they joined the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Eugene, their hearts remained behind. Now that they live in Mexico, where they have joined the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of San Miguel de Allende, Jean Marie volunteered to fill an empty space on the BFUU board until the next election. She is a much published writer and the proprietor of a very small publishing company.

2023 01 01 Simone ChiodiniSimone Chiodini (she/her)
Simone Chiodini is a recent graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry, and she has been attending services at BFUU since the autumn of 2016. She considers herself a Taoist Unitarian Universalist. A published writer, her novels include Infinite Power Defied & Infinite Love Decreed. She is a proud proponent of LGBTQ+ equality, Black Lives Matter, and Climate change awareness.

Nominees for 2nd year of 2-year Board of Trustees Members (2 seats open):

Margaret2020 10croppedMargaret Hurlbert (she/her)
Margaret Hurlbert has been coming to the Fellowship for many years, and has been active in the Choir, Chair of the Music Committee, and has taken part in many events and concerts. She has also been active in the Social Justice Ministry. Some projects she has worked on include going to ICE detention centers and protesting the internment of children, going to Climate Change marches with BFUU, helping with concerts and dances and the ukulele group at BFUU, and organizing making soup at BFUU for Consider the Homeless.

Phoebe SorgenPhoebe Thomas Sorgen (she/they)
Phoebe Thomas Sorgen became a BFUU friend 30 years ago when she enrolled her boys in the RE program. Though unavailable on Sunday mornings due to work, she became active via the Social Justice Committee, which she eventually chaired. After becoming a BFUU member, she was elected to the Board during the time that BFUU transitioned from lay led and hired Rev. Kurt Kuhwald in hopes of increasing membership. She served on the then newly reconstituted Personnel Committee, and has also been on the Aesthetics and Nominating Committees.
For effective peace, democracy, and human rights advocacy, Phoebe was a 2005 Outstanding Woman of Berkeley and 2015 Tom Paine Courageous Spirit awardee. As a Peace & Justice Commissioner, she wrote many Resolutions that were adopted by the City of Berkeley. Some were adopted by other cities.
Phoebe is on the Steering Committees of Move to Amend and Berkeley Citizens Action, she also serves as a BFUU Board of Trustees (appointee) because our beautiful BFUU community means the world to her.

Nominees for 1-year Board of Trustees Alternates (2 seats open):

ChristineD2023 3Christine Dickson (she/her)
Christine has long been an active member of SJC, and has supported BFUU in many ways over the years. She is a veteran Scene Technician from Cal Performances, etc. Her crew started UPTE local 9119 (the University’s Technical Employee Union), and she was one of the first two women in this local. Christine has lots of experience working with kids in art and interpretive training with the Shorebird Nature Center. She has shared her talent and skills in artistic design, co-coordinating the Better World Festival, audio/sound support, gardening skills, and more. She has resumed a role on the current Open Mic team.

Tom Luce 2023Tom Luce (he/him)

Tom was born 85 years ago in Barre, Vermont, quite an international community which gave him a wide vision of human communities. He was able to become fluent in French. He planned to become a Catholic priest, studying in Boston, Montreal and ordained in Rome in 1963. He came back to Vermont for only 3 years and asked to be sent to a foreign missionary post. But he ended up in Boston, getting involved in racist injustices in the inner city. Then with a widely shared conviction of priests, he decided to marry his wife, Judy, at a priest friend’s wedding. So in 1970 he began his family life which evolved with 3 children.

Tom moved his family back to his hometown in 1982 where he began teaching French for 22 years to support his family. Social justice remained a top value of both Tom and Judy. This brought them to Nicaragua dealing with the Contra War (backed by the US) adopting a young boy who has now returned home to build his life again there. This also brought them to Guatemala where they were engaged in developing a center for training traditional home birth midwives which was what Judy had become. This was from the involvement with a Maya refugee family from the Guatemalan civil war (backed by the U.S).

In 2000, Tom, age 62, had a soul-shaking life experience. The Vermont Supreme Court ordered the State Legislature to pass a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. This pushed Tom to deal with this issue deeply, so he publicly announced that he was “same gender” oriented. The First Universalist Church of Barre was the only church in his hometown that supported this legislation. This moved Tom to leave his Catholic parish and join the UUA. Thus, he personally got involved in the social justice issue of LGBTQI+ folks. In 2004 Tom organized HURAH (Human Rights Accompaniment In Haiti https//hurah.org) when the US deported Pres. Aristide out of Haiti. He spent several years on the streets of Port-Au- Prince fighting with a Haitian group to save impoverished children off the streets and from violent situations. In 2010 he helped St. Columba Church in Oakland to organize a scholarship program now in its 14th year. haitischolarships.weebly.com

Retiring in 2005, Tom with Judy moved to Berkeley to support his eldest son’s desire for a family compound. He joined the First Unitarian Church, Oakland, and helped organize with BFUU the 2006 AIW at the GA in Louisville, Kentucky, the “Declaration Of Peace”, a national campaign to stop the US war in Iraq. He became friends with Cynthia Johnson and then joined BFUU. He worked with the Social Justice Committee and by 2015 he connected BFUU with the Justice Reinvestment Coalition of Alameda County-JRC/AC, a group of social organizations seeking to end the school-to-prison route for so many children of People of Color. He joined other BFUU’ers in 2018 to begin the Poor People’s Campaign which BFUU endorsed. In 2020 he proposed that BFUU endorse the #8 Principle about fighting systemic racism accountably. BFUU endorsed the #8 Principle in its congregational meeting of 2021.