My data points for remembering how long I’ve been in Hendersonville are Thanksgiving and my son, Garrett. We moved here when he was three and arrived the week before Thanksgiving. So this November it will be five years. Being a parent is many things, but one thing I didn’t anticipate was being put on a schedule. Not the day-to- day running your child to activities; rather, the slow and consistent march of growth. Truth be told, I am a procrastinator, and I’ve been rewarded many times in my professional career for being a procrastinator. I’m remembering a Dilbert cartoon where Wally wouldn’t work on a project for the first week because it usually gets cancelled (the Wally principle).

My wife Becca and I always talked of leaving DC and took vacations exploring other communities, but we never had a timeline…until Garrett. We noticed that he was making friends and we were making friends with other parents and we were planting more and more roots in DC, so we decided that, if we were going to “escape”, we better go “now”. The same motivating force brought us to examine the various churches in the Hendersonville area.

I used to joke with my mother that I was banking all the Catholic masses from Catholic grade school to satisfy my Sunday obligation. We started every school day with mass (that’s five extra per week). I had six years of grade school. Ignoring summer and Christmas breaks (no fall or spring breaks back then), I calculated 30 years of Sundays (5×6). I over-estimated, of course, but I’ve long since passed that mark. Regardless, there was probably a reason why I took a 30+ year break. I remember my first observation attending service at UUFH… wow! I feel guilty that I actually enjoyed the service! Because of the wonderful people and the lack of a hard sell to join UUFH.

I became more and more engaged in the Fellowship, and the next thing you know…I’m board president!

I’m happy to be president. Government and industry can provide laws and infrastructure to create a framework for our societies, but you can’t mandate or sell empathy and respect for each other and the interconnected web of life. Our mission and the UU’s Seven Principles fill that void, and I hope I can contribute to that effort in Hendersonville.

I want to thank Keith Dalbec and Chuck Elston for handing off a very capable and considerate Board and for providing specific direction regarding how to broaden our appeal to the community. The Visibility Task Force did an excellent job of reviewing our current image and communications and developing systematic recommendations to enhance them. We had a Board retreat last month and were able to identify follow-on activities for all the recommendations they provided, and we have started putting their effort to practice.

Joe Criscione, President