For people who have followed the changes to the UUA Bylaws, they may have wondered what became of the proposed next steps. We left the 2024 General Assembly (GA) with the understanding that Article III would be the next set of bylaws considered for revision. We expected to start seeing the preliminary draft of the proposed changes in the winter of 2024/25. We’d then repeat the process we’d undergone with Article II by discussing the proposal in our congregations and voting on it at GA 2025. That did not happen.
The UUA Bylaws Renewal Team, consisting of Rev. Connie Simons, Kathy Burek, Barbara de Leeuw and Larry Ladd, presented their strategy for moving forward on the UUA bylaws updates at the 2025 General Assembly General Session III on June 20, 2025. (The current bylaws can be accessed at https://www.uua.org/files/2024-09/uua_bylaws_06232024.pdf ) The Team’s presentation can be viewed at https://www.uua.org/ga/off-site/2025/business/iii starting at approximately the two-hour mark. Their bottom-line conclusion was that they didn’t have enough time to adhere to the previously announced or assumed schedule. In that schedule’s place, they proposed what they are calling the Waves Strategy.
Groups of bylaws would proceed though a multi-year process. Year 1 would consist of Study – to engage UUs in key questions and ideas. Year 2 would consist of Develop – to obtain feedback on frameworks and draft new bylaws. Year 3 would consist of the vote on the proposed new bylaws at GA. If a second vote was needed, this would occur at GA in Year 4, otherwise Year 4 moved to Implement the changes in rules and policies.
Every year a new wave would begin to enable a thoughtful, manageable revision process. The
processes would overlap – when the first wave moves into Year 2, a new wave of more bylaws moves into Year 1. The process isn’t sequential (that is, completing all the steps before moving on to a next set of articles) but is a staggered concurrent. As the groups of articles proceed through the process, the next set of bylaws starts in the phase completed by the preceding group.
As the above graphic from the Team’s GA presentation indicates, the first wave will address sections of Article 4 – General Assembly and Article 5 – Association Committees. The second wave, starting a year after the first wave, will address Articles 6 – Board of Trustees, 7 – Board of Committees, 8 – Officers of the Association, and 9 – Nominations and Elections. At the point when the second wave moves into the second year, the Team will re-evaluate the process to determine any needed modifications to the process. The current supposition is that Wave 3 will consider Article 3 – Membership.
A standard question is when will these proposed changes be released and up for a vote at a GA. At this early stage, it is hard to supply a concrete answer. It would appear that the first wave should hit the 2028 GA with a draft of the proposed changes. Assumptions can be made that information about that draft would be released in late 2027 or early 2028. Some information about the Team’s work would be released in late 2026 or into 2027 during the feedback aspect of the Develop stage of the process. The timing of when Article III proposed changes would reach congregations is somewhat hazy. The Team will reassess how the process is working after the second wave hits the second year, estimated at 2028.
This business strategy was approved by the delegates at the 2025 GA.
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Image source: screen shots from video of the June 20, 2025 GA, uua.org