Letter mailed to members of the USPS in August 2026:

Dear Members of the Unitarian Service Pension Society,

We hope you are doing well and thriving in your immediate lives and contexts, even amidst the larger challenging and concerning time in which we find ourselves.  I know many of us are engaged with and/or supporting advocacy on a local and regional level, hoping to bolster the practices and institutions of democracy to say nothing of the rule of law.   This is what UU ministers do during times of duress and challenge.  

We write you with four items in mind – two announcements, one request, and one invitation.

First, we are pleased to announce that our Board in June voted unanimously to increase gratuity payments by 5%.  Based on the performance of the Pension Society’s funds over the last three years, we concluded that we could make this increase without taking away from our long-term stewardship of the endowment.  As a reminder, the UU Service Pension Society has been a separate organization from the UUA since our founding in 1910.  While we work closely with and support the UUA, we have a separate board and endowment.  Given the long-term relative performance of our funds, this has been to the benefit of you, our members and recipients.  

This 5% increase will be reflected in the quarterly gratuity payments sent out in September. Please note that this increase will be applied to the base gratuity amount, not to the $50 add-on for those age 75 and over.  This means that for those of you over the age of 75 the total increase will appear somewhat less than 5%.

The second announcement is a brief update about our By-laws update initiative, and the ballot the Board asked you to fill out last year (unless you became a member or recipient after June, 2025).  As a reminder, the Unitarian Service Pension Society needs to update our name and our by-laws to reflect how we operate here in the 21st century.  This is very similar to other non-profits and foundations affiliated with the UUA.  We worked with a law firm to update our organizational documents, which requires the approval of two-thirds of you, the members of the Society.  Unfortunately, we did not receive back the minimum number of ballots - we missed it by one vote. We are in the process of deciding how best to proceed.  As a reminder, you can find additional information about the need to update our by-laws and name at our website, www.uuservicepensionsociety.org/.

The third item is a request, pertaining to current beneficiaries.  If you are the partner or spouse of a UU minister currently receiving a gratuity on a quarterly basis, you will find a form and envelope along with this letter. We ask that you fill out this form so we can keep our records up to date.  Forms can be returned using the enclosed envelope or emailed to our Administrator at the UUA, Mary Krigbaum at csf@uua.org.

Finally, we conclude with an invitation - to support the Unitarian Service Pension Society, with an eye towards our future and as a way of honoring our legacy as UU ministers.  We want to invite all of you to consider including the Unitarian Service Pension Society in your estate planning and charitable disbursements.  We receive a few donations each year from colleagues and recipients who are in a position to do so, and these funds go straight into our endowment for the benefit of current and future retired ministers.  Our board is composed entirely of volunteers, both ministers and lay people, and we keep our administrative costs very low.  This means that any gift to the USPS goes directly to growing our fund and supporting and honoring our retired ministers.  If you would like to discuss your estate planning, I encourage you to contact either me or the Rev. Sheldon Bennett, our current Vice-President and past longtime President of this Society.

We send you our regards and wish all of us well as the summer turns to fall.  Here’s to supporting and celebrating our retired colleagues and the larger movement in which we serve and seek to make a difference.

With best wishes,

Rev. Jeff Barz-Snell, President Rev. Sheldon Bennett, Vice-President

jeffbarzsnell@firstparishweston.org                      swbennett@earthlink.net

Ms. Mary Krigbaum, UUA Administrator for USPS

csf@uua.org