Annual Meeting 2026

Name: Annual Meeting 2026
Start: 2026-03-08T11:30
End: 2026-03-08
Location: Unity of Albany

Sunday, March 8, 2026
11:30 am (After our 10 am service. Zoom opens at 11:30.)

On Sunday, March 8th, Unity Church in Albany will hold its Annual Membership Meeting at 11:45 AM following the 10 AM service.

The Board of Trustees invites and encourages everyone in the community to attend. Your consciousness and energy are an integral part of this spiritual community and we will be blessed by one another’s presence at the meeting. ALL are welcome means just that! Yet there are specific ways that “active members” are called to participate in discerning the shared leadership of our community: Active members are eligible to serve as Trustees, vote for the Trustees, and/or serve on the Nominating Committee.

What does it mean to be an “active member”? Simply that you’ve attended a membership class in the past, and in accordance with our bylaws, have renewed your “active membership status” within the past two years. There is a link below to update your active status, and there will be paper forms act church over the next few weeks.

This year you are asked to vote for four new board members for the coming year: there are openings for two 3-year terms and two 1-year terms. The meeting will be a hybrid of Zoom and in person.

▶ZOOM Link

Meeting ID: 833 5503 6344 Passcode: 771199
OR Dial in: +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)

Meeting Agenda

Opening prayer
Welcome
Honoring and blessing the outgoing Trustees for their gift of sacred service
Nominating Committee and Election
Treasurer’s report
Announcements regarding upcoming classes and ways to get involved
Discernment of 2027 congregational representative and alternate
Closing Prayer

As noted in the agenda, we will conduct the election of four new members of the Board of Trustees at the March 8 meeting. The meeting is open to everyone. Only Active Members, however, are eligible to serve as Trustees, vote for the Trustees, and/or serve on the Nominating Committee. We must have a quorum of 15% of the Active Members in order to hold this election. Please come and vote!

During the meeting, we will use a Google e-voting process and will also have paper ballots for anyone who is there in person.

Active Membership Update Form

Please fill out THIS FORM with your information for our records. Please know that we do not share your personal information with anyone. This is for Unity of Albany internal use only.

Nominees

The Nominating Committee is pleased to present four well-qualified candidates for the four board openings. Each of these individuals is a spiritually-grounded member of our congregation and has demonstrated their willingness to be of service to our community, and beyond.

They are (in alphabetical order):

Debbie Durkee

I have attended Unity Church since winter 2022. I became a member in 2023. I felt like I was coming back home, since I had attended Unity about 24 years ago. After serving this year as “holder of the treasure” in my one year term, I feel called to run again and find other ways to serve my community. I have learned so much in that role and have been able to assist and implement changes that were under way.

I have lived my entire life in Albany County. I have raised my 5 sons in this area. My children, grandchildren and great grandchild, my extended family and my 93 year old dad all live locally. When I am not busy with family and my commitments, I garden and enjoy being outside in nice weather. I quilt, play pickleball, do crafts, book groups, and enjoy my friends. I also have two French bulldogs and a very large cat that let me live with them because I pay the bills so they can live their best life!

I have always been involved in the church since I was young, and that continued while I raised my children. When my boys got older and life more crazy with 5 teenagers I stepped back from my volunteer duties. At Unity now, I have been lucky enough to have served different service roles. I have been active in the hospitality committee and in the library. I coordinated Unity members for the Pride Parade, helped with a Spirit Group and our Unity craft table at the FOCUS Festival of Thanks and Giving. I have been blessed to meet new friends along the way this year.

I have had the opportunity to sit on boards during my working life at Albany County Children, Youth and Families. I spent my last ten years of my 27 years at the county as a nurse working with child protective. I have had a wonderful opportunity to work with many agencies and meet some wonderful, kind people along the way. Being part of the Unity Board, I find my thoughts and spiritual practices have been evolving. The Board and the community have been very supportive as I learned my role and I look forward to serving again.

Ginger Hannah

Beloved Church Family, I am honored to be asked to run for the Board of Trustees. I love our Church Family and how we grow, have fun, love and serve together!

The gifts I feel I would bring to the Board are:

Unshakable faith in the goodness of Divine Spirit. Going within for guidance; trusting in that and helping others to do the same.
Great love for everyone; seeing everyone as Divine.
Dedication to growing spiritually and sharing what I learn with others.
Experience of 22 years at Unity Albany, as a past board member and Sunday school teacher, ordained Spiritualist minister, speaker and workshop facilitator, prayer chaplain, A Course In Miracles student, and member of the Ascended Masters Foundation Wisdom School.
Deep love and reverence for Unity principles and teachings, our Ministers, Board of Trustees, Music & Service Teams and Church Family.
My Intention to co-create a world where we all experience HOPE – Heaven on Planet Earth – and enjoy peace, love, joy, harmony, vibrant health and energy, prosperity and all God’s gifts.

I believe we are all co-creators with God – we can set a vision; go within, ask for and receive guidance and strength; and manifest whatever we are guided to be, do and have. That includes continuing to be and grow our loving, faith-filled, harmonious, serving church family. As a Board member, I will dedicate my time, talent and treasure to serving you with deep love and unshakable faith. Thank you for considering me.

David Meyers

After college, my first job was as a community organizer, for a statewide citizen’s group in Virginia. Some of the issues I was organizing around was stopping the utility company from passing along massive cost overruns to consumers for their mismanagement on nuclear plant construction as well as helping local communities identify and lobby the newly created Superfund, for inclusion in its cleanup efforts, sites abandoned by corporate polluters who often had little regard to the health impact on the local communities.

My career in activism led me to be a volunteer at organizations including the United Way of the Greater Capital Region, the United Jewish Federation of North East NY, AIDS Council, Amnesty International and Citizen Action of Albany. Eventually my career led me to work in Finance where for the last 30 I worked as a Loan Officer and Financial Advisor before retiring in 2024.

Since coming to Unity 3 years ago, I’ve enjoyed being a part of our Social Justice Circle and Men’s Group and meeting a great group of people on a similar spiritual journey. If elected to the board I look forward to adding my talents to our mission to awaken to and embrace the Divine essence of all beings through prayer and service in our community and in the world.

Jim Staebler

I first attended Unity of Albany from Feb. 2010 to Jan. 2011 while deployed by FEMA to New York for a flooding disaster. During that deployment, I walked into Unity of Albany and met my wife, Laurie. During the years I was deployed with FEMA and was sent to many different places, I would always find a Unity church to attend, including Unity of Albany when I was in this area. Sometimes that meant driving two and a half hours or in the case of Puerto Rico, finding the only Unity Church with English speaking services. I would guess that I attended between twenty and thirty large and small Unity Churches in the dozen years of FEMA deployments.

Before moving here from Maine this past May, I served on the Board of Trustees of the only Unity Church in that state. The defining reason that my wife Laurie and I moved to Albany and transferred our membership to Unity of Albany was so that we could participate and grow as human and spiritual beings. The highlights I experience are the many instances of the positive energy, the love and inspiration that I feel in and around this church.

In addition to attending the weekly worship service on Sundays, I actively participate in the Social Justice Circle, regularly attend One Song services and the Mind, Body, Love events. I have participated in the recent “Even Mystics” book study and try to attend every meditation session offered here. I consider myself a student of A Course in Miracles and attend the Tuesday in-person group, as well as three other Zoom classes, one with former Unity of Albany ministers, Jim and Kay Fuller. I volunteer weekly at the Focus Church’s Breakfast Club and Habitat for Humanity’s Restore. I have a personal practice of daily prayer and morning meditation and will bring enthusiasm, passion, humor, mediation skills and training, and an appetite for positive change to my service on the Unity of Albany Board.