Board of Directors

Barbara Kres Beach, USA, President

Christine S. Nielsen, USA, Vice President

Christine Nielsen, Professor of International Business and Strategy, holds the Yale Gordon Chair of Distinguished Teaching at the Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore (UB).  Chris’ research in social enterprise development is intertwined with her teaching at the University of Baltimore. Working with colleagues at the Merrick School she is expanding opportunities for students to participate in consulting projects in this sector, seeking ways to assist organizations whose goals are a “double” or “triple” bottom line: aiming for a sustainable revenue stream while at the same time offering training, employment and other initiatives to improve the lives of people and their communities.
During the past several years Chris has worked with student teams in Baltimore, Maryland; Lisbon, Portugal; and Cuernavaca, Mexico. In Portugal a series of teams worked to design a strategic business plan for the Living Museum for the Portuguese Guitar as a sustainable tourism destination. In Mexico students created marketing plans for a 200 member farmers’ association. In Baltimore a student team is working with a local non-profit that provides financial markets education to disadvantaged youth in public schools.

Christine is an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis (UUCA), a leading UU congregation of the Women’s Rights Worldwide initiative. She serves on the UUCA UN Global Justice Committee as Co-Chair of the Buhata Pinay (Do It, Filipina) program, which has played an instrumental role in establishing the Buhata Pinay NGO in the Philippines. Its goal is to improve the lives of women and their families through livelihood programs, improved healthcare, education, and community leadership development. She was the 2007 Fulbright-SyCip Distinguished Lecturer in the Philippines, the first woman to receive this Award. Chris served on the Advisory Committee for the 2009 International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women (ICUUW) and looks forward to her continued engagement with the ICUUW.

Chris believes the ICUUW has amazing potential. She says, “Organizational and community transformations at the size of the university, city, or the region are not the work of individuals, but of committed stakeholders and networks of dedicated people who have the power to change the status quo. I believe that the ICUUW represents just such a network. Working together we can make a positive difference in the lives of women and their families!”

Rev. Carol Huston, USA, Treasurer

The Rev. Carol Huston has been minister of Community Unitarian Church at White Plains since August, 2001, following a 9-year ministry in Michigan.  She has served in leadership positions in UU and interfaith ministry groups, including terms on the Executive and Continuing Education Committees of the UU Ministers Association.  Civic leadership around her congregations has included the Westchester Coalition on Worldwide Poverty and AIDS, the White Plains School Safety Task Force, and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).  In 2004, Carol brought a proposed Study/Action Issue on “Women’s Rights Worldwide” to General Assembly.  When it failed to be adopted two years in a row, she and the other organizations that had gathered around this proposal turned their energies to planning for the 2009 International Women’s Convocation.   

As one who worked on a Women and Religion Committee in the 1980s and attended the Women's Convocation in 1990, I have real hopes that UU women are ready for a new form of organizing which will include occasional convocation gatherings and on-going communication and inspiration on the Internet.

Arlene Johnson, USA, Secretary

Arlene Johnson, president of Arlene Johnson & Associates since 1991, has provided professional services for clients in the areas of marketing/public relations, public affairs, political campaign management and nonprofit management.

A native of Ireland, she is former president of the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation and later served on the national Task Force to transition the UUWF to a grant-giving organization. She is a long-time member of All Souls UU Church in Tulsa.

A long-time advocate for justice and equality, Arlene has lived her values through her work and community leadership. As founder and first Chair of the Oklahoma Women’s Network, she helped build a coalition of 34 women’s organizations and state agencies to advocate for issues of concern to women. In that position, she worked with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Labor to organize and chair the regional conference of women delegates in preparation for the International Women’s Conference in Beijing, China. Active in reproductive justice issues, Arlene has served as vice-president of the Oklahoma Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Oklahoma NARAL board. She is a founding member and former vice president of the Tulsa Women’s Foundation, former state president of the American Association of University Women and vice president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, Oklahoma chapter. She has served as vice president of the Tulsa, OK Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women, and on the Advisory Council of the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women.

Cathy Cordes, USA, Director

Cathy Cordes is Executive Director of theUU Partner Church Council and has been involved in supporting partnerships between Unitarian Universalists in the U.S. and Canada and Unitarians and UUs around the world for the past twelve years.  She is currently serving as the Executive Director for the UU Partner Church Council (UUPCC).  She has visited congregations in Transylvania, India and the Philippines.  The UUPCC works with about 190 churches in the U.S. and Canada. The organization recently announced a new program to expand partnership opportunities to individuals and groups as well as congregations. Cathy has a background in education and served for a year as the interim director of the International Office of the Unitarian Universalist Association. She lives in Bedford, Massachusetts and attends First Parish in Bedford. She is very active in local politics and is serving her third term as a selectman for the town of Bedford.

Nagy Gizella, Transylvania, Director

Nagy Gizella works at the Unitarian Church office in Marosvasarhely, Transylvania. A graduate of Tessedik Samuel College, Hungary, she is a former primary school teacher. She founded the Unitarian Children’s magazine, Dubbanto, and was co-founder of the home and care program for older women and men at the Unitarcoop Foundation.
She is coordinator of her church’s partner church committee---which includes partnerships with Winchester Unitarian Society, MA; North Parish of North Andover; MA; Octagon Unitarian Chapel, Norwich, UK; Remonstrant Church of Groningen, Holland; and Reformed Church of Zsambek, Hungary. “The summer camps organized with the partner church in Winchester, MA,” she says, “demonstrate that sharing, playing, dancing, singing, teaching and doing together are the best ways to learn about our lives and to learn from our children.”
“The greatest gift,” she writes, “is to share our beliefs. . . .In the post-communist countries, life was based on fear, the enemy of being able to tell our story and the enemy of success. We need . . . to have the courage to speak our truth, and to use our own understanding to make our own decisions.”
Gizi is chairperson of the forthcoming Transylvanian Women’s Convocation, to be held in Marosvasarhely in October, 2012.

Dr. Creamlimon Nongbri, India, Director

Creamlimon Nongbri, the Secretary of the Women’s League, Unitarian Union, North East India is an active member of the Unitarian Church, at Nongkrem, a beautiful Village about 14 kms from Shillong, the Capital of Meghalaya State. She graduated from North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) Shillong and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education, NEHU in Shillong. She coordinates monitoring of the Flagship program of India government’s Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All) for Meghalaya. She is a published author.
Creamlimon Nongbri is also a Secretary of the Education Committee of the Unitarian Union, which oversees 36 Schools – with 4 Secondary Schools, 11 Upper Primary Schools, and all with a Primary Section. In this capacity, she coordinates the schools with the Sponsors in the different UUA Congregations, arranging trainings for teachers and monitoring the schools regularly.
She is a member of the Orphanage Management Committee (OMC) of Annie Margaret Barr Children’s Village at Kharang, one of the main programs of Social Service Committee of the Unitarian Union, North East India. She has also worked with UU Partner Church Council  Capacity Building workshops with  Dr. Richards Ford.
A member of the International Association for Religious Freedom, she has attended congresses in Japan,  Bangalore India, and in Kochi, India. She served on that association’s council of International Association for one term. 

Rev. Rebecca Sienes, The Philippines, Director

The Rev. Rebecca Quimada Sienes was the 1st ordained UU woman minister of the UUCP (Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines) and is currently the Coordinator of the UUCP. She graduated from Meadville-Lombard. Rev. Sienes designed a program called BUHATA PINAY (translated as "Do It, Filipina") to empower UU and non-UU women to address the issue of domestic abuse. BUHATA PINAY is committed to enable and empower women and their families in the following four areas: economic participation within a sustainable environment, education, health and safety and building leadership within the broader communities. In partnership with the UN Global Justice Committee (UNGJC) of the UU Church of Annapolis, Maryland, BUHATA PINAY, a joint comprehensive women's development program of the UU women in the Philippines and non-UU women who are neighbors of a UU church, was officially organized last month.

Laura Nagel, Executive Director

Laura Nagel was Administrator of the First International Convocation of UU Women. She is Past President of Southwest UU Women and the past Co-Convener of UU Women and Religion. She is presently a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston where she co-chairs the Partner Church Committee which initiated the community-based planning initiative with their Partner Church in Arkos Romania. She is married to Harry Nagel and they have two grown daughters, Samantha lives in Dallas and Erica lives in Austin.