Hello everyone!

I’m married to Barb Franchino, and we have a daughter, Eleanor.  It was for Eleanor’s sake that we joined the UU.  When we moved to St. Peter in 2001 we looked for a local faith community.  There were churches in St. Peter that might have been okay for Barb and me—growing up in the Lutheran church we both had plenty of experience picking out the parts we accepted and ignoring the parts we didn’t—but we wanted Eleanor to grow up without being indoctrinated into particular beliefs.  We hoped to find a place in St. Peter that was welcoming and would provide Eleanor with some open-minded religious education.  We didn’t find it.

Around that time we saw a notice for the UU Fellowship in Mankato, and made the trip down one Sunday when it was still in the house on Pohl road.  Here we found what we were looking for:  a welcoming community of diverse beliefs!  Friendly people, no dogmatic interpretations of scripture, intellectually vigorous discussions.  When the UU moved to the Charles Street location we started attending more regularly, enrolled Eleanor in religious education classes, and joined in 2007.  Barb quickly became involved with “RE” (now Childhood Faith Development) but until now I’ve limited my official involvement.

I agreed to serve as Vice President this year because I and the UUFM were both in times of transition.  I had recently given up being department chair (I teach biology at Gustavus Adolphus College), and the UU had recently lost Reverend Rita.  By joining the board I hope to contribute to the many things I love about the UU, including encouraging open inquiry, environmental stewardship, social justice, strength in diversity, and the nice religious education that Eleanor received here!