Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees is elected each year at the annual general meeting in November.
Scroll down for board-sponsored upcoming events and recent posts from the board.
Cheryl Amundsen
Cheryl grew up in Alaska. She came to Montreal in 1984 to attend graduate school. She and her husband, Rob, moved to Vancouver in 1988 and they began attending VanU. She and Rob chose VanU as a place where their children would grow up to appreciate a variety of spiritual ideas and learn to work with others from different backgrounds.
Cheryl has taken on many roles at VanU over the years. She was active in the children and youth programs for many years and has sung in the choir for several years. She just retired after a six year term as a Lay Chaplain. Cheryl served 2 terms as Vice President to the VanU Board and is currently President. She feels this is a great opportunity to be part of a dedicated team at an exciting time in VanU history. Cheryl is Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University.
Michael O'Neil
Michael and his wife, Catherine Stewart joined the Vancouver Unitarians in 1990. The 90’s were spent involved in children’s RE. There was a hiatus of involvement at the turn of the millennia when 2 children’s teenage activities dominated. Michael and Catherine re-connected in 2004 after Steven Epperson arrived.
Michael was involved in a few projects such as the Services Auction and the “Capping it off” fundraiser. He then was on the Re-development Committee for 3 years. He joined the VanU Board in 2019 as a member at large and then was VP 2020-21. Michael served on the Interim Ministry Search Committee and then the Ministerial Transition Team. After this, he was on the Decision-Making Task Force and then the Ministerial Search Committee for the settled minister.
He currently is on the Health and Safety Committee and the Partner Church Committee. He also supports Catherine with some of her Vancouver Unitarian activities such as Sunday kitchen duty, and her work with B+G and the Refugee committee. Michael feels that Unitarian principles are an important element in working toward a just, equitable and sustainable world.
Griffin Tedeschini
Griffin, originally from Alberta, moved to Vancouver eight years ago . . . a move that has felt like coming home. They are an IT and project management professional with almost 30 years experience.
They bring communication, organizational, and relationship building skills to their role as the VanU Secretary. While only having joined the congregation a year ago, they feel like it was a place they were always meant to be. Griffin looks forward to fulfilling their VanU Secretary duties for this 2025-26 year.
Karen Bartlett
Karen joined the Vancouver Unitarians in 1989. In the intervening years, she has been in choir, served on the Worship Services Committee, and helped design workshops to welcome new members into the congregation. Most recently she served on the Board of Directors as a member at large, and then three terms as Secretary of the Board. Karen has also served on community Boards of Directors, including in her housing Co-Op, where she was Treasurer for two terms of office.
Karen looks forward to working closely with the VanU Finance Committee as we move forward into this very exciting period in our history, welcoming a new settled minister.
Mairy Beam
Mairy joined VanU in early 2017 shortly after their move to Vancouver, very grateful to have found a home in this community. Prior to that they had been a member of the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto and the Elora-Fergus Fellowship. They have been active in this congregation with the children’s RE and OWL, earth spirit, GSA, IPA, Zero Waste as on the HR committee.
They are honoured to continue to work with the Board members who are staying on, and the new ones coming on, to develop our strategic plans with guidance from Shawn and all of you.
Elly Fong-Jones
I’m a recent-ish transplant to Vancouver, along with my wife and our elderly but still extremely cute dog. During most days I work as a software engineer, but whenever I can get away from doing that I spend as much time as possible in nature hiking and running.
I’ve been a unitarian for about a decade now, first at First Unitarian in Brooklyn and now here, and I’m looking forward to serving you all on the Board.
Carolyn Grant
Carolyn has been attending VanU since early 2006 and joined in the autumn of that same year. She has been on the Worship Team, the Board (twice), the Outreach Opportunities committee and was a greeter for many years. Always curious, she likes to know what is going on around here and being a member-at-large is a proven way to get good intel, and occasionally free cookies. She works full time for a scholarly journal located at UBC and looks forward to continuing to work with the board and the minister.
John Omielan
During the 15 years John has been a member, he’s been involved with various groups, but not on the board. Nonetheless, about 30 years ago, John was the secretary, treasurer and president of the ICCA (Independent Computer Consultants Association) of BC.
At VanU, John has just finished serving on the Services Auction team, plus is currently a Sunday Greeter/Usher and on the Library team (including being a Sunday librarian once a month). He will be on the Canvass team starting next year. In the past, John has also been on the Membership team, the Environment team and a Sunday Office Assistant. In addition, John usually tries to help in any situation when he is not otherwise occupied and where his help could be used.
Kathy Sayers
Kathy has been interested in community since she was a child. Her family moved every year or two and her appetite for roots and connection runs deep. She joined Vancouver Unitarians 12 years ago and found her spiritual community.
A year ago she moved into another intentional community at Our Urban Village Cohousing where she shares her life with 12 friendly families. Born in the US, she now identifies fully as a Canadian. She was a serial entrepreneur and has started four businesses including a yoga studio. She is charmed by children, a voracious reader and is an accomplished parallel parker.
Ralph Theroux
In 2016, Ralph and his wife moved from New York to Vancouver, and began attending services at VanU. They felt at home here and before long became members. Ralph had retired after more than five decades in the thoroughbred horse racing industry–the last 15 years as a racing official — and they moved here to be close to their older daughter and her family, including their first grandchild. In 2019 Ralph joined the greeters’ team, which has given him the opportunity to meet many fellow members. He enjoys this role tremendously. If you don’t see him at a Sunday service, he’s probably in California with his younger daughter and her family. Ralph is happy to be part of the Vancouver Unitarians, and he looks forward to serving as a Member-at-Large of the Board.
