Board of Trustees

Rev. Carol S. Haag, President

Carol Haag recently retired from 13 years as the religious educator with The Unitarian Church in Summit, NJ.  Prior to her career in the ministry she was a mother and homemaker, Girl Scout leader and administrator, peace movement worker, church volunteer, Seeing Eye puppy raiser, horse lover and some-time gymnast.

Following in the footsteps of her husband, Carl Haag, who served Murray Grove in several capacities over the years, Carol has enjoyed the hospitality of Murray Grove through church events, a family reunion, a women's retreat, and of course the annual Homecoming.  She is hoping to blend her church experience and work in the peace movement with the new policy governance model the Board is initiating to bring to Murray Grove an even greater role in the spread of Universal Love.

Rev. Nathan Walker, Secretary

Nate Walker is proudly serving as the new settled minister of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. He previously served congregations in Staten Island, Manhattan and White Plains New York and received his Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Nate also received a Master of Arts and a Master of Education from Columbia University. He was jointly ordained by the members of the Fourth Universalist Society and the Unitarian Church of Staten Island. For more information visit his website at www.NateWalker.org.

Rev. Ken Beldon

           

Ken Beldon grew up in Allentown and New York City and attended the Hill School in Pottstown, PA.  He was raised a Reform Jew, but gave up on organized religion until his mid-twenties, when he discovered Unitarian Universalism. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University Divinity School and his MDiv from Union Theological Seminary.  He met his wife Teresa online when they were both living in South Florida; they were married just over a year ago in Philadelphia.
 
Ken is the founding and Lead Minister of Wellsprings, a new Unitarian Universalist congregation in Chester Springs, PA.  Ken writes, “My passion is to see folks grow spiritually, to find their true voice so that their service and leadership draws upon, and feeds, their joy.”
 
He brings youth, energy and passion to the Murray Grove board – he actually has an iPod and can tell you what is on it.

Dr. Anthony Panzetta

Tony Panzetta is an M.D. (Psychiatry) and Director of Emotional Intelligence Development at the Temple University Health Center. He is also a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing, where he has been the president of the congregation and the chair and member of a wide variety of committees and other groups, and has been a Trustee of the Metropolitan New York District Board, the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Unitarian Universalist Counseling and Education Services and the Co-Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for District Lay Leadership Development. He is married to Kevyn Malloy, Ph.D., and has two sons and three step-children.

Donna Renfro

Donna Renfro is the Director of Religious Education (DRE) at the   Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County (UUCMC), in Lincroft, NJ. She has been the DRE since July 2002. Before that she was a congregant at UUCMC, and had just been elected Vice-President of Programs when the DRE position came open. She began attending UUCMC in 1998, and became a member in 2000.

The very first thing Donna was asked to do at UUCMC was to help start a congregational retreat for UUCMC at Murray Grove. She first visited Murray Grove without an appointment, and was awed both by the story of John Murray and Thomas Potter, and the warm welcome, reception, and dedication of Michael Masters and Ellen Chulak. Donna has participated in numerous retreats and trainings at Murray Grove.

Donna came to New Jersey from Texas, when the toy company she co-owned was bought by a New York toy company. She served as Secretary of the Board during her company’s many transitions. Before founding the toy company, Donna was the Director of an early childhood learning center in Houston. She also co-owned another business, restaurants in Hawaii, and was a junior high school teacher of French and German after college. Donna's one son, age 22, still lives in NJ. In her leisure time, Donna enjoys spending time with her son, sailing, reading, and dancing.

Patricia Robison

Pat Robison, the oldest daughter of a dedicated Pennsylvania country doctor, enjoyed a full and varied career in elementary and special education before taking early retirement in the late eighties. She has an interest in all areas of the Arts, has sung in choral groups for many years, is working on a series of Mandalas using shells and stones picked up along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, adores books and book discussion groups and enjoys writing.

Pat grew up a Methodist and later in life began a search for meaning which required truth to be validated through experience and reason. She found Unitarian Universalism in Ann Arbor, Mich., while searching for a church to provide religious education for her son David. She has been a UU since the late sixties and an active member of both the UU Church in Cherry Hill and the UU Ocean County Congregation.

Pat grew to love Murray Grove as a result of her attending the services of the UU Ocean Congregation when they met at MG and various retreats and special programs, which impressed upon her its historical importance as well as its beauty and the significance of its location. She has not yet walked to Barnegat Bay from Murray Grove. That adventure and many more are ahead for her.

Ron Schaeffer

Ron Schaeffer was born in Allentown, PA; his family is of “Pennsylvania-Dutch” background. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, and an M.B.A. from Stanford in 1967, and worked in the energy industry for 29 years, and in human resource management consulting for almost 10 years, retiring from corporate life in January, 2006.  He currently runs a small marketing business for solar energy in Southern Delaware. 

Raised a Lutheran, he left any involvement in a church in his teens. He became a member of the Emerson Unitarian Church in Houston, Texas in 1975 and again in 1980 to 1983, after returning to Houston. He has been a member of the Summit Unitarian Church in Summit, New Jersey (1976-1978), the UU Congregation of Miami, Florida (1978 -1980), the First Unitarian Society of Plainfield (1985 – 2003), and the Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware in Lewes, Delaware since 2005.  Ron has held leadership positions in several UU churches, and was on the New York Metro District Board from 1999-2001. At the Plainfield church, he was the Finance Committee chair for several years, a member of the Board of Trustees, and President of the Congregation for three years.  He served on the Board of Trustees of his current church (UUSD) as Vice President and Treasurer.  

He has two daughters, Alyssa and Amanda, who are both married and live in California, along with two granddaughters, Larena and Kaia, ages 2 and 1 respectively. He has been married to Patricia Schaeffer for six years, and they reside in Lewes, Delaware.

Rev. Addae L. Watson

Reverend Addae L. Watson is the minister of First Universalist Church of Southold, where she has served since August 2006. Prior to relocating to the North Fork of Long Island, Addae lived in San Francisco, California, as an active member of First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco.  Prior to graduating in 2004 from the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley, California, with a Masters degree in Divinity, she served as Ministerial Intern at The Community Church of New York, Unitarian Universalist.  In 2005, Addae returned to San Francisco in pursuit of a PhD in Philosophy and Religion, with emphasis on Women’s Spirituality, at the California Institute of Integral Studies—now continuing study through on line classes.

 

Working on both district and denominational committees, Addae is a member of the Anti Racist/Anti Oppression and Multicultural Committee of the (UUMA) Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association, (DRUUMM) Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries.  Passionate about supporting women in realizing their fullest potential, she keeps busy as the Co-convener of the continental core group of Unitarian Universalist Women and Religion, the core advisory committee for the curriculum revision of Cakes For The Queen of Heaven and the advisory planning committee of The International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women, to be held in Houston, Texas in 2009.

 

Prior to seminary, The Reverend Watson worked for over fifteen years as a mental health counselor in community mental health organizations, describing her call to ministry as the second volume of life. “Volume one” was all about marriage and being a stay at home mom with her five children--four sons and a daughter.  All grown up, they have contributed six grandchildren, all of whom reside in various parts of the country.  Addae is joined in the parsonage with her daughter and 12 year old grandson, along with her loving pets—15- pound Maine Coon cat, Charlie, and two Toy Poodles, King Solomon and Queen Makeda.  The Reverend Watson is enthusiastic about the vision of Murray Grove and the future of Unitarian Universalism.

Staff

Louise Ille, Acting Retreat Center Director

 

Louise Ille, with 20 years' administrative experience in the public and private non-profit sector, joined the team in 2007, to the great profit of Murray Grove and its board, staff and guests. She has been selected by the Board to be the new Executive Director of the Murray Grove Association, effective in September, 2008. Louise is a member of the UU Congregation of Monmouth County, has served on their  RE, Nominating and Pledge Committees, and has been a member of a Covenant Group for over four years. Starting as a guest and a lover of MG, visiting first on a congregational retreat and subsequently with her women's group, and then a Grover volunteer, she now oversees the Grovers program. As well as acting as the director while the search for a new executive director unfolded, she continues in the dual roles in which she first joined the staff - Operation and Outreach Director - keeping our overall operations running smoothly and efficiently, concentrating always on engaging with new and old friends and finding novel and creative ways to reach out to folks who would benefit from knowing about us, participating in our programming and coming here on retreat. Louise lives with her delightful daughter Sarah in Toms River, NJ.

Michael Masters, Assistant Director

Michael Masters arrived at Murray Grove in January 1999. It is the latest stop on a journey that began in the orange grove country of southern California and has led by way of a study of history at the cliff-top seaside UC Santa Barbara to twelve years teaching English in Yokohama, Japan (where he lived for a year in a Zen temple and became an expert in remote traditional hot spring inns), sandwiched on either side by 14 months of backpacking through Europe on the way to Japan and another 14 months backpacking through Southeast Asia on the way back. Four years of reacclimation to this culture followed, from a base in the Boulder, CO, area, including a year of Blue Highways-style backroads driving around North America looking for just the right situation for himself. And here’s where he found it!

Paralleling, and far more important than the exterior journey has been the interior one. On a path of self-discovery for nearly 40 years, Michael has come to the firm and essential conclusion that all meaning in human life comes from the experience and practice of radical selflessness – which is identical to Thomas Potter’s universal love! Talk about synchronicity! He lives and works at Murray Grove trying to live up to Thomas’s example, serving this sacred site and the people who come here as selflessly and as lovingly as he is able.

Kathy Hermansson, Coordinator of Facilities and Housekeeping

Kathy Hermansson, our housekeeper for five years now, besides

her deep commitment to and love of Murray Grove, has the eye of a designer and the touch of an artist in her ongoing effort to make the

place ever more attractive and welcoming, in its simple, homey way,

with each passing day.

Carolyn Maher, Bookkeeper

Murray Grove's longest-serving staff member, Carol Maher is not only

our bookkeeper but our heart and soul. She keeps our eye on reality,

while at the same dedicating herself totally to our vision: being what

we are and more, to the extent of our and her abilities.

Eileen Murphy, Graphic Designer