These are the candidates that will be voted on at the EUU General Meeting in Bad Homburg (at the Fall Retreat).

President: Tony Zamparutti

Tony has been part of UU and a member of the Brussels UU Fellowship for almost ten years. He has been active in EUU for almost as long – he previously served as Secretary and as pledge drive coordinator and he also helped to organize two retreats, in Oberwesel in spring 2015 and in Cologne in fall 2018.

He works on European environmental policy for a consulting firm in Brussels. Tony, his partner Michelle Mildiner, and their cat Felix are in the midst of moving to a new apartment in Brussels – and they all hope that the move will be done soon!

 

 

Vice-President: Karen Kyker

I’ve been coming to EUU retreats since 2005, soon after discovering UUFP in Paris where I’ve lived since 1998, having lived only in California before that. A big part of wanting to be at the EUU retreats was a desire for a wider community (with younger people) for my young daughter to grow up within (a significant success!), but I soon began looking forward to the fairly regular return to retreats (and solstice events!) as a way to reconnect with new friends and acquaintances. However, helping to run the ‘children’s retreat’ has dominated my attention & experiences over the years, and it is only recently that I’ve returned to participating in the ‘adult retreat’.

Though I did not ‘grow up’ within the UU tradition, I feel that I had been developing all my life toward this – our shared religious tradition – and I deeply appreciate the rich and varied opportunities for continued personal learning & development (social, intellectual & spiritual) that we continually create together.

To balance out my sometimes overly earnest and serious focus on ‘always learning’ (I’m a science & language teacher), I also love preparing & eating good food, long distance bike tours, reading for long stretches in silence, and solitary walking in natural settings.

 

Secretary: Bonnie Friedmann

Bonnie Friedmann found Unitarian Universalism in 2002, when she moved to San Diego and wanted to find a religious community for her infant son without the baggage she grew up with.

She joined First Church San Diego in 2004 and remained active there until moving to Germany in 2012. She found EUU in 2013 and joined the UURM (formerly Wiesbaden) fellowship, which she represented on the CC until 2016.

Bonnie is also a member of CLF and writes to a pen-pal as part of their prison ministry. Her main activist/religious concerns are working to stop climate change and getting Bernie Sanders in the White House, as she tries to help the world by living her UU values with joy.

In 2016 she became secretary of EUU. Bonnie enjoys this position and looks forward to continuing to serve the group in this capacity.

 

Treasurer: Michael Zink

Michael lives in Oberursel, Germany, and is a member of the Rhein-Main UU Fellowship. He and his wife, Teresa, are also members of Main Line Unitarian Church in Devon, Pennsylvania, which they attended for many years and where Michael served as chair of the Membership Committee and as a Religious Education (RE) teacher.

Michael studied engineering and business and is a Business Strategist with Evonik Industries. Prior to moving to Germany, Michael and his family lived in Singapore, where they frequently hosted the local UU fellowship at their home.