How Many U*U Congregations Did The UUA aka Unitarian Universalist Association Of Congregations "Lose" In 2008-2009 Anyway?

There seem to be varying numbers floating about as to just how many U*U congregations the UUA officially "lost" in the most recent certification count. I first caught wind of the UUA "losing" a significant number of congregations during the telephone presidential forum in which UUA Presidential Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman expressed concern about this issue assuming I heard her correctly. I initially thought that as many as 74 U*U congregations may have gone AWOL by failing to certify their membership as UUA congregations by the February 2009 deadline. It now appears that the actual figure is closer to 40 or 50 UUA congregations missing in inaction as it were. The most recent information that I came across today on the blog/website of the Florida District of the UUA indicates that 50 UUA congregations failed to certify their UUA membership in 2009. Here is the pertinent quote from the Trustee Report about the April 2009 meeting of the UUA Board of Trustees -

"Paul (Rickter) reported that 50 congregations failed to certify for GA 2009."

Other official UUA figures would indicate that the UUA "lost" over 40 congregations at minimum.

If it will make U*Us feel better, this quite dramatic "disappearance" of about 50 U*U congregations is not the greatest loss of UUA congregations over the span of one single church year. Forty years ago, between 1968 and 1969, the UUA lost no less than 59 U*U congregations dropping from an all time high of 1,350 congregations to 1,076 in just one year. UUA congregations continued to drop over the next decade to a low of 988 congregations before creeping back up to a high of 1,050 or so congregations by the turn of the millennium. At a current level of 997 certified congregations the UUA only needs to "lose" about 10 more to break the previous record of having only 988 certified congregations.