From EOD: August 20, 2021

Greetings,

There’s lots of excitement building around opening our doors to our beloved congregation on September 12. At the same time, there is much to be done in the building. We are considering every option to ensure that everyone’s comfort and safety is a priority as we re-enter. I’m in touch with Administrators and Executive Directors through the AUUA (Administrators) and have shared with them steps we are taking and I’m hearing from them about what they are doing. This is a useful exchange and lends support and guidance throughout the UU community. We have purchased air filters which are located throughout the sanctuary and the building. We will run the exhaust fans that are located in the upper ceiling of our sanctuary. We will provide masks for those who may forget theirs and stations for hand sanitizing will be set up in the lobby, wing, sanctuary and lower level. Our lower level has a dehumidification and purification system built into the furnace system. I am currently working with our furnace contractor to determine best filter system and am meeting with an air quality firm to gain a second opinion. We feel confident in the quality of our air, yet are taking every step possible to ensure everyone is as safe as possible throughout the building.

Here’s what’s happening next Monday. The Intergenerational Playscape & Ramp Project begins. Yay! After a long-awaited permit construction begins.

Ramp construction will be first, followed by pathways and then plantings. Once done, furniture and features will be installed. Our hope is that work will be complete during September. This is a big step forward in providing space outdoors for our congregants of all ages. It will be a safe and beautiful place to play, meet, and to contemplate throughout the week. This area will provide a new space for activities outside and we are thrilled. Stay tuned for photographs and more information as we go through this construction phase. The Alma and Dave Woods Memorial Ramp will be dedicated once the ramp is installed and the garden is complete. The family generously donated for the construction of this project which was so near and dear to Alma’s heart.

On Sunday, September 19, the Kitchen renovation will be celebrated. There will be a recognition in the worship service followed by a gathering and tour in the kitchen and outer area guided by Carol Nielsen and me. Coffee and cookies will be served outside following the indoor gathering to celebrate our new, beautiful hospitality facility. Our kitchen has always been and will continue to be a warm and welcoming gathering place before, during and after events for our congregation. This improvement will also be a benefit for rentals at UCE.

Rentals are beginning to return to UCE, although a few workshop groups have decided to continue online for now. Our summer PedalHeads camp was a great success. This was a good rental for UCE as it provided income with low impact on the building and staff. Children of all ages learned to ride bikes and had fun learning bike safety on our new parking lot. My hope is that we can proceed with several rentals we have contracted with assuming that the variants do not prevent that from being so. Rentals, as you know, provide an important stream of income for UCE.

Sandra Robinson, Executive Operations Director

From EOD: August 20, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-20T15:04:08+00:00

Creating Opportunities for Richer Engagement: August 20, 2021

After almost 18 months of virtual gathering we will all be newcomers when we return to our building in September 2021. We will be starting anew, learning how to be together again – to connect in new and different ways, embracing our mission and working to build an even stronger, more vibrant community to “nurture the human spirit for a world made whole”.

The Membership Engagement Task Force has been meeting since February to learn more about what we do well in welcoming and engaging members and where we could improve our efforts to facilitate meaningful and satisfying participation in the life of UCE. Having reached out for input from congregants, shared anecdotal information, and discussed our own experiences, the Task Force identified three major opportunities for encouraging a deepening of connection among our members and friends:

Communication – Enabling members to easily find the information they need and want through consistent, accessible, and up-to-date messages about pathways and opportunities for engagement.
Facilitating Engagement – Shaping new and strengthening existing practices for facilitating meaningful engagement. Helping members make connections between their own interests, needs, and passions to the groups, events, and projects at UCE which empower us to live our values.
Leadership Development – Creating systems of support and training for current leaders, members, and friends to strengthen their leadership skills. Encouraging new leadership to emerge at UCE.

The Task Force is ready to generate intervention and program ideas in each of these three areas and develop plans to put these ideas into action. A working group for each of the three areas is being formed. We are looking for volunteers passionate about and dedicated to helping members open the door to more meaningful engagement in the life of the congregation. If you feel drawn to this work we hope you will join one of these working groups.

For more information contact Maggie Wilson at maggiemwilson@gmail.com.

The Membership Engagement Task Force

Maggie Wilson
Carolyn Laughlin
Melanie Kitchner
Susan Carlton
Rev. Susan Frances

Creating Opportunities for Richer Engagement: August 20, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-18T20:55:50+00:00

Board Snap Lines*: August 20, 2021

Hello from the edge of a blank canvas that will soon fill with color, energy, music, and purpose. We return with eager caution to our brick and mortar home to celebrate familiar creases in the eyes of our masked smiles, and to smash one another in (consensual) hugs.

This is my first year on the UCE board. What a privilege. What a learning curve! There’s a lot of Big Stuff in here/out there. But it’s no bigger than our own small efforts. As I heard long ago: “do your best work and be kind.”

There is more complicated machinery in our goals than simple philosophy, but I trust it completely for engagement with you, and our shared aspirations.

We’ll keep current with news from the board in this newsletter and other touch points, and hope to hear from you as well.

We gather at our annual board retreat August 20 – 21. You’ll learn in short order what topics, urgencies, and goals are addressed or generated then. I hope there are costumes.

In love and service,
Ally Hunter

* SNAP LINE, carpentry: a tool to draw a line between two points, a guide.

Board Snap Lines*: August 20, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-18T20:30:01+00:00

August 22, 2021

We will host an online worship service on Sunday, August 22nd at 11:15 am.

Living Our Mission Through the Arts: Music
Nurturing the Human Spirit and Making the World Whole Through the Arts: living our mission through the arts. The creative endeavor is more than the fluff of life. It is essential to our humanity to create, express, and process our struggles through the arts. This August, we will explore five modes of artistic and creative expression and their centrality in making meaning in our lives. Music is a powerful force for bringing people together, transforming us and inspiring us to change our world. Worship participants include Annette Wallace, Joe Romeo, Vickie Hellyer, Jo Lynn Cotton, Tory Bassani, Robb Geiger, Lynn Kendall, and William Phillips.

Please submit your Joys and Sorrows through this online form. If you submit a message by 11 am, we will try to read it that Sunday. Thank you for your patience as we are adapting to best serve you all! Note there will only be one service time so that we can gather together as a whole community of faith. You can still give to the shared offering through “text to give,” mail a check to the office with “shared offering” in the memo line, or go to our website and hit “give” on the upper right or click here. This Sunday’s shared offering recipient is Black Lives of UU.

August 22, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-20T14:49:54+00:00

August 13, 2021

Click here to read this week’s newsletter.

August 13, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-13T22:08:40+00:00

VirtUUal Faith Formation: August 13, 2021

This Summer in Faith Formation

Family Engagement Survey – Parents, please fill out this short survey regarding your family’s participation at UCE this fall. It should take 5 minutes or less!

Registration for Faith Formation begins! This year more than ever, it is important that parents register their young people, so that we can plan according to current guidelines. Please complete the form here for all young people, 0-18 years old.

Worship and Faith Formation this Fall – If you haven’t seen the video about our worship and faith formation format for this fall yet, check it out here. And if you missed Kathy’s article about this you can find it here.

Summer Beautifying – Here’s an easy way for you to participate in some shared ministry – cleaning out 2019-20’s artwork in the lower level and decorating it a bit for the new church year! Join here for this event on August 21, from 9am-Noon. Come for an hour, or until noon. Snacks provided too!

Let us know you’ll be there!

UCE Book Groups

UCE Fiction Book Group meets Friday August 20 at 7 pm by ZOOM to discuss Circe by Madeline Miller.

“A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess’s story,” this #1 New York Times bestseller is “both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right” (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times).

Join the Fiction Zoom Meeting

The nonfiction book group won’t be meeting in August to discuss books but we look forward to selecting books for the coming year at our Zoom meeting at 2 pm on August 22nd.

We’re hoping that everyone who has a nonfiction book they recommend and, perhaps, would like to discuss with others at UCE, will add the title to this google document. We’re hoping that this document will encourage UCErs to share their love of books by recommending titles. The nonfiction book group will consider all titles added to this google doc and we hope that many people who submit titles will join us at the August 22nd meeting and then continue with us throughout the church year.

Nominate a Nonfiction Book

Join the Nonfiction Zoom Meeting

VirtUUal Faith Formation: August 13, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-12T19:00:22+00:00

From DLRE: August 13, 2021

On Asking

I must confess something to you all: I have a weakness. It’s not kryptonite. It’s not fire, the lack of water, nor the color yellow. My weakness is admitting when I need help. And connected to this is then asking for help.

I like to think of myself as an independent person, and a very capable one at that. I’m pretty organized and manage my time fairly well. Which means that I should be able to tackle anything that gets thrown at me with some confidence, no? Well, yes, most of the time.

As I celebrate 25 years as a religious educator this month, I should be feeling assured about recruiting volunteers and setting up classrooms and all for the coming church year. This year is quite different as we all know. And so I am feeling a little less confident, a bit more reluctant too. With so many unknowns still concerning the pandemic, planning ahead doesn’t feel quite right, and yet plan ahead I must.

And so I am asking for your help.

As you hopefully know by now, the Faith Formation Force (including Rev. Eileen and I), is planning for multigenerational Sunday mornings at UCE with worship followed by a faith formation hour. We are so excited to be on this adventure! We have gotten wonderful feedback from many of you saying, “This sounds awesome!” And while it is exciting, it is also a bit scary. Trying new things is risky. But the payoff can be incredible!

What I need help with is for your willingness to play an active role – to practice shared ministry. Our vision is for more interaction between the ages – not just parents helping and working with children and youth, but older adults working and helping young people, youth working and helping young people and adults, and young people working with and helping others as well.

There will be many ways to do this, such as:

Share your talents – whether it’s art, music, dance, poetry, or a spiritual practice – we want a variety of people to co-lead small groups during the faith formation hour, and to share their talents in worship.
Share your passion for social justice and action – what causes are you involved in, both within UCE and in the larger community? Would you co-lead an activity to involve others in your passion to make the world whole?
Share your care – help in the nursery or preschool room. Our youngest members need you to get to know them too!
Share your knowledge and learn even more – help with other groups of young people on the first and/or third Sundays during the faith formation hour. You won’t miss the worship service by doing so either!
Share your thoughts – there will be a way to give us feedback over the next few months, as well as your ideas on any of the above.

Now that my weakness has been revealed, please be patient and kind. And if you can answer my call for help, send me an email or give me a call. Or if you aren’t sure how to share your talents, passions, care, or knowledge, I’ll be happy to help you figure it out. With the Faith Formation Force to support and guide us, we can so this!

In Faith,

Kathy

From DLRE: August 13, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-12T16:13:30+00:00

August 15, 2021

We will host an online worship service on Sunday, August 15th at 11:15 am.

Living Our Mission Through the Arts: Poetry
Nurturing the Human Spirit and Making the World Whole Through the Arts: living our mission through Poetry. The creative endeavor is more than the fluff of life. It is essential to our humanity to create, express, and process our struggles through the arts. This August we will explore five modes of artistic and creative expression and their centrality in making meaning in our lives. This Sunday, we explore the power of poetry. Worship leaders are Marianne Griebler, Ann McCallister, Susan Moss, and Rev. Eileen Wiviott.

Please submit your Joys and Sorrows through this online form. If you submit a message by 11 am, we will try to read it that Sunday. Thank you for your patience as we are adapting to best serve you all! Note there will only be one service time so that we can gather together as a whole community of faith. You can still give to the shared offering through “text to give,” mail a check to the office with “shared offering” in the memo line, or go to our website and hit “give” on the upper right or click here. This Sunday’s shared offering recipient is Black Lives of UU.

August 15, 2021UCE UCE2021-08-09T18:43:40+00:00

August 6, 2021