Kathy newsletter September 20, 2019
I am so grateful for the warm welcome from so many of you in the past six weeks. While overwhelming, I have been included in many meetings and conversations, and heard many of your stories about your personal and collective histories. I hope to continue being in conversation with you during the course of the year.
I’m sure you have heard the expression “change is inevitable”, and while this is true, I tend to live by another expression, “don’t make changes for the sake of change”. Over the next few months, I will be observing and learning how things are done and why, as well as the events that lead to this. From there, we can choose the ones that hit what is called “The Sweet Spot”. The Sweet Spot is a tool created by the New England Region of the UUA as a way of prioritizing your options and/or ideas. You can check out a graphic of this wonderful tool here. What would it look like if every committee, team, and council utilized this while planning for the year? Perhaps there is only one way to find out!
Looking ahead into October, two adult programs will begin:
Planning for What Matters Most (end of life issues) will be on October 2, 9, 23, and 30 from 7-9p in room 3. This series, led by Cathy Deamant, Carol Nielsen, and Bob Mesle, has been designed to encourage participants to take proactive steps for life planning.
If you’ve done some learning about racism and white privilege and are ready to go a bit deeper, plan to attend the Witnessing Whiteness program, which will be from 7-9p in room 3 on October 2, 9, 23, and 30. This program is sponsored by the Racial Equity Action Leadership (REAL) Team, and will be facilitated by Dr. Gina Logan and Beth McDonald. Registration info coming soon!
For our children and youth, we got off on a good note for our first day of religious education. There were a few kinks, but they were resolved easily. We have 81% of our volunteer spots filled, which is awesome! The ones still left open are mostly as helpers and subs. If you can help out for any part of the year, let me or Sue Larson know.
Many of you raised good questions, and I will do my best to answer a few here:
- Young people from 8th grade and younger (around 13 years old) will begin in the worship service. Before you have eye-rolling from your youth, there are some reasons for this that you can reiterate. First, we want them to be seen by the rest of the congregation. After all, they are a part of the congregation! Second, they will become familiar with our UU rituals and practices, and why we do them. Third, they can lead by example – whether that is by helping lead a part of worship, such as lighting the chalice, or by their presence in worship. This is also a conversation that will be ongoing regarding high school youth. For now however, the high school youth will go to their room at the beginning of worship.
- Parents are asked to sign in their child(ren) if in 3rd grade (or around 8 years old) and younger, and then pick them up and sign them out at 12:15p.
- For 4th and 5th grades (around 9-11 years old), parents are asked to meet them after RE outside of the room.
A few upcoming events:
Youth Lock-In: September 28 at 3p. Parents, please fill out the permission form that was emailed to you this past week!
Bike the Ridge: David Bates-Jeffries has graciously offered to organize this fun day on September 29! As of this writing, we’re hoping the 6th-8th youth will be helping with the bike-decorating station. If you’d like to help in any way, email David at david.wood.bates@gmail.com
In Faith,
Kathy