The Saturday 1/28 Stewardship Workshop has been rescheduled to Sunday, January 29 from 1 to 3:30pm. 

This will be a “Brown bag lunch and learn” event. We hope you’ll make every effort to attend. We have unique opportunity to spend quality time with a representative from the UUA. Unfortunately, due to illness, our original UUA representative, Terry Sweetser, will not be able to present our sermon and workshop. 

However we are happy to announce that Laurel Amabile , Director of the UUA Annual Program Fund (APF) in Boston, will be coming down to deliver the sermon on Sunday morning and present a Stewardship Workshop on Sunday afternoon (January 29th) following the 2nd service from 1 to 3:30 PM. 

Due to the lateness of this change, we are unable to plan a formal lunch. Therefore, please bring your favorite brown bag lunch and the Stewardship Team will provide beverages, dessert and snacks. Charles will also announce from the pulpit. Plan to come and learn how we can make UUCWC a better place! 

Please  RSVP to Jim Sanders at jimsong56@yahoo.com if you can attend.

We hope that you are able to attend this session with our very special guest from the UUA.

In faith and service to our community,

Jim Sanders  for the entire UUCWC Stewardship Team

 LAUREL AMABILE- BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION:

Laurel Amabile is a fourth generation Unitarian Universalist and native of Yarmouth , Maine . Laurel has served as the Director of the Annual Program Fund in the UUA’s office of Stewardship and Development since 2005.  Laurel serves as the UUA representative to the Ecumenical Stewardship Center and is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Liberal Religious Educators’ Association.  She has received specialized training through the Center on Philanthropy, Lake Institute for Faith and Funding, and Alban Institute.

Laurel began her years of Unitarian Universalist service in 1989, as the Director of Religious Education at the First Universalist Church of Yarmouth, ME, and later as the DRE at the UU Church of Asheville, NC.  From 2000-2004, Laurel was co-employed by the Mountain’s Learning Center for Leadership and the Thomas Jefferson District, UUA, active in lay and professional leadership development and program consultation.  She served as the Southeast Lifespan Program Consultant for the former Thomas Jefferson (now Southeast), Mid-South, and Florida Districts, then as the Interim District Executive for the Thomas Jefferson District, before relocating north in 2006 for her current position.  Laurel lives with her husband Fred Amabile in Yarmouth , Maine . 

Environmental justice identifies ecological issues as they relate to questions of race and class. To address these issues adequately, our district’s racial and social justice consultant, Rev. Peggy Clarke, and right relations consultant, Dr. Frances sink, have partnered to educate, organize, and empower our congregations to address these complex issues.

The first meeting of the Environmental Justice Council will take place on Saturday, Jan. 21, at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester, in Hastingson-Hudson, N.Y., at 10:30 am. The New York Metro District is asking every congregation to send at least one representative to this meeting. The Council will meet three times in 2012; one of those sessions will center on the nationally acclaimed GreenFaith Environmental Justice Tour in the Ironbound section of Newark.

Please RSVP to Jim Bicksler before Jan. 10. If you would like to go and are interested in carpooling, contact Jim Bicksler.

http://www.cerguua.org/

Here is the design as created by Lori O’Neil of the Communications Committee and Crossings design fame. Thank you Lori.

And THANK YOU to our donors, who so caringly shepharded the project in time for our presentation at the Banner Parade in Charlotte, NC during the Opening Ceremony and Anniversary Celebration of our Unitarian Universalist Association.

CLICK BELOW TO SEE THE BANNER DESIGN

UUCWC Anniversary GA Banner

As stewards, we are caretakers of this institution for a future
we will never see, just as our founders had the vision to build and
strengthen a congregation that we now benefit from.”

May it be so,

Another exciting new release is also a republication, of sorts. Back in the early 1940s, we created a meditation manual for those serving in the War – a source of comfort and hope for those far away from home, fighting in horrible circumstances. But since then, we have not had a resource specifically for service members and their families. Until now.

Bless All Who Serve: Sources of Hope, Courage and Faith for Military Personnel and Their Families was released in early June. Due to the generosity of many donors, 25,000 copies have been printed, and most of these are being distributed for free to military personnel and their families. But the book is also available for purchase. Consider getting one for anyone you know who is deployed, regardless of their own religious background. Although it comes from our UU values and principles, it’s designed to be useful to everyone.

The publication is available at the UUA Bookstore and we are looking into how to sell them at UUCWC. Yet another resource made available by the generosity of UUs from all over the country.

UUA Bookstore

http://www.youtube.com/user/UUAElectronicComm

http://blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2010/07/01/al-franken-you-are-my-favorite-kind-of-church/

Why?

Our delegate congregations voted to go to Phoenix Ga in 2012 and make it a Justice GA.
For Unitarian Universalists – this is our generation’s March on Selma!

Protecting and fighting for the rights of all humanity!

Today we are all tired and resting – BUT tomorrow we begin the HARD work at Justice making . Won’t you join us?