david

UUFC Invests in OSU Beth Ray Center Solar Project

In late February, 2024 your Finance Oversight Council (FOC) Investment Team partnered with Oregon Clean Power Cooperative to invest in the OSU Beth Ray Center project.

We invested $18,000 in a 2 year loan for this project, which is structured similar to an earlier investment that we made with OCPC for the Shakespeare Festival.

The Investment Team encourages solicitations from Councils and Teams with proposals for financially prudent investments. Please reach out to treasurer@uucorvallis.org to start a dialogue.

Action Lunch 3/10

Delicious teriyaki lunch, salmon and tofu options available. After the service on March 10. Takeout is also available. $10 donation, proceeds support our asylum seeking families from El Salvador. Brought to you by the Immigrant and Refugee Support Team.

Contact Nancy Kyle

ConnectUp Hike, 3/30

We will do a 4 mile hike including part of Section 36 Loop Trail in MacDonald Forest. This trail section often has very early wild flowers. The full walk involves about 400′ of climb and descent and is about 2/3 on gravel road.

Contact Jim Wagner for more information.

Support Housing and Food for All – 3/10

On Sunday March 10th, after the Action Lunch to raise funds for the Perla family, the Secure Housing and Food for all Team will meet in the UUFC library at 12:15. Please join us to learn about:
~Helping the Jackson Street Youth Services – request of Brandi Tucker
~Sponsoring the March 30 ’Spring Luncheon’ with Ernest Cardona (help setup, food prep, cleanup) ~Sponsoring furnishing a ‘hut’ at Albany’s “Hub City Village’ with Joyce Marvel-Benoist
~Co-sponsoring support of neurodivergent folks interactions with Police
~Finding volunteers for Daytime Drop-in Center and the Corvallis Food Bank
~What we might do in the Fall and other topics brought up by attendees.

And don’t forget our Spring Celebration Luncheon on Saturday, March 30th, 2024 at 1:00 p.m, in the Social Hall. Donations are $15.00 per person. After food costs, all donations will support our efforts in housing and feeding our wider community. Ernest Cardona and helpers will be serving a fresh, seasonal Spring menu with interesting appetizers, entrée and dessert. Please see the contact form below for a full menu description and a link to send us a message about your interest. We’ll need to know the number of guests in your party, your name, and your email address to send out a payment request. See you all on March 30th!

Roz Keeney Roberta Smith

Register for Luncheon

Faith-based climate action this week, 3/3/2024

Good News

Climate-action Opportunities

Of Note

Save the Date

Democracy Action Team: 

> First week of March: Letters will be ready.  VoteFwd.org.

> Letter Writing: Sun 10 Mar, 1:45 PM, (after the Action Lunch), UUFC Social Hall. We’re excited to have you join us, meet other volunteers and writers, ask questions, assist others in getting started, and bring your letters if you’ve received them.  We’ll bring extras.  We are excited to get started.  

Sustainability Town Hall: Volunteers needed for a variety of tasks in a number of time slots.  Sign up

2023 National Environmental Scorecard:  Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley both received perfect 100% scores. Thank Senators Wyden and Merkley.  Three of our U.S. Representatives received perfect 100% scores: Bonamici, Hoyle, and Salinas! And our all-star climate champ, Rep. Blumenauer will retire after this term with a 95% lifetime score! On the other hand, Rep. Bentz received a whopping 0% (yikes), and Rep. Chavez-Deremer received a disappointing 31%.  Email your U.S. Representative.

Stepping Back: After three years as co-lead of CAT, I’m stepping back from that leadership role. I have thoroughly enjoyed leadership and I’m proud of what I’ve helped accomplish, but it’s time for new ideas and approaches.  I’ll stay engaged with CAT and continue to send out CATweek. 
Cheers, MichaelThe one thing we need more than hope is action. Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. Greta Thunberg

Justice Outreach for March

This month our Sunday Justice Outreach collections will support the work of the UUFC Democracy Action team, as they begin a new and more important than ever season of writing letters to encourage voting in swing states. The Democracy Action Team works with a national non-profit call Vote Forward. In the last cycle, Fellowship volunteers wrote and sent more than 20,000 letters. Stamps are more expensive now – our support with help.

What’s New on the Website?

We’ve recently released a new set of website updates based on the feedback that we’ve gathered and many meetings and conversations we’ve had over the past several months. There was a significant overhaul of the website that was released in February of 2023. This is more of an update than an overhaul, but you will notice some changes. 

Some things are located in different places than they were previously, but with a little exploration and
practice with navigating the upgraded website, we hope you will find the updated locations to be more intuitive.

Here are a few of the changes that you may notice:

  1. Redesigned homepage. The homepage is going to be the first introduction many people have to the Fellowship. People will visit the homepage to find out who we are and what we are about. People should quickly get a feel for the kind of community we are trying to build at UUFC. It should be easy for visitors to get an overview of UUFC’s mission and values, which is why the mission statement “Explore. Love. Act. ” is prominently displayed with links to more information about how we live out the different parts of the mission. Visitors shouldn’t be overwhelmed by too much information, but the hope is that they can find where to go to learn more about what interests them. 
  1. New Content: according to feedback, visitors as well as long-time members want more information about how to get involved in different parts of the community. Some new pages have been added like a Get Involved page that lists all the groups and teams, and other ways to participate, and updated descriptions of the councils. 
  1. Members Area: All the way at the bottom right corner there is an area called “Members Area.” Here is where you see the Room Use calendar, forms to request a room reservation or add something to the Weekly Announcements, and the archive files.  
  1. Top menu reorganized: since finding things easily is a top priority, the top menu has been reorganized to make it easier to find what you need. However, it’s a lot like when your favorite grocery store reorganizes the aisles, and suddenly you don’t know where things are any more. After a few shopping trips, you get used to where your favorite items are and pretty soon you don’t even remember how it used to be. If you can’t find what you need, try the search function.
  1. Search Function: Because we all have different brains that tend to organize things differently, it is not possible to organize the menu in a way that perfectly matches the way everyone thinks. So we have a search bar. Type in a keyword or two just like you’re doing a google search, and you should see some pages and blog posts come up. 
  1. Calendars: One of the top-menu items is called “calendars.” There are two main calendars: the first is Programs and Events Calendar which shows the events that anyone can show up to and participate in. The other calendar, called the Room Use Calendar shows everything happening at the building, including outside rentals, and internal meetings, chalice group meetings, and other closed meetings not for casual drop-ins.
  1. Vertical Tabs: On the left column of most of the content pages you will see a stack of vertical tabs showing a group of related pages. These allow you to see at a glance content related to the page you are currently on, which will make it easier for you to find what you need. Click on these tabs to see more content, or use the top menu to get to another group of related pages.
  1. Quick Links: On the right hand column of all the content pages, you will find a list of links to each of the weekly announcements posts. For a more detailed and prettier version of the weekly announcements, go to the menu item called “news.”

Weekly Announcements

Weekly Announcements used to be published as a pdf that was emailed out every week. Several months ago we started posting the Weekly Announcements on the website as well, which took many hours to coordinate the two formats. Starting in January of this year we transitioned to only posting them on the website. Although we still send out a weekly email, the email always directs you to the same place where the weekly announcements live: uucorvallis.org/news. If for some reason you don’t get the email, you can still find the latest weekly announcements in the same place, updated at the end of each week.

If you’re having trouble finding something, or if anything looks broken, please let me know, and I will try to help or fix it. 

David Servias

Stewardship Town Halls in April – Please Join Us!

April will be Stewardship Season at the Fellowship. “Stewardship” is a word for the shared effort of nurturing and sustaining this amazing and needed UU congregation. It’s the time of year when we review our commitments and make new pledges of support – in terms of time, talent and treasure – for the next year. It’s a time for conversation, for sharing what the Fellowship means in our lives, for working together to improve the ways we work together! Several Town Halls are planned, with refreshments or supper and childcare provided: March 25 (for newest members), April 4 and April 11. Please plan now to attend at least one of these gatherings. The Pledge Drive will begin with a special Sunday service on April 7. The town halls will also include discussions of proposed bylaw changes (from the Board) at the Annual Meeting in May. All Fellowship members are responsible for helping to make those changes.

Plan Ahead – Building A New Way in Worship – May 2024

The world changes. Unitarian Universalism changes. The Fellowship changes. If you are interested in being part of a review of worship at the Fellowship – what it is for us, what we need from it, how we accomplish it, and more – plan now to join in a series of workshops and conversations beginning in May. Not merely a survey or collecting of opinions, this project will include conversations, practice, and training in the arts of worship. Let Rev. Jill McAllister know if you are interested, and stay tuned for dates to be announced soon.

From the Board President – Sheryl Stuart, 3/1/2024

I’ve been reflecting on the beautiful work of our RE team over the past several years in helping us be more attentive to the needs of multiple generations within the Fellowship, recognizing that there are differences in experience, expectations and more between different generations. As we’ve been blessed with more, younger children being present, especially in our Sunday services, I wonder how we can best accommodate the diverse needs of people of all ages who experience hearing and attention challenges in the service. I suspect this is one of those perennial conversations that is worth contemplation now and again.

First, I thought about the ubiquitous cell phone ring tones and notifications that happen during service. No matter how often we remind people to silence their phones, it is a rare service that doesn’t have some type of electronic interruption. I easily fall into righteous indignation about these interruptions…until I remember the unfortunate time that it happened to me.

I recalled a time when I sat next to someone who had a nervous habit that caused them to crack their knuckles often and repeatedly during the service. It drove me crazy! I never said anything, but I vowed never to sit next to that person again. I’ve subsequently gotten to know them and am quite fond of them. I don’t know if they still crack their knuckles in service, but I suspect my tolerance would be much higher.

I recalled several years in which we had a member who used an oxygen generator that made a loud noise periodically during the service. This also was annoying, but I reminded myself that the device was allowing the person to live and that helped me stop focusing on the distraction.

A friend once told me that a technique for dealing with these kinds of distractions is to consciously grant permission. I’m not sure this has ever totally worked for me, but I continue to try. And this reminded me of another congregant sharing during joys and sorrows about their experience in a hospital room in Portland. Their roommate was very loud and distressed. They said that they helped themself by repeating a version of the Metta prayer: may I be well, may I be peaceful…may you be well, may you be peaceful…and so on.

I’m so glad to see, and hear, babies coming with parents on Sundays. I confess that my heart literally aches for these parents. I remember the exhaustion of parenting young children and I’m so impressed that not only have families made time to join us on Sunday mornings, at least two parents have made the effort to contribute to our Fellowship by joining the choir. My immediate reaction is “How can we help you?!? How can we make your time at the fellowship a little lighter, so that you will continue to participate?” Supporting children and youth has always been one of our main focuses, and without new families, what will the future UUFC be?

I know that for some adults, especially those seeking quiet or contemplative moments, distractions can be distressing. I also realize that distractions come from many sources, and I am left with questions. Might there be a technology fix associated with the sound system that would help some of us hear better over background noise? Can we look at distractions differently? Is it possible for us to try to honor each distraction and then set it aside?

Building on its continuing work, our RE department has prepared a set of guidelines to help us all navigate differences and distractions. It’s a good place to begin to imagine and live into good possibilities and new ways.