RE Events

Post-Poetry Popsicles on Sunday 12/28!

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Post-Poetry Popsicles is a playful, positively purposeful, pleasantly pointless (but practically prudent), pastor-approved party, providing perfectly preserved, previously purchased popsicles for parishioners, participants, poets, performers, parents, and pals.

Please proceed post-program to the pleasantly populated social hall where plentiful popsicle provisions will be proudly presented as a peaceful, playful, palate-cooling payoff for pondering profound poems, processing powerful prayers, and participating patiently in a purposeful, poetic production.

This people-pleasing, pseudo-picnic promotes personal presence and proper popsicle purging while preventing permafrosted freezer paralysis. Please participate!

In plain language, the RE Council has a popsicle surplus, and we need the freezer space for other things, so we’ll be giving away free popsicles after the poetry service on Sunday. Everything must go, so please come enjoy a cold treat on a cold day, and if you’re a popsicle fan who would like to take home any leftovers, please let Skyla know!

Harvest the Power, Leadership Enrichment Workshop 2/5-4/16, register by 1/25

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WHAT: Workshop series to help current and future Fellowship leaders step more fully and successfully into their roles.

WHEN: 1st and 3rd Thursdays in February, March, and April, from 6:30-8:30 PM

WHERE: Social Hall

WHO: Anyone with an interest in leadership in any area of the Fellowship. From small groups or single events to joining the Board of Directors, if you think you might ever like to be one of the people who shape the direction of this congregation, this workshop is for you!

REGISTER: HERE by 1/25. Free childcare is available! When filling out the registration form, indicate if you will need childcare.

This offering will be co-facilitated by Michael Hughes (Treasurer) and Skyla King-Christison (Director of Religious Exploration). Please contact either of us with questions.

This program will:

  • Affirm the spiritual and emotional gifts and the skills that each person brings to a leadership position
  • Encourage understanding that holding a leadership position is an opportunity to enrich and deepen one’s own faith
  • Strengthen understanding of covenant and the practice of keeping covenant within the leadership team and in the congregation
  • Guide leaders to center relationships as a faithful practice, thinking of the congregation as a “we” rather than a collection of individuals
  • Lead participants to develop an understanding of the importance of personal spiritual practice and integrity to healthy leadership
  • Guide participants to consider which voices and perspectives were marginalized in the past and need to be part of congregational or leadership decision-making
  • Introduce systems thinking, and provide some practice with exploring congregational issues through a systems lens
  • Encourage participants to consider that conflict can indicate questions needing attention in the larger congregational system and invite them to respond accordingly
  • Deepen and enrich the experience of congregational leaders and, by extension, the ability of congregations to live out their missions and values, both in congregational life and in the wider world

If any of the ideas above spark your interest and make your heart go, “Oh!” you should register and join us! What we learn together today will help ensure a healthy and vibrant Fellowship for generations to come!

ETC Winter Get Together, 12/10

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Elders Thriving in Community is hosting a finger-food potluck, book/puzzle/game exchange, and time for getting to know your peers. Wednesday, December 10, 3 – 4:30 PM, in the Social Hall. Please bring cookies, fruit or other easy snacks to share, and 1 – 3 books, puzzles or games to trade.

Childcare is available!

Free childcare can usually be arranged for any Fellowship event by using this link 1-2 weeks prior to the event.

Post-Holiday Break for Parents, register by 12/20

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This time of year can be a lot for parents as we try to maintain all the rituals, magic, and meaning of the season. To honor all you do, we’d like to offer you a break! Drop off school-aged (k-8) children in the social hall at the designated time. We’ll have a thank you card writing workshop (with helpers for those who haven’t mastered the pen yet), eat snacks, and settle in for a movie while you take a few hours to recover from the holiday hustle. To make the most of the thank you card workshop, please send your child with a list of specific people & gifts for which to offer thanks. Know a non-UU parent who could use a break? Feel free to share!

Registration for this event will close on December 20th, and the date, time, and registration information have been emailed directly to parents in the December RE Newsletter. Check your inbox for the email sent on December 1st, or reach out to Skyla at dre@uucorvallis.org for more information.

Fail Fest 2025 is coming on 12/29, register by 12/20

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WHAT: A celebration of the human urge to keep trying, and all the necessary failure along the way.

WHEN: December 29th from 5:30 to 8:30 (maybe earlier, but who knows?)

WHERE: The Social Hall

WHO: Any adults who needs to process the things that didn’t work out last year before moving on to plan with hope for the year ahead.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: HERE by 12/20

There is no progress without failure. Yet, in our culture that is focused on sharing highlight reels, it’s easy to forget that there are no real overnight successes. The road to “what’s next” is littered with beautiful “almosts” and “not quites.” Before you start thinking about New Year’s resolutions, come share in a celebration of this past year’s failures that got you to where you are now. 

The evening will begin with a comfort food potluck to ease into togetherness and connection. When we’re feeling full and ready, we’ll reflect on a year’s worth of things that didn’t quite go our way, grieve the dreams that maybe we’re giving up on, and celebrate the new vision that is forming as a result of our failures. 

At this event, you can expect some tears, some laughs, and some dancing under disco lights. Best of all, you can expect to walk away with a deeper sense of community because vulnerable sharing and mutual support are an exceptional foundation for new friendships.

Don’t miss it! Come, let us celebrate you and your awesome, brave failures!

UU Advent Daily Email Series: Register by 11/27

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Rev. Ralph Roberts created a UU version of an Advent calendar, with little factoids about the influence that Unitarians and Universalists in history had on the winter holidays. We will once again be converting these tidbits into a daily Advent email series to land in your inbox every morning from December 1st through the 24th. You can register to be on that limited-run mailing list HERE by November 27th. Please note that, due to technological limitations, we will not be able to add any recipients to the list after the 27th.

Worship Web offers the following disclaimer about the Advent series: “Due to its temporal nature, many of the historic milestones in this Advent calendar aren’t necessarily recognized on the precise day that they’re celebrated (for example, Kwanzaa is recognized here on December 2nd instead of December 26th, and the December 12 image recognizes Clara Barton’s birthday (December 25, 1821). More than perfect historic accuracy, then, this Advent calendar is offered in the spirit of holding up and delighting in the ways that our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors had a foundational role in many of the winter holidays and the innumerable ways they’re celebrated by people everywhere.”

Trick or Treat Resource Fair Do-Over THIS SUNDAY! 11/2

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What a disappointment it was to miss out on our weekly dose of connection and community last Sunday. And that disappointment was compounded by the cancellation of the long-awaited Trick-or-Treat resource Fair scheduled to take place after the service. We can’t let all of the preparation (and candy!) go to waste, so we’re going to offer the resource fair, along with all of the trick-or-treating fun, after the service this Sunday, November 2nd.

I know that Halloween will have already passed, but give those costumes one more day in the sun and come as your favorite character or creature anyway. We will be having the Samhain service, followed by an evacuation drill, and then by the time you come back in to get your coffee or tea in the social hall, we’ll be ready to see your smiling face at the trick-or-treat tables in the social hall, foyer, and Rooms 6B, 6C, and 7 in the classroom wing.

Come play some games, eat some goodies, and learn what the various teams and councils of the Fellowship are up to, and ways to get involved!

Trick-or-Treat Resource Fair, 10/26

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Don’t forget to wear your costumes to the Fellowship this Sunday, and plan to attend the Trick-or-Treat Resource Fair happening directly after the service in the social hall, back deck, and patio. Many of the Fellowship’s teams and councils will be present with treats and games, as well as information about what they do and how to get involved. It will be fun for all! And who knows? You might find your new favorite activity!

Winter Sound Bath Event with Sonic Journey, 11/21

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What: sound bath experience

When: 11/21 @ 7:15PM

Where: UUFC Social Hall

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Even in these too full, largely uncertain days, you give so much to make the Fellowship a warm and welcoming place to be. With that in mind, Religious Exploration is delighted to offer an opportunity to pause and spend an evening in deep relaxation and self-care. The talented Mark Clem of Sonic Journey will be offering a Sound Bath just for us! I especially encourage our leaders who always make time for others to take advantage of this opportunity to show up and tend to their own physical and spiritual bodies.

This experience consists of bringing what you need to lie comfortably on the Social Hall floor and settling in. Mark will then offer a short guided meditation to help us ready ourselves for an hour or so of wordless immersion in sound vibrations of all kinds. After this shared embodied experience, Mark will gently call us back into the moment, serve tea, and lead a reflection on what we experienced in our state of deep relaxation, as well as offer follow-up care tips for holding on to the heightened state of awareness and relaxation as we move back into our lives.

Because space is limited, you MUST PREREGISTER, and once the event is full, the registration form will be disabled. Additional instructions for what to bring and what to expect will be emailed to all registered participants on 11/16. Please contact Skyla (dre@uucorvallis.org) with questions.

Donations Requested for Winter Care Kits by 11/30

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The children and youth in RE will be making winter care kits for unhoused neighbors during the November 30th Children’s Chapel.

We need donations of gloves, hats, socks, and HotHands for our kits before November 30th. Please consider donating new or gently used physical items or cash to help us purchase these items for our kits. Donations can be placed in the marked box under the table outside of the RE office in Room 2.

Our goal is for every one of our 40 registered children and youth in RE to have a kit in their car ready to be handed to someone in need. Your generous donations will help us learn about and engage in community care.

Thank you in advance for supporting our RE programs!