weekly announcements

The International Moms Group is open to all international moms in the community (both OSU affiliated and non-OSU affiliated) at any stage of parenting. The mission of the group is to educate, empower, and encourage international mothers on their parenting journey. The vision of the group is to create an encouraging community for international moms to be healthy, thriving parents; to empower international moms to make healthy and informed decisions that will impact the health and well-being of their children and whole family; and to help the community and future generations appreciate diverse cultures.

The International Moms Group is looking for female volunteers in their childcare room from 9am to 12pm on Wednesdays at Orchard Court Community Center at 3405 NW Orchard Ave, Corvallis, OR 97330. The children’s playroom is just in the next room where presentations are taking place. Childcare allows for the international moms to attend and be fully engaged in the sessions.

For cultural reasons, the IMG is seeking only female childcare volunteers. If you are interested and able to help with this community building need, please send an email to Sandy Goeke, the International Moms Group Coordinator, internationalmomsgroup@gmail.com, to obtain more information.

This request came to Russ Karow from Adria Buncal with the OSU Office of International Services. The UUFC has partnered with OIS on other activities and events in the past.

Our sanctuary has had an eventful week with an open floor, but now we need to put the chairs back before our Sunday worship service. If you are willing to lift chairs and come to the Fellowship at 9 AM this Sunday (Sep. 13) we need you! We would really appreciate it if you would also sign up here to tell us you’ll be helping. You may think that plenty of people will be available to help, but the few people who regularly show up early on Sundays have other responsibilities that are crucial to our worship; they won’t have time to also handle the chairs.

To the Congregation of the UUFC from the Board of Directors

The UUFC Board has been working diligently to respond to your concerns about David and Lauren Servias’s resignations in a productive way in keeping with our bylaws, policies, and Covenant of Right Relations. 

The Board held a special meeting on Sunday August 30th, the third in these turbulent two weeks, to address a petition signed by 37 members to hold a Special Meeting of the Congregation addressing concerns related to their resignations. The petition’s stated purpose of this Special Meeting is to “provide an open forum for members and friends to gain an understanding of the current situation, state concerns related to staffing issues and ask clarifying questions.” Our bylaws require a minimum 30-day notice for congregational meetings, with a posted agenda 14 days prior to said meeting. The earliest available Sunday (given the Annual Women’s Retreat) is therefore October 11th; however, please stay tuned for an official announcement because we have two tasks we’d like to complete prior to the Congregational meeting: 

1. Per Unitarian Universalist Association recommendations, we’ll host multiple small-group “Listening Circles” to provide the open forum requested by the petitioners for sharing grief and concerns. These will be modeled after our Chalice Circles and facilitated by trained individuals for both moderating and notetaking.
2. We will contract with an outside Human Resources specialist to assess the working climate for our UUFC staff who report directly to Rev. Alex. Information will be collected through a structured interview process, and the results of that assessment will be reported directly to the congregation.

We feel that both of these efforts will aid in a more meaningful Special Meeting of the Congregation at which we also will have additional information and guidance from the UUA and other professionals. Work has already started on these tasks, but October 11th may be overly optimistic for those results. Again, stay tuned for the process.

– The UUFC Board of Directors