Women’s Retreat 2023

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When: Friday, October 13, 6:30 – 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 14th, 9:45 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Where: UUFC Building

Theme: Mindful Compassion

Keynote Speaker: Jana Svoboda

Cost: $50 (full and partial scholarships available, includes catered lunch and dinner on Saturday, snacks, and materials)

Register Here

To make payments online for the Women’s Retreat, go to the Online Collection Basket on the website. https://uucorvallis.org/welcome-to-the-online-collection-basket/

Select Give to 23-24 Operations, make a one time gift of $50 (or more if you’re also contributing to the Scholarship Fund), and write Women’s Retreat in the memo. 

For more information, email womensretreat@uucorvallis.org.

If you identify as a woman in a way that is significant for you, you are welcome to join us for our annual Women’s Retreat. We are pleased to have one of our own UUFC members as this year’s keynote speaker. 

Jana Svoboda is a long time Unitarian, mental health advocate, and lover of stories, the moon, and the natural and scientific worlds. She has difficulty with Marie Kondo’s secret of  decluttering as EVERYTHING GIVES HER JOY. She’s led professional and lay-public workshops on creativity, mental health, dealing with trauma and countless other topics, and given UU sermons on uncertainty, “the other”, and a UU lens on sin. She practices clinical social work in her cozy cluttered office downtown, with the help of a big purple couch and a teakettle, along with occasional use of props and crackerbox prizes for homework well done. In both her talks and her private practice, she considers her strengths to be making connections, staying curious, and bringing in lightheartedness to difficult times. You’ll gasp, you’ll giggle, you’ll groan, you’ll become wiser and more connected to yourself and each other, and you may even find yourself in 1980s op dress doing an impromptu funky chicken dance break out after the session. So come open-hearted and open-minded and let the wild ruckus begin!

Men’s Retreat 2023

Registration Closed (contact Lloyd for more information).

The 19th Annual UUFC Men’s Retreat will be held this year from 5 PM Friday, November 3 through 1 PM Sunday, November 5.  This renewed annual event provides an opportunity for those who identify as men to develop and deepen relationships with other men associated with the UUFC Fellowship. It also provides a respite from our hectic lives, time for individual reflection, and an opportunity to learn and grow. We’ll meet at the Menucha Retreat Center overlooking the Columbia Gorge in Corbett (https://menucha.org). Through large and small groups, singing, solo time in nature, and play time in the evening, we’ll connect in deep and meaningful ways.  

Our theme this year is: Engagement: An exploration of how we connect and disconnect in our lives. We will explore how the cultural influences of the digital age, including email, social media and smart phones, while providing new connection opportunities can also pull us away from being attuned with ourselves, our families, and our communities. We will also delve into our histories, including our traumas and patterns of behavior, to better understand ourselves and our relationships, and to help clarify our values and commitments moving forward.

We’ll share more information in coming weeks. Attendance will be capped at 36, and we usually fill up, so register as early as you can. We hope to see you there.  

Shakespeare Outing

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Friday, September 15, 2023 7:30 pm

See Rachel Kohler onstage in another rollicking Shakespearean production. Will she be in a wheelchair? That is a story for another time!

Buy tickets online: merelyplayersoregon.com

A group from UUFC are going to sit together. Contact Priscilla Galasso for more info.

Spiritual Practices, Part 1 (Mondays, 10/2 to 11/6, 6-7 PM)

Part 1 of the Spiritual Practices Series is a 6-session series that helps participants develop regular disciplines of the spirit – practices that help us connect with the sacred. This series affirms religious diversity while seeking unity in our communal quest for meaning and wholeness. Each session offers a forum for learning, sharing, and growth that can enrich our personal faith journeys.

Join Skyla King-Christison on Monday evenings, Oct. 2nd through Nov. 13th, from 6 to 7pm in Room 7.

Please help us plan by registering here! Thanks!


Session 1: Defining Spiritual Practice

Session 2: Prayer

Session 3: Meditation

Session 4: Mindful Walking and Eating

Session 5: Discernment and Devotional Reading

Session 6: Contemplative Art and Journaling

Part 2 of this series will be offered in the spring, at which time returning participants can share about how their spiritual practices have evolved since part one, and all participants, new and retuning will explore the topics of worship and ritual, discernment and devotional reading, hospitality and belonging, work and service, retreat, and life as a spiritual practice.

Trans Inclusion in Congregations Workshop (Thursdays, 9-21 to 10-26, 6-7:30 PM)

Join us for a 6 week course in culture shift and radical welcome, designed by Rev. Mykal Slack & Zr. Alex Kapitan, and facilitated by Bonnie Morihara.

WHEN: Thursdays from 6 to 7:30pm, September 21st through October 26th.

WHERE: Room 8

WHAT: A video course is designed to watch and discuss together, in an effort to expand our understanding of how to truly welcome folks of all identities into our beloved community.

REGISTER: please help us plan and setup by registering at this link. Thank you!

We offered this warm, challenging workshop over the summer, and at the end, participants said, “This was wonderful! More people need to take this!” If you missed it the first round, we want you to have a second chance.

Ice Cream Social (8-27 at 7 PM)

All are invited to the ice cream social on Sunday, August 27th at 7pm on the Fellowship lawn.

The RE Council will provide the ice cream bars, tabletop games, and a water zone for cooling off. You will provide the general merriment and community building by chatting with someone new, inviting your friends, and bringing your whole, awesome self to the event.

If you’re available to help with set-up, please contact Skyla dre@uucorvallis.org.

August Youth Event (8-27 at 12-6 PM)

It’s that time of year again! Register here by August 20th to attend the Annual River Reunion Youth Float on August 27th from noon to 6PM. All youth in grades 6-12 who planning to attend YRUU in the fall are invited. More details are available at the registration link. Please note, you MUST be registered for YRUU in order to attend. Direct questions to Skyla dre@uucorvallis.org.

PWR Cluster Fall Youth Overnight (Sept. 22-23 at UUFC)

Corvallis is hosting the PWR Cluster’s Fall Youth Overnight! Come get to know youth from the region as we explore the theme of building a new way through touch groups, playshops, worship, and community.

Faith-Based Climate Action 8/19/23

Good news is a powerful motivator  for action, &  there‘s lots of good news  about climate mitigation, adaptation/resilience, and justice. .

Indigenous knowledge holders share thousands of observations on the changing Arctic in a new study

U.S. to restore more bison herds on tribal lands by tapping Indigenous knowledge 

Including Native knowledge in climate science 

WHO to host first global workshop on biodiversity, traditional knowledge, health and well-being

Maxeon is going to open a 3 GW solar factory in New Mexico 

First Solar, the US’s largest solar panel maker, to spend $1.1B on its 5th factory

Mission Possible: Northeast Ohio business designs solution to wind industry’s turbine blade problem 

Advanced transmission technologies help U.S. utilities update the power grid

Could Reuse Be the Future of Wine Packaging?

Microsoft Agrees To 14 Ton SAF Purchase With IAG

How This Luxury Hotel Brand Is Making On-Site Events More Sustainable

UK homes install ‘record number’ of solar panels and heat pumps 

In effort to cut costs, remote Alaskan village turns to renewable energy

35-MW Menengai geothermal power plant, Kenya starts grid supply

France’s FloWatt sets the course for tidal energy growth

There is no more important climate work than the influencing of legislation and policy, whether at the national, state, or local level. Climate Action Opportunities, refreshed weekly on Saturdays, provides three or four curated, quick opportunities to do just that.

To help assess the engagement of UUFC members and friends in faith-based climate action and to encourage such action, please anonymously  <Share> the number of the actions below you take this week. Optionally, you may  anonymously also share other recent climate action. 

The organizations whose calls to action we amplify, and the number from each organization, are listed <here>

Sat 19 Aug

Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Carbon price and dividend. Pricing carbon will drive energy innovation, giving every American community access to abundant, affordable clean energy at a predictable price. Email your members of Congress 

Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Protect and strengthen our forests, food and agricultural systems. The bipartisan Increased TSP Access Act (S.1400/H.R.3036) has been introduced in the Senate and the House with bipartisan support. The act will (a) help farmers, ranchers and forest-owners access critical conservation programs, (b) empower producers to put climate-smart programs into practice on their own land. Email your members of Congress

EarthJustice

Keep pollution out of Hawai‘i’s coral reefs. We have long fought alongside the communities of Maui. Right now, we have an opportunity to support Maui residents in their decades-long effort to uphold the Clean Water Act. Since the 1980s, Maui County’s Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility has discharged millions of gallons of treated sewage into groundwater every day that reaches the coral reef off Kahekili Beach, an area traditionally called Hāʻenanui. In 2012, Earthjustice and our partners sued the county under the Clean Water Act to hold Maui County accountable for its pollution. Now we can finally do something about it. Message the Hawai’i State Dept. Of Health

Of Note This Week is a source for current climate-change information at the local, state, and national levels.  It is refreshed weekly on Saturday.

Politico

Article: Montana judge sides with youth in historic climate trial

The Conversation

Article: Indigenous knowledge is increasingly valued, but to fully respect it we need to decolonise science – here’s how

Yahoo!Finance

Article: Combining Genomic Insights and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge for the Conservation of Pacific Salmon

Save the Date is your calendar of upcoming climate-related events and activities.

Thu 7 Sep, 4:00 – 5:30 PM, online

Inflation Reduction Act Resources to Help You Electrify Your Home

Interfaith Power and Light Webinar. Jamal Lewis, Director of Policy Partnerships and Equitable Electrification for Rewiring America, joins us for a conversation on electrification, what it looks like, and what federal resources are available to help you do it. Learn more about the incentives that will be available to help make your home healthier and more efficient.  Register 

Good News

Climate-action Opportunities

Of Note

Save the Date

Between Us (August 2023)

Church attendance in the US has been in decline for decades.  A recent article by Isabel Fattal notes that this “great dechurching” seems to be driven to a small extent by a long history of corruption and abuse within religious organizations, but even more by current American culture and priorities.  According to Jake Meador, editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine “Mere Orthodoxy,” “contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care or common life.”

Here at the Fellowship, in May we approved a new Covenant of Right Relations which aims at precisely those values – the nurturing of mutuality, care and common life – including specific needed skills and practices, such as engaging respectfully, listening deeply and clarifying misunderstandings. Now we need to make that covenant real and alive, between us, by practicing these skills with each other as often as we can.

Beginning in September, our theme for the year will be “Building a New Way.”  So much within the Fellowship which was lost during the pandemic still needs to be rebuilt, and we can’t re-build structures that are now outdated. We have to pay close attention to  the negative effects of current American culture and priorities, plus the long-standing obstacles of patriarchy, racism, sexism and so much more, and do better. Here, between us in this congregation, we aim for better ways of being together, so that all may feel safe and respected as we each pursue the journey of a religious life.

Have you had a chance to meet someone new here this summer? Have you practiced listening deeply to someone else’s story, or clarifying a misunderstanding? August is a great time to do so, as is every other month! I don’t remember who said, “Be the change you wish to see,” but it’s still worth trying. May we reach out to each other with compassion and love.