Please contact Kitzie Stern for more information

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.

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

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.

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

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. 

2. 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. 

3. 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.  

4. 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.

5. 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. 

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

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.