The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
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!
What: sound bath experience
When: 11/21 @ 7:15PM
Where: UUFC Social Hall
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.
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!
In this tender season of remembrance, we are approaching our traditional Ancestor Tree with gentle intention and a small change. In an effort to care well for our grounds and to make this ritual more accessible to all, we’ve reimagined where and how we gather the names of those we carry in our hearts.
You are invited to visit the table in the classroom wing, just outside the RE office, where you will find an altar box, paper leaves, and pencils. On a leaf, write the name of someone or something that has meant something and has died. A mentor, a teacher, a beloved pet, a family member, a forest, a river, a place that held you. Let this be a moment to name what matters. Add your leaf to the trees placed on either side of the altar box—our new Ancestor Trees.
There, you will also find a basket of blessings for what was real and lost. You are welcome to take one. Read it there in a quiet moment, or tuck it into your pocket for a day when you need to remember that you are not alone. That love persists. That absence, though real, is never the full story.
Please linger to read the names others have offered. Let yourself be moved by the web of connections among us—the invisible threads of people and places that have shaped the ones we now hold in Beloved Community. These names are echoes of resilience, tenderness, and transformation. They remind us that we are always standing on sacred ground.
And as you reflect, consider this: What does it mean to become an ancestor? To live in such a way that one day, someone might speak your name with love and longing?
This is not just a ritual of memory. It’s a quiet invitation to live with greater intention, greater courage, and greater tenderness, for those who came before, those who walk beside us now, and those who will follow.
With you in the mystery,
Skyla
“By their groups shall ye know them.” ~James Luther Adams
Let your group be known! It’s time to get registered for the 5th Annual Teams and Councils Trick or Treat event!
WHO: All UUFC teams, groups, and councils are invited to represent!
WHEN: October 26th, after the service
WHERE: Social hall, porch, and patio (under the market tents!)
DEADLINE to REGISTER: October 15th (earlier is helpful to our planning team!)
This event was born out of the RE Council’s understanding that we can only nurture a next generation of UUs when newcomers and whole families feel integrated into our wider Fellowship community enough to stay and take root here. Often, the missing first piece is simply knowing what’s available and how to join in.
Your participation in this event meets a 2-fold need by creating a joyful and lighthearted Fellowship experience in a time when our emotional and spiritual resources are feeling particularly taxed AND you are helping folx understand who we are and how they can expand their engagement with Fellowship life when they’re ready.
This isn’t just fun! It’s the sacred work of community building and memory making.
To participate, you must:
We would LOVE but don’t require participating teams to:
If you have any questions, please reach out to Skyla for help. We would love to see every group, team, and council join in the fun!
“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!” ― Rainbow Rowell , Attachments
Greetings, Families!
The soggy, foggy season of all things cozy is finally upon us! Between sipping soup and reading Pumpkinheads to the kids, please take a moment to catch up on your Religious Exploration news and add some events to your calendar.
Please note that this is the last month that this newsletter will be sent to last year’s registered families. If you are not sure whether you have registered your child for this new year in RE, please reach out to me, and I’ll help get you all squared away so that you don’t miss any of the fun!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
10/12 Monthly Family Breakfast is Back! register HERE
10/16 Parent Peer Support Group is Back! Register HERE
10/25 Youth Overnight: registration information was sent home and to parents’ inboxes.
10/26 Teams and Councils Trick or Treat (wear your costumes to service!)
More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop-down menu.
You want to know what’s going on at the Fellowship and what different groups there are to be a part of. Your kids want to have some fun and wear their costumes. Okay, let’s face it. You want to have fun too! That’s why we’re hosting the annual Teams and Councils Trick-or-Treat event after the service on October 26th.
Wear your costumes to the service and plan to hang out after to wander around and check out the information, goodies, and games presented by many of the wonderful groups, teams, and councils that keep us up to good trouble at the Fellowship and beyond!
Registered OMG! youth and their friends are invited to this year’s Fall Overnight at UUFC! As always, we’ve invited youth from Eugene, Salem, and Willamette Falls congregations to join us, but it’s still unknown as to whether they have enough volunteer support to get their youth here this year.
Please ASAP, but no later than October 8th. Registration information went home with youth and was included in the email version of this newsletter. If you have not received it and are interested in registering yout youth please reach out to Skyla at dre@uucorvallis.org.
We will have a pizza dinner, and social hour, followed by a trip to the Melon Patch corn maze, and then come warm up with a candelight worship before bed. More details can be found in the Registration link!
By request, we took September off of our regular family gatherings, but it’s time to get back into the swing of things with the return of the Family Breakfast and the Parent Peer Support Group.
The Breakfast will be sticking with its 2nd Sunday Schedule this year, so please come join us on the 12th at 8:45. Registering each month helps us plan, but please come even if you forget to register.
The Parent Peer Support Group (with free childcare!) will start on the 3rd Thursday in October, and will be on 2nd Thursdays beginning in November. You don’t want to miss this first session back on October 16th! Register anew with this link to be kept up to date on changes regarding this group.
All of our Sunday morning groups for school-aged children are using the Mosaic antiracism curriculum this year. One of the upcoming lessons involves the use of candy. Because we don’t generally hand out candy in RE, I want to give our parents a heads up and a chance to share their family norms and concerns around sweets so that we can make sure all children are included and their dietary preferences are honored. These lessons will be taking place in Spirit Play on October 19th and in the Seeker Space on November 9th.
Kids will sanitize their hands and then sort and handle various candies throughout the lesson. Each child will be invited to taste 2 pieces of candy during class time, and the rest will be divvied up and sent home with consenting parents at pickup. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me!
I’m so pleased to share that a new RE team has formed with the focus on safety! Below is a copy of what they shared in the monthly journal. Because there is information specifically for parents, I want to make sure you have a chance to encounter it, even if you aren’t in the habit of reading the journal.
We are fortunate to have a growing Religious Exploration program here at UUFC! To support this program, we have formed a Safe Congregations Support Team made up of parents and other members of our fellowship. Its purpose is to bolster the safety of all who engage with Religious Exploration programs by partnering with the Director of Religious Exploration to support uniform policy and procedure implementation and execution, consult on ambiguous background check results or interpersonal conflicts that have the potential to disrupt RE community-building efforts, and lovingly invite RE volunteers and participants back into covenant when our safety policies and procedures have been violated.
As part of our role of fostering the safest environment possible for our UUFC families, we would like to remind parents and guardians that RE staff and volunteers do not supervise children during the coffee hour after the service or at any time they are not engaged directly in RE programs. Please stay mindful of your children’s whereabouts and safety during social gatherings and bear in mind that, as an inclusive community that values transformation, we welcome strangers and individuals with diverse histories into our midst.
If you have a concern that needs to be addressed by our team, please contact Kyle Cupp, chairperson of the RE Safe Congregations Support team. Additionally, if you are passionate about safety and have skills and time to share, we’d love to hear from you!
If you have any unmet needs for support, unanswered questions about how or why we do what we do in RE, please reach out any time! Our offerings exist because families share their dreams and needs, and we rely on your partnership!
May we hold Love at the center of all we do together in this new RE and beyond!
We are delighted to announce that the Inquirers Series is finally moving home to Room 7!
If you’ve been attending, you’ll be happy to know that your new space in the classroom wing will come with more comfortable and available seating, and far fewer interruptions. Why? Because Room 7 is a meeting space and not an administrative space.
If you’re wondering why our group was meeting in an office instead of a meeting space, it’s because our beautiful classroom wing was under renovation for the last 6 months and was unsafe for our purposes.
If you’re wondering what the Inquirers Series even is, I’m so glad you’re seeing this! The Inquirers Series consists of 8 regular sessions (outlined in the image below), offered 15 minutes after the Sunday service ends, and designed to help visitors and newcomers understand who we are, what we do, and how to plug into life at UUFC. It’s also an excellent space for folx who have been around for decades to jump in and reconnect with the way we describe ourselves and some of the newer ways of working in concert with others engaged in similar efforts. Whenever there’s a 5th Sunday in the month, Skyla King-Christison offers a special session called “Roots,” which is a deeper dive into our Unitarian and Universalist heritage.
Sessions can be taken in any order, and those who complete the entire series will be recognized with the gift of a lovely ceramic chalice for home or office use.
If you’re new and considering whether to become a member, the Inquirers Series is for you! If you have any questions about the series, please contact Skyla King-Christison at dre@uucorvallis.org.
See you at Inquirers Series!
The Chalice Circle session of the Inquirers Series will be offered on 8/24/2025 instead of the regularly scheduled Membership 101 session.
We encourage all Inquirers Series participants who wish to attend each session to check the Fellowship calendar for updates. Our facilitators occasionally experience calendar conflicts and swap dates with another session. These updates will always show in the primary Fellowship calendar, under the “programs and events” calendar. Thank you for your understanding!
Parents and guardians, it’s to register your children for the new year of Sunday morning Religious Exploration!
CHILDREN WHO WERE REGISTERED AT ANY POINT LAST YEAR MUST STILL BE REGISTERED Anew BEFORE ATTENDING RE THIS YEAR.
Please read the following descriptions carefully and register each child for the appropriate space. We acknowledge that school grades are not a perfect proxy for age or development. Nonetheless, we find them useful for determining the most appropriate group for most children. If you feel your child would benefit from being in a different group than the one designated below, please reach out to the Director of Religious Exploration, Skyla King-Christison.
THE RAINBOW ROOM
This space is for new walkers through preschool. We may occasionally be able to accommodate infants if the caregiver-to-child ratio allows; however, your infant may be returned to you in the service if more children arrive and it can no longer be safely accommodated. Children in this space may be dropped off in Room 4 of the classroom wing no earlier than 9:50, and should be picked up before their guardians attend coffee hour.
Please register for the Rainbow Room HERE prior to dropping your child off.
SPIRIT PLAY
This space is designed to meet the approximate developmental needs of beloved children in grades K through three. Children in this space begin in the service with their families, and will depart for room 6c as a group after the time for all ages. Guardians should pick them up before attending coffee hour. This group may occasionally be on the playground, through 6c, at pickup time.
Please register for Spirit Play HERE prior to their first Sunday.
SEEKER SPACE
This space is designed to meet the approximate developmental needs of beloved children in grades four through six. Children in this space begin in the service with their families, and will depart for room 9 (upstairs) as a group after the time for all ages. This group will prioritize outdoor time and project-based exploration, so please ensure that they are dress for the weather all year round. This group must be picked up before attending coffee hour.
Please register for Seeker Space HERE prior to their first Sunday.
OPEN MINDS GROUP (OMG!)
This space is designed to meet the approximate developmental needs of beloved children in grades seven through twelve. Youth in this space will be released to come join the adults in the social hall. They do not need to be checked out by guardian, but they are not permitted to linger in the classroom wing unattended. Please discuss expectations with your youth prior to their attendance.
Please register youth for OMG! HERE before their first Sunday
If you have questions about any of our Sunday morning offerings for children and youth, don’t hesitate to contact the Director of Religious Exploration, Skyla King-Christison at dre@uucorvallis.org.
And don’t forget that we have a variety of Religious Exploration offerings for adults this year, and can often provide free childcare with appropriate notice. Check it out and get the whole family engaged in RE!
Registration is requested HERE.
WHAT: A fun and connecting communal exploration of radical inclusion through the lens of race and culture.
WHEN: Monday evenings, 9/8 – 10/20 from 6:30-8PM
WHERE: Room 7 @ uufc
WHY: Because the social and political landscape is ever-evolving, there will always be more to learn about how to be inclusive, and this will never be a topic we can check off the old to-do list and call it done. In 2020, the Commission on Institutional Change’s report, “Widening the Circle of Concern” (UUA), the commission recommended that we “hold conversations across generations about issues of inclusion, with the goal of recognizing the evolution in our Living Tradition and that spiritual development needs change over time.” Let’s answer that call in Corvallis!
More details:
Each session will include the following elements:
We want to see a majority of our adults engaging with this material. We want to see teams and councils putting this learning to work in all we do in every corner of Fellowship life and beyond. We want to do whatever is needed to help you engage deeply, share bravely, and welcome wildly, so if you want to be included and can’t figure out how, or if you have questions or concerns, please reach out to Skyla King-Christison at dre@uucorvallis.org .
PS Our children will be engaging with Mosaic across the year, too! Below are some pictures of our leaders of the children and youth programs getting ready for the juicy and community-building year ahead!
