The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis
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Save the Dates: Cascadia County Park, June 25 – 28, 2026 Moonshine Park (near Siletz), September 10 – 13, 2026
Come and join in fun and fellowship while camping with fellow UUFC members and friends! Plans include time for hiking, exploring, crafts, building community, happy hour, and much more. Bring your own tent, personal gear, and food. Parking is very limited (6 cars and 2 RVs – no hook-ups) at Cascadia and 8 vehicles (including RVs) at Moonshine Park, so carpools are encouraged. Come out for all or part of the event.
Registration fees: $30 per person for each weekend (4days/3nights); family rates are available and will be detailed on the registration form
More information and a link for reservations will be sent out soon. If you have specific questions, please contact Julie and Nancy by filling out this form.
Our annual Services and Silent Auction is coming up and the theme this year is a garden party. Please join in our largest fundraiser by offering a fun service, event, or item. Do you have access to a getaway at the beach, in the mountains, or other vacation spot? These prized offerings always earn lots for our Fellowship.
Services are a wonderful and fun way to meet other UUFC members and build community. Do you have a skill, interest, or hobby that you would like to share with others? Some possibilities: bird watching; dance lessons; singing lessons; music performances; guitar or ukulele lessons; drawing or painting opportunities; clay crafting; knitting lessons; rafting on the river; dinner for 4-12; computer help; house or window cleaning; clutter reduction; woodlands hike; homemade dinners delivered; homemade artisan breads or preserves; custom scarf or journal; gift basket; wine tasting on your patio; camping; yard work; cooking classes; gardening help; trip to the beach; anything you love.
Did you downsize or maybe clean out your closets this year and have some special items that you no longer want or need, such as jewelry, furniture, or artwork that you would be willing to donate? Bonus points if your donation coordinates with this year’s theme!
The Services and Silent Auction is a fun party. You’ll definitely want to attend. Everything you donate and everything that’s purchased goes to help support the UUFC. Submit information about your donation(s) here, and the Fundraising Team will reach out. Paper copies of the donation form will be available at the Fellowship after worship on Sundays. Thank you!
As announced in the March UUFC journal, our 2026 Stewardship Drive has begun. All Sundays in March will provide opportunities to learn about the many contributions of both time and money that make the UUFC the resoundingly successful organization that it is and that will be needed to carry us into the future. March 8 will be “Opportunity Awaits” – an opportunity to celebrate and learn more about the many involvements of time available at the UUFC. March 15 will be a soft-launch of the pledge drive – information shared with member and friends encouraged to consider how they will be involved in Fellowship life in the coming year. March 22 will be the formal launch with the stewardship website “live” as well as in-person assistance for those desiring such. March 29 will be a history lesson on the UUFC – learn more about our past so we can plan our future together. Click here to view the stewardship drive announcement letter that contains more detail. Click here to sign up for one of the town halls on March 15, 16 or 22. Childcare is available for those making a request at least a week in advance. Opportunities await. Open yourself to them!
Our March Justice Outreach offering will support our Partner Congregations in Bozod Korispatak, Transylvania, which is in Romania and our Partner Congregation in Burundi, Africa. Our partnerships are 30 and 10 years old, respectively. In that time, we primarily supported the educational pursuits of students in both locations. The UUFC has inherited a commitment to global faith partners. As we consider the uneven local, national and worldwide terrain, it is incumbent upon us to evolve, to engage in collaborations of affection, respect, and trust with others, and to learn, support where asked, and innovate for our sake and for our children. The Global Partners Team is the group through which the UUFC can advance our UU principles of love and justice in the world.
Information about the Monthly Outreach Offering, as well as about UUFC Justice Teams, is posted on the bulletin board at the northeast corner of the Social Hall. Learn more about our Global Partners Team there.
How to donate to the monthly Outreach Offering
Each month, the Fellowship gathers donations for a certain charitable cause. These are our Outreach Offerings. You can contribute to this month’s offering in a few ways:
The Kitchen team donates an assortment of sweet and savory refreshments, including gluten-free and vegan choices, for our enjoyment at the social hour following Sunday worship. These items are purchased and prepared by the team to encourage donations to the Outreach Offering. Collection baskets are always found at the ends of the refreshments table. The next time you’re eyeing something tasty on the table, consider putting a donation in the basket first to show how much you appreciate having that treat ready and waiting for you!
All Fellowship friends and members are invited to request a library card and start using our digital checkout system. Of course, you can still use the notebook, located on the shelf to the left of the window, but by using your very own digital library card, you help reduce the administrative overhead involved in keeping the library up and running.
It’s easy! Let me show you how!
Apply for a card at THIS LINK. Your card will arrive via email within 3 business days.
Search the catalog HERE or use the QR code on the bulletin board just inside the library door. Or, you can just browse the old-fashioned way. The resources have now been sorted into general categories. If you find something in the electronic catalog that you want to check out, you can find it on the shelf in the section indicated by the red tag. The example below is a book that can be found in the Unitarian Universalism and Congregational Life section! Please note that tags may only show up in the desktop version of the libib catalog on some devices.
Once you’ve found the book you want to take home, you could sign it out in the check out binder OR you could use your handy dandy new library card at the kiosk! If the iPad has gone to sleep (it probably has), simply press the button at the bottom to wake it up. Then you’ll find the libib kiosk app and tap it to open.
You’ll immediately be at the checkout screen. There are directions on the screen. Let’s walk through them together!
The first thing you’ll do is tap the blue SCAN button. This will open the camera on the back of the iPad to scan the QR code on the back of your book.
Simply lower your book (or movie or card deck) behind the iPad so that the QR code shows up on the screen.
As soon as it scans the code, it will say Success! and then your item will appear listed on the screen. You can scan until your heart is content. I mean, let’s be reasonable, but yeah. Take all the things you plan to read in the next little while.
When you’re all done, you’re ready click the CHECKOUT button in the bottom corner. Sometimes it’s green. Sometimes it’s blue. Life is a mystery!
Finally! The moment you’ve waited for! The chance to use your super cool Fellowship Library Card! You could enter your patron ID in manually, but that’s so boring when you could tap the QR code and then just scan your card like you did the book.
As soon as it has registered your patron QR code, you’ll be greeted with another friendly Success! message and you’re ready to go tell your friends how easy and fun that was.
When you’re done with your items, please return them to the “returns” basket located on the shelf to the left of the window. One of your friendly neighborhood library volunteers will check it back in and reshelve it for you!
If you happen to run into snags, come find or email me. Skyla! I’m happy to help you until we find a new librarian. Or, you know, you could use the binder and move on with your day. That said, I’d really appreciate knowing your experience, what’s working and what’s not, as we learn this new system.
In the earliest stages of our rollout, there may still be books that have fallen through the cracks and haven’t been stickered, or they have an old sticker, and the kiosk doesn’t recognize it. All of these details are things we want to know about! Please, if you have the time, don’t just stick the books back on the shelf if you find an anomaly that isn’t in the system correctly. Let me know so I can fix it!
Thanks for being a Fellowship library patron! You rock!
Try, once again, to let everything you do be done in love.
I am inspired by these words Rev. Jill uses to close our Sunday service. What would it be like to live this way? Sometimes I speak or act out of love, and that feels like happiness. But not everything I do or say comes from love, and when an alternative motivation (like ego, obligation, guilt, anger, etc etc) takes over, the results are often not so good.
How can we move closer to this lovely ideal? Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodron has a masterful way of explaining Buddhist wisdom in an accessible and compelling way. After reading “When Things Fall Apart” I was intrigued by the idea that in our incessant quest to avoid suffering, we often make a mess of things and cause a lot of suffering for ourselves and others. When I attended a weekend retreat with Pema and learned to meditate, I learned that it is possible to train in loving kindness. Meditation allowed me to take these ideas to heart and start to apply them to actual situations. I then gained a new level of appreciation of the power of Buddhist wisdom.
I’m planning a study group to read and discuss “Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World”. Here’s a blurb from the cover: In her first new book of spiritual teachings in over seven years, Pema Chodron offers fresh wisdom, heartfelt reflections and the signature humor and insight that have made her a beloved guide in turbulent times. In an increasingly polarized world, Pema offers us tools to find common ground, even when we disagree, so we can build a stronger and broader sense of community. Sharing never-before-told personal stories from her remarkable life, simple and powerful everyday practices, and directly relatable advice, Pema leads the way in showing us how to become triumphant bodhisattvas- compassionate beings- in even the most difficult of circumstances.
Well, reading and understanding is one thing. But taking the advice to heart and trying it out in our everyday encounters is what I’m hoping to achieve in this Adult RE offering. We will read, we will discuss, we will do guided meditations, and we will try out these ideas in real life.
We very much appreciate you taking the time to pre-register so that we can arrive well-prepared to provide you with the best RE experience possible.
If you have a special interest and would like to facilitate an exploration opportunity for adults, email Skyla King-Christison at dre@uucorvallis.org. The RE Council loves it when our members help co-create the gatherings they would like to see, and I’m happy to support you in launching your RE-related ideas.
