Members and Friends of UUCPA,
On Monday, August 9, the Palo Alto City Council will be voting on UUCPA’s permit for the Safe Parking Program. Please consider writing to the City Council prior to August 9 to express your support of UUCPA’s Safe Parking program. As a member of the UUCPA community, you have a strong connection to ...
This message is to notify you that on July 28 the Board of Trustees of UUCPA unanimously approved sending a letter of support for the UUCPA Safe Parking program to the Palo Alto City Council on behalf of the Board and the entire congregation. For background on this request and the Safe Parking Program, please ...
Healing the Divide resumes on August 1st at 1:00 pm. This is a UUCPA group which formed after the 2016 elections to ask 1) what do we not understand about others with more conservative viewpoints and 2) what can we learn that will help us communicate even across wide differences in belief.
The agenda for ...
Dear UUCPA Community,
The many small groups and activities we offer at UUCPA transform lives. When we attend groups like the Forum, Brown Bag Books, a Chalice Circle, or a Choir rehearsal, we grow, we create beloved community, and we have a lot of fun. To make safe in-person meetings possible, the Small Group Covid Compliance Task ...
Dear Beloved UUCPA Community,
As COVID conditions change rapidly, the Small Group COVID Compliance Task Force has updated our current requirements to comply with the newest recommendations of the Santa Clara County Health Department. Note that anyone meeting with a group indoors will need to be masked, regardless of vaccination status. We also still need to wear our ...
This message is to notify you that the Action Council and the UUCPA Safe Parking Committee have requested a letter from the church be sent to the Palo Alto City Council in support of the permit UUCPA has applied which would allow four-passenger cars to park overnight in our parking lot. For background on this ...
I will be on study leave July 7-16 and then vacation July 17-August 6. Neither I nor Dan took our full leave time last year, so it’s not possible to catch up in one month, but I’m looking forward to time to read and reflect, and then travel to beautiful Maine and Vermont with my ...
Alert readers may have noted that the service for July 11 was going to feature the Ware Lecturers at this year’s General Assembly, Stacey Abrams and Desmond Meade. That service has now swapped places with another, and we will have the Rev. Diane Teichert preaching on “How the Light Gets In . . . and ...
The Forum meets from 9:00 to 10:15 Sunday mornings (in the Fireside Room when we meet in person). Here are the topics for August 2021:
8/1 In Secularism We Trust – Rob Ruether
8/8 Responding to California’s drought and wildfires – Sarah
8/15 The upcoming Supreme Court case on the right to choose – Jai Cho
8/22 Grown people ...
Information for the July Justice Partner:
The Justice Partner for July, as chosen by the congregation at the annual meeting, is Outlet. Outlet is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning (LGBTQQ+) Youth organization based in Mountain View. As the Peninsula’s only comprehensive LGBTQQ+ youth organization, it provides services to youth and adults who work with ...
I hope you have some downtime. If you expect to be lounging on the beach, on a plane, or at home, you’ll need books that are fun to read but don’t insult your intelligence. Here’s the perfect combination, with a bonus–a chance to talk with other UUCPA folks about the book, because you’re going ...
We have a terrific lineup of services this summer!
July 4: Amy’s last service before several weeks of study leave and vacation makes the stirring promise that Democracy is Coming.
July 11 shows us how, with the dream team Ware Lecturers from last week’s UUA General Assembly, Stacey Abrams and Desmond Meade. With the Ware Lecture, the ...
The Hybrid Services Task Force has been hard at work putting into place all the elements needed for safe and successful services post-pandemic: technical, logistic, community-building, and aesthetic. The first issue, of course, is that we are not post-pandemic and that an important part of our community still has no access to vaccines: children under ...
Please join us this Saturday, June 3, from 9-12 for the July UUCPA Work Day.
You can:
fix a door latch,
help with the emergency water,
Adjust the temporary fencing,
work on leveling some patio bricks,
or maintenance around the McFadden Patio building, and more!
We hope to see you there!
Questions?
Contact the Buildings and Grounds Committee at buildings-and-grounds@uucpa.org
Child Sexual Abuse PreventionWed. Aug. 18, 7:30-8:30 p.m.
We will discuss statistics, definitions, and indicators of child sexual abuse, risk reduction techniques we can implement, and ways we can respond to disclosures of abuse. This workshop will be led by Jessica Marshall, the Community Outreach and Engagement Coordinator for the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley. She ...
Dear UUCPA folks,
We are delighted that our Ecojustice Camp is underway and very successful! Please avoid visiting UUCPA during camp hours (approximately 8 am to 5:30 pm), and please note that everyone must wear masks on the UUCPA campus. It is a simple thing we can all do to assure the parents of children under 12 that their ...
On Sunday, June 6, UUCPA’s Welcoming Congregation team met to plan for the coming year. Under the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Welcoming Renewal program, UU churches now take affirmative steps each year to renew themselves as Welcoming Congregations for LGBTQ+ UUs, and UUCPA did so most recently in April 2021.
For 2021–22, we plan to:
Undertake the baseline ...
A message from Eden Housing and OJK Design Group, a group designing/developing affordable housing near UUCPA:
We’d like to invite any interested members of your organization to a meeting held via Zoom on June 30 from 6:00-7:30 pm to hear about our proposal to develop the site located at 525 E. Charleston Road with an attractive, 100% ...
Beloved Conversations Virtual registration is open now for the Fall 2021 Within course! Seven of us from UUCPA have already signed up, and we’d love to have many more of us engaged in community building, learning, and spiritual growth! A 20% discount is offered to all who sign up during General Assembly–that’s by the end ...
The Forum meets from 9:00 to 10:15 Sunday mornings in the Fireside Room. Here are the topics for July, 2021:
7/4 Radical welcome at UUCPA – Susan Owicki
7/11 Voting rights and voting registration – open discussion
7/18 Can we ever get off the consumption treadmill? – Dick Duda
Related book: The Day the World Stops Shopping, by J.B. McKinnon
7/25 Discussion ...
Birago Lion and Belinda Sheep chaperoned UUCPA’s second Stuffed Animal Sleepover on June 12-13.
We hope you will enjoy their photo album.
Three cheers for the June workday volunteers for getting the parking lot fencing summer-camp-ready…among other accomplishments!
The UUCPA Stuffed Animal Sleepover will take place June 11-13.
Birago Lion and Belinda Sheep, two older and extremely responsible stuffies, will chaperon the sleepover. Sleepover events will begin on Saturday morning, and Birago and Belinda will post photos of their activities on the UUCPA Facebook page all day. Only stuffies whose owners are under age 18, ...
Dear UUCPA Folk,
Many hands make light work! Please join the B&G crew and othervolunteers for the June work day.
THIS Saturday, June 5, 9-12.
There is fencing to put up for summer camps, clearing out the built upmulch around the McFadden Patio building, sprinklers (but the leak isfixed!), gardening, and more…
— Robert Neff
The Action Council is pleased to announce three new voting members who were affirmed at the May Board Meeting: Chris Kan, Chris Cassell and Sean Hansen. This brings the Action Council to its full complement of nine members, plus one Emeritus member. We are excited to bring new energy and ideas into our justice work ...
Welcoming Congregation / Transgender Inclusion Next Steps - Jun 6 @ 7:30 pm
Logical Fallacies class - Jun 7 @ 7:30 pm
On May 25th, 2021, the Board of Trustees unanimously passed a set of four policies that set the framework for our return to in-person worship and activities. Though we know it has been a very long 15 months, we thank you for your continued patience as many volunteers and our dedicated staff plan and implement ...
The Board voted unanimously to make our main hall restrooms into single-use, all-gender bathrooms. This means that only one user (or one household) may use the restrooms at a time, and that users should lock the door when inside. This change accomplishes a few important goals:
Creating a welcoming environment for all, including our transgender and ...
April 6, 2022 is the 75th anniversary of UUCPA’s founding! Would you like to join the team of people that will envision and create our celebration? Please reach out to brooke_b@uucpa.org to express your interest.
Summer camps are just around the corner (yay, rental income!). Our temporary Day-Glo orange fencing is extending accordingly to mark the camp boundaries and help remind drivers where not to drive.
The camps will be taking over part of the main parking lot, so expect less parking availability during the summer while the camps are ongoing.
Thanks ...
The Green Sanctuary Committee will be exploring reaccreditation in order to guide ourselves in this new decade under the UUA’s GS2030 themes of Mitigation, Resiliency, and Justice.
For those who would like to participate in this campaign, or just want to follow along with the Committee and its work, please contact Kevin Ma (kevinma@uucpa.org) or join our mailing list.
Exploring the 8th Principle -- all invited on May 25th!
The wheels of city government turn slowly, but they do move, and they are moving closer toward enabling us at UUCPA to help our community in a new way. Congregation member Chris Kan has been leading a group working to bring a safe parking program for people living out of their cars to our church’s ...
If you missed an event, want to watch it again, or want to share it with a friend, no fear. Most of our services and stories, and lots of our Adult Religious Education classes, go onto UUCPA’s YouTube channel.
Recent additions are:
Religion and Social Change: Black, Womanist, Mujerista, and Feminist Theologies of Liberation
May 16 service. ...
Things are changing so much, so fast, on the COVID front . . . so what is UUCPA going to do? Especially about resuming in-person services?
Since things are changing so much, so fast, the answers I give now might be out of date literally by the time you read this in the Weekly Update. But ...
The Forum meets from 9:00 to 10:15 Sunday mornings in the Fireside Room. Here are the topics for June, 2021:
6/6 How Technology is Affecting Our Brains, Part II – Jai Cho
6/13 Improving mental health in society – Dave Joki
6/20 Facebooks’ oversight board – Jai Cho
6/27 Discussion of Matters of Current Local, National, and International Interest, and ...
Dear UUCPA folks,
The COVID emergency in India is devastating. In Sunday’s service, we heard the words of Subhadra Sen Gupta, and the story of Damyantiben Pithadiya, both of whom have recently died of COVID in the wave that is overwhelming the country’s medical services and draining it of crucial supplies such as oxygen. I want to follow ...
Dear UUCPA members and friends,
If you have a friend or neighbor who might be a good fit for our Membership position, please spread the word! (We do not hire members of the congregation.)
Position available: Membership and Engagement Coordinator (15 hours/week)
The Membership and Engagement Coordinator promotes congregation-wide participation in guiding attendees into membership, and newcomers ...
I’d like to tell you what the Children and Youth Religious Education Committee and I are planning for UUCPA for the 2021-2022 school year. The most important thing that we’re planning is that we’re going to remain flexible. Federal, state, and county regulations and recommendations are changing rapidly right now, as we learn more about ...
Plan ahead now for a UUCPA Stuffed Animal Sleepover on the weekend of June 11-13. As with last year’s stuffie sleepover, you drop your stuffies off on Friday evening, so they can wake up at UUCPA early Saturday morning for a full day of activities. They’ll sleepover on Saturday night, and attend the worship service ...
Our annual Flower Communion service is this Sunday, May 9!We will share real flowers, live, on video. Please have a flower ready to hold up to your video camera. Whether the household shares one, or you have one for each member of the household, is up to you. We would love to see your smiling ...
Logical Fallacies by Joy Morgenstern (A six-class Series: Six Mondays from 7:30 to 9 p.m., from May 3 to June 14, skipping May 31)
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet (or on the rare occasions these days that you get to leave the house) you will encounter many people who are trying to convince ...
Live Book Talk Scheduled for May 12 @ 7pm
https://onrealm.org/uucpa/PublicRegistrations/Event?linkString=MGRiMjdkZTEtNTRkYi00Y2YzLWE2NjUtYWQzMjAxNmYyNzRk
UUCPA’s Welcoming Congregation team is delighted to share that the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) recently certified our church’s annual renewal as a Welcoming Congregation for LGBTQ UUs! UUCPA has been a Welcoming Congregation since 1998, but only recently did the UUA call on churches to begin formally renewing their commitment annually.
What is the Welcoming Congregation ...
Dear UUCPA Folk,
Many hands make light work! Please join the B&G crew and other volunteers for the May work day.
THIS Saturday, May 1, 9-12. That’s probably tomorrow by the time you see this!
Other tasks:
Clean out the Tool Closet (!! !! !!) First time in 10 years?
Remove dirt next to wood all around the base of the ...
Beloved Community,
Our Annual Congregational Meeting is this coming Sunday, April 25, 2021 at 12:30. Please join us as we flex our democratic muscles and govern ourselves!
If you are a member who has given a contribution of record of any amount within the past twelve months, you are eligible to vote, and Jeff Cashdollar will email ...
If you are planning to attend the Annual Meeting on Sunday, consider updating Zoom in advance (find the instructions below). It will be easier to participate with the latest features. Below are instructions for updating.
Looking forward to seeing many of you there! –Brooke
p.s. You should have received your emailed Zoom link for the meeting from Jeff ...
Congratulations to partners Summer and Katareena, and welcome to their babies Kadence Astraeus Wynter born April 1 and River Azrael June born April 4! We have set them up with a TakeThemAMeal schedule for the next few weeks starting this Wednesday (April 14). You can sign up here: https://www.TakeThemAMeal.com/OYMX7131Details (also on the TakeThemAMeal web page):
They would appreciate meals for 3 adults (Summer, Katareena and ...
