Don’t forget to change your clocks before you go to bed after Halloween, or you’ll show up very early for services on Sunday . . . Daylight Savings Time is ending, so put the clock back one hour.
See you after an extra hour’s rest, November 1!
UUCPA now has two all-gender family restrooms on campus, thanks to an unexpected opportunity arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. These updated facilities will better welcome and serve congregants of all genders (including non-binary, gender-fluid, and agender UUs) and anyone who might need the help of a partner or caregiver (of any gender) when using the ...
A few intrepid folks have started posting their online donations. Thank you so much! Add your donation here: https://charityauction.bid/uucpa2020auction
And the auction team is looking at yummy food options for the party food boxes for the evening of the auction.We are still looking for volunteers in the following areas on November 14th:- Cooking crew for the ...
Many of us have been working on the election in one way or another — letters, postcards, phone-banks, trying to convince our families, etc., etc., etc. Soon, Election Day will come and go. Yet the election may not be over then, or even soon afterward. We may find ourselves feeling the need to continue our ...
Dear wonderful postcard/ letter writers and friends,
If you want to attend a phone bank with other UUCPA members and friends, join Nancy Neff and Elsa Schafer on Monday and Tuesday afternoons at 2-5 pm. Or if that doesn’t work, you can join one of the UUJMCA/Reclaim Our Vote sessions on Sunday afternoons, 1-4 p.m. Read on ...
Brown Bag Books‘ November selection is “The Overstory: A Novel” by Richard Powers.
This winner of the Pulitzer Prize “is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of–and paean to–the natural world. . . . There is a world alongside ours–vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost ...
Hello, travelers in the imagination! The Sci-Fi Fantasy group will be meeting on October 21, 2020, to discuss the movie, The Day the Earth Stood. Make sure to spend an evening with Gort and Klaatu before then. We’ll be discussing the 1951 version (though if anyone has seen the remake, their comments will be ...
DeSmog Blog, a website devoted to countering global warming misinformation campaigns, has noted with approval a recent action taken by our Green Sanctuary Committee.
Palo Alto Paying Over $20,000 Annually to Natural Gas Trade Group Fighting Climate Action
Palo Alto maintains membership in the American Public Gas Association (APGA), a leading natural-gas industry organization. The Green ...
Each year in November, the church auctions goods and services at a wonderful party. In 2020, we are committed to still bringing the congregation together for a party! An online party. As in previous years, members donate everything from homemade jam to a condo in Mexico. This year, we are going to see how ...
In the fall of 2020, Dan Harper is offering a series of online adult classes that will explore topics of interest to both Sunday school teachers, parents of UU kids., and perhaps some older UU kids as well! You need not be a Sunday school teacher, a parent of a UU kid, or a UU ...
Please join us for a 4-part adult religious education class titled: Transcendentalism Then and Now, led by Rev. John Buehrens.
Background reading for the course is Rev. Buehrens recent book, CONFLAGRATION: How the Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for Racial, Gender, and Social Justice (Boston: Beacon Press, Jan. 2020). The paperback edition of this book will ...
Email photos of your stuffie dressed up in Halloween costume asap to possum@uucpa.org and watch for them in an upcoming Sunday worship service!
Please include your name and the name of your stuffie. Stuffies only! No humans allowed in the photos.
Learn how to make a costume for your stuffie:
In order to give our Sunday school teachers a break, we skip Sunday morning activities for children and youth on a few Sundays. In addition, there is no Sunday School on Intergenerational service worship service weeks. Upcoming off Sundays include:
11-Oct
No Sunday school
8-Nov
No Sunday school
22-Nov
Family check-in before the intergen service (No Sunday School)
As is true of most people, I dislike life in the time of pandemic. But I’m also fascinated by some of the creativity in people’s response to the pandemic, and I’d like to tell you about some instances of creativity that especially captured my imagination.
There was Kayak Church. On ...
On Sunday afternoon, October 4, 2020 at 1 pm, we’ll be having a very special meeting of Healing the Divide. Our guests will be five Braver Angels who identify as Red. Some of them are Trump supporters. They will engage with five members of our congregation, who mostly identify as Blue, in a Living Room Conversation on the topic “2020 ...
On Tuesday, October 6, 2020 at 7:00 PM, presenter, Matthew C. O’Donnell will discuss how to plan for your future, with a question and answer session at the end, covering:
How to make your Trust or existing Trust less cumbersome, less expensive to administer, and more tax-efficient
The benefits of creating Lifelong Trusts™ to provide asset ...
The only Palo Alto City Council Candidate Forum dedicated to the climate is coming October 6th at 7 pm — don’t miss this virtual forum! Give the climate a seat at the table: vote for candidates who have a vision for a greener and safer future, and have clear views on the best strategies to ...
Only a few weeks to go until the election! Let’s keep up the momentum! Letter and postcard writing are winding down, so now is the time to switch to phone banking! Help remind people to vote early and sign their absentee ballots and help them find their vote centers. The best way to do this is ...
Need more information to help you decide how to vote? Take advantage of the non-partisan ballot proposition sessions offered by the various chapters of the League of Women Voters. Below you will find information from three local chapters. On each chapter’s website, you can also find links to and recordings of candidate forums.
Ballot Proposition Sessions
LWV ...
Important news about the October 4, 2020, service
We recommend downloading the newest Zoom version before the Sunday, September 27th service. Among other things, it allows users to choose their own breakout room, a feature many have wished for. That feature is only available to you if you upgrade your Zoom (free), which you can do here at their Download Center.
Please join UUCPA’s Welcoming Congregation team on Wednesday, Sept. 30, from 7:30 pm – 9 pm, for an engaging Zoom seminar on the diversity of the transgender community, the experiences of transgender, non-binary, and genderqueer people within Unitarian Universalism, and the spiritual meaning at the heart of their personal journeys.
The Zoom seminar will feature selections ...
Dear UUCPA folks,I write again with news of another loss of a dear person. Yesterday, Ruth Hammett passed away peacefully, at her home, with Ben, her best friend and husband of over 63 years, holding her hand. The last sounds in her ears were loving words from him and their daughter.She and Ben made a ...
With great sorrow, I’m letting you know that David Harris died on September 18th in the early morning hours. He was an active member here for over 15 years, beginning, if my memory serves, as a dual member of UUCPA and the nearby Humanist Community. David was one of those dear and rare people who had ...
We are now just weeks from Election Day and there is a lot happening!
Recent Efforts
Since mid-July Anne Frahn has distributed over 4,500 get-out-the-vote letters to members of the UUCPA community, and others have been printing their own letters from the Vote Forward website. Kristi Iverson has been hosting weekly letter-writing “parties” on Zoom, and attendance at these ...
Greetings,
On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 7:15 pm, we will hold the fourth session of White Folks Dismantling White Supremacy. You are welcome to attend, whether or not you have joined us before. We will start by sharing our experiences with the 21-day Racial Equality Challenge (don’t worry if you haven’t started – that’s experience too!) ...
Given the difficulties in trying to sell fair-trade chocolate during the pandemic, the Action Council has decided that we will not be purchasing, repackaging, and selling fair trade mini chocolate bars this year. UUCPA has been making fair trade chocolate available for Halloween since Rev. Amy first started the tradition about 10 years ago. Buying ...
The UUCPA Green Sanctuary Committee voted to sponsor an upcoming Candidate Climate Forum hosted by 350 SV (and cosponsored by Acterra, CIPL and PICA).
Local elections have consequences for the planet: transit, land use, fee, utility and waste policy decisions by the Palo Alto City Council impact whether we meet our climate goals in the next decade.
The climate ...
Stewards of the Month: Kevin Crane and Barbara Smith-Thomas
Our Stewards of the Month for July took on the dragon of bureaucracy and won UUCPA a PPP loan of $89,000 to help cover staff salaries. We have been paying all of our staff through the pandemic, and this loan helps us continue to do so. Odds ...
Thanks for all the Hotel de Zink dinner signups! The schedule is full.
Need to see what date you signed up for? Look at the Hotel de Zink Schedule: bit.ly/uucpa_hoteldezink_schedule
Questions? Check our FAQ: bit.ly/uucpa_hoteldezink_faq
Is there a fluent Dutch speaker in the congregation? Our lovely chalice lighting words for Sunday were originally written in Dutch by Roos van Doorn, minister Vrijzinnigen Nederland in Bennekom, Netherlands, and it would be great to hear them in that language as well as in English.
Let Rev. Amy know if this is something you’d ...
Our online safety policy says we must have a current registration before your child can participate in online classes. Please register now: https://forms.gle/1w1CA3TJ6wXBuqMv6
To meet the needs of kids who can’t take one more Zoom meeting, we’re sending out monthly activity packets to all kids in grades K-8. Activity packets include fun games and puzzles, and we’ll slip in some learning about what it means to be a UU.
And we’ll soon have books to give to every ...
As we did in the spring, we’re going to keep offering classes for different age groups at different times. Sunday school classes for children in preschool through grade 5 are scheduled as follows:
Before worship service, 9:30 to 10:15 am:
Red class (preschool)
Green class (gr. 2-3)
After worship service, 11:45 am to 12:30 pm:
Yellow class (gr. ...
One option for middle schoolers in 2020-2021 is the in-person Ecojustice class. This hands-on class is limited to 7 participants, and all class meetings will be outdoors or on the covered patio (open three sides), no matter what the weather. Teachers include Ed Vail, Carol Steinfeld, Francesca Finch, and Emma Grant-Bier. There will also be ...
The other option for middle schoolers this year is the online Neighboring Religions class. We’ll visit online services of other religions, and explore the wild diversity of Silicon Valley religion. Dan harper will be teaching this class, with help from other teachers.
Neighboring religions class is held weekly on Sundays from 11:45 am to 12:30 ...
The popular Coming of Age program will be offered this year on Sunday evenings at 7 pm starting in December 2020.
Interested families — teens in gr. 8-10 and their parents — are invited to a Zoom meeting with Rev. Dan Harper on Sunday, Sept. 20, at 7:00 p.m. to find out more about this ...
In the fall of 2020, Dan Harper is offering a series of online adult classes that will explore topics of interest to both Sunday school teachers and parents of UU kids., You need not be a Sunday school teacher or a parent of a UU kid to attend. All are welcome!
All classes take place ...
Thanks to Barbara Smith-Thomas, Dave Jewett, and Weijia Cheng for helping out. We worked on the following:
cleaned the solar panel again after all the ash from the fire
removed ivy climbing up the tree near Til Evans garden
tested the TV stored inside the Fireside room closet. The problem was that the remote control batteries died. We tested the ...
We need sign-ups for two more dates for our Hotel de Zink dinners. Can you ease Edie and Beth’s minds and help out by bringing a dinner for 15? Sign-ups still needed and appreciated! Buying instead of cooking is an option.
Please sign up to bring a meal for 15 with this form ...
Volunteering is a great way to stay connected with the community and get to know others! While volunteers may be less visible with the campus closed, community members are still busily working behind the scenes on the committees and projects that keep the church running and that bring our programs to life online. These committed volunteers ...
Healing the Divide meets on Sept. 6
The annual Water Communion service will be on August 30 this year. We hope you can participate in this annual ritual of ingathering. To share, bring a small amount of water (think pill bottle size) to UUCPA on Sunday, August 23, 12:30-2 pm.
Securely shut and attach a label with your names ...
Tuesday Aug 25: Second Session of White Folks Dismantling White SupremacyOn August 11, in the first August session of Dismantling White Supremacy, we listened to an episode from the podcast “Seeing White.”. It is truly amazing how little we know about our history from the perspective of African Americans! We hope you will join us for the next session ...
Tuesday, August 25, 1:30-3
It’s been too long since we gathered! We’ll share around the circle on the topic, “Shelter in Place: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” with Amy facilitating. All self-identified elders are invited. If you need Zoom help, please contact Amy (parishmin@uucpa.org) or BJ (bjwishinsky@uucpa.org) a few days ahead, and we’ll get ...
Please sign up to bring a meal for 15 with this form – bit.ly/uucpa_hoteldezink_signupform – you will see available dates.
Questions? Check our FAQ: bit.ly/uucpa_hoteldezink_faq
Need to see what date you signed up for? Look at the Hotel de Zink Schedule: bit.ly/uucpa_hoteldezink_schedule
“Get-Out-the-Vote” Every Sunday: 3:30-5:00 pm (through Sept. 27th) – Prepare “Get-Out-the-Vote” letters to infrequent voters in key states with Kristi Iverson
“Reclaim Our Vote” Every Thursday: 7:30-8:30 pm (through Sept. 24th) – Write “Reclaim Our Vote” Postcards with Elsa Schafer and/or Linda Henigin
About “Get-Out-the-Vote”
You’re not “writing” an entire letter but simply completing one sentence ...
Third time's the charm!: REALLY gathering to discuss Parable of the Sower, August 19
On August 9 the UUCPA Action Council approved a new justice project, the Mentor Tutor Connection. This organization has been providing tutoring and mentoring to students in Mountain View and Los Altos for many years. This year local schools will begin the new year with all remote instruction, which makes both tutoring and mentoring more ...
The UU Justice Ministry of California is proud to present its eighth Intergenerational Justice Summit, “Turning the Tides” (formerly known as “Walking the Walk”). This year’s “Turning the Tides” online justice summit will run from August 24, 2020 thru August 29, 2020. Each day of our online program will feature at least two programs/workshops/actions and will be ...
