Weekly e-nUUs – May 1, 2014

enUUs_newlogo 12.2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worship & Music

Sunday services are offered at 9:45 and 11:30 AM.

 

May 4 – Youth Sunday

Led by our Youth and Worship Associate Loir McGee

Join us for our annual Youth Sunday created and led by our senior high youth.  They will consider the joys and challenges of letting go as they move from childhood to young adulthood.

 

Community Within

 

Attention All Leaders and Committee Chairs

All Annual Reports to be included in the Annual Meeting packet are due immediately.  Please submit or email reports to MaryBeth at [email protected]. Annual Meeting packets will be available to the congregation on May 14. The Annual Congregational Information Meeting is scheduled for May 28 @ 7 PM and the Voting Meeting will be held on June 1 @ 12:30 PM.

 

What a lucky break!  

There’s still a chance to buy tickets for the fourth annual Light Bites (Service Auction event) for this Saturday, May 3 at 7:00 P.M.  Tickets, $35.00 each, include a reader’s theatre performance put on by ten of your favorite UU “actors”:  Kat Holtz, Sarah Verity, Vivien Sandlund, Trish McLoughlin, Lori McGee, Ted Voneida, Connor May, Sandy Eaglen, Cheryl Spoehr and Marion Yeagler.  The evening also includes a delicious and plentiful array of food, including drinks and desserts, offered by our six incredible chefs: Mary and Randy Leeson, Jen May, Lois Weir and Dave and Diana Watt.  If you’re able to join us, please contact Sandy Eaglen, so that we have an accurate “food count” –you can pay for the tickets ahead of time in the office or online (please write Service Auction on the memo line of your check or in the information box on the online donation page), or just pay at the door.  Hope to see you there!

 

Attention All UU Members and Friends – RE: Email

A few of our members with AOL email accounts were recently hacked.  They have requested that we send notice to our members and friends that may have received an email from them in the last few days.  The emails say “signed documents are uploaded” and ask you to click here and sign-in with your email.  Please know that they are very sorry if you have received one of these emails from them and hope that you did not follow the instructions contained within.

 

Defective Hal Walker  Hal-elujah! CDs
If you have purchased a Hal Walker CD from me and found that it would not play, please return it to me and I will replace it with a (hopefully) good one for free.  I know of 2 or 3 blank CDs already, and am assuming there are others out there.  My expert staff has contacted the manufacturer about the problem.  Sorry!

Brad Bolton

 

New UU Classes in May!

Curious?  Interested in learning more?  Ready to take the next step?
Our New UU classes cover everything you wanted to know about the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent in particular and Unitarian Universalism in general, but didn’t know where to go or whom to ask.  Well, maybe not everything, but we try to give you an overview, a starting point.  Some history of both, some organizational details. Come join the conversation.  And, if you’re curious about membership, this is the place to be.  Part 1 will be on Sunday, May 4th, from 9-11 am. Part 2 will be on Sunday, May 18th, from 9-11 am.  You may attend one or both, although attendance at both is encouraged.  Different topics will be covered in each.  We will gather at the Annex, the yellow house next to the church.If you have any questions, contact Claudia Miller or Marion Yeagler7.

 

Surprise Friends

Don’t forget your Surprise Friend this week! Bring your surprise (a note, a piece of artwork, etc.) and leave it on the Surprise Friends table in Fessenden Hall.

 

The Patricia Pownall UU Book Group will be meeting on Tuesday, May 13 at 7 pm in the home of Trish Kwartler.  This month we are reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s. Elegantly weaving together seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.” A sweeping and radical social novel, it captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. In June we will be reading Cloud Cover by Margo Milcetich. If you have any questions you may contact Bonnie Harper.  All are welcome.

 

Outreach and Social Justice

 

Kent Bill of Rights Charter Amendment  – Monday, May 5th, 7-8:30pm

Join us in Fessenden Hall as Tish O’Dell, the Ohio Organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the State Coordinator of the Ohio Community Rights Network will be sharing how residents are using Community Bills of Rights to exercise democracy where they live to create healthy, sustainable communities for the future.  Members of the Kent Environmental Rights Group will also be available to answer questions about the Kent Bill of Rights Charter Amendment Initiative and how to help.

 

RiverDay Garlic Mustard Pull on Saturday, May 17th, 10am-12pm

Meet at the parking lot at 143 Gougler Ave. across from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent to protect our riverside park from invasive weeds. Contact Andrew Rome for more information.

 

Green Sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent presents a free showing of the movie:

Forks Over Knives

“A film that can save your life” Roger Ebert Chicago-Sun Times

“Great Movie” Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist

Date:  May 23, 2014

Time:  7 pm

Place: The Sanctuary

Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent

Followed by discussion and healthy snacks

Contact person: Trish McLoughlin

 

Income Generation

Some Notes About Our FY ’15 Budget

The Board has reviewed the budget recommended by the Finance Committee.  It is a decent budget in that it covers the expenses of our operation, preserves our current level of staffing, and preserves our payment of our fair share of annual program fund dues to the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Ohio Meadville District.  The congregation has made clear that these are core values for us, and we are happy that our pledging is sufficient to reflect these values in our budget.  We can all be proud of the hard work we have done to get to this place.

However, we know that many of you will be disappointed to learn that our pledging is not sufficient to maintain the budget we had in FY ’14, nor are we able to grow into all of the goals we had for FY ’15.  We told you at the beginning of our stewardship campaign that we had three goals for this year: to respond to rising health insurance costs, to create a fund for our 150th anniversary celebration in 2016-2017, and to invest in our music ministry.  Of course we want to make sure that all of our staff meet the UUA fair compensation guidelines, and we also hoped to provide them with a modest 1 or 2% cost-of-living adjustment.  Because our pledge total for FY ‘15 shows only a small increase over FY ’14, we are not able to able to accomplish as much as we hoped.

As an employer we are obliged to fulfill the health insurance commitments we have made to staff; this necessitates absorbing increased costs of insurance in our FY ’15 budget.  Since FY ’15 pledging does not cover this amount, we had to make cuts in some of our program areas to absorb the additional cost in the budget.  The proposed budget as it currently stands covers the increased health insurance costs, but it does not allow us to meet the UUA’s most recent (just received a few days ago) minimum fair compensation guidelines for all of our staff, nor does it include cost-of-living adjustments for all of them.

In addition, this budget does not provide a fund for the 150th anniversary celebration or sufficient additional investment in our music ministry.  This past year Hal created the Golden Tones Junior Choir, the Fallow Time Folk Orchestra, and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent Tone Chimers, in addition to his work with the adult choir and other responsibilities.  We will not be able to sustain the level of musical programming we have this year without additional funding for FY15.

If you are able to reconsider your pledge in light of this information, we would welcome additional contributions.  We would love nothing more than to revise the budget to achieve more of our goals in support of our mission.

Thanks to all who worked hard on our stewardship campaign this year, especially the leaders, Kathie Slater, Meg Milko, Sandy Eaglen, and Marion Yeagler.  And thanks again to all of you for your contributions of time, talent, and treasures to our beloved church community.

Sincerely,

Elaine Yehle Bowen, on behalf of the Board of Trustees

Sandy Eaglen, Treasurer

Share this: