by Admin | Feb 2, 2018 | Justice Actions
Dear UUCV Community,
At my first religious education committee meeting at UUCV, Rev. Dana asked us to share our hopes, dreams, and fondest wishes for the program, and a lot of us envisioned full classrooms of engaged kids at all age levels. Voila! We are truly filling our classrooms, with thanks to each of you for coming back Sunday after Sunday, bringing friends, and to the ever-expanding team of volunteers who give their time, energy, and resources to be with our children and youth.
We are delighted to have opened a new preschool classroom and parents voted for a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum. Our three and four year olds are learning kindness, compassion, paying attention to their emotions, and more. What if we all took steps to improve well-being in our lives and communities?
We also launched a Coming of Age program for 12-14 year olds, a rite of passage as they transition into their adolescence by developing their beliefs and culminating in a camping trip and leading a Sunday service in June.
May we continue to hold in our hearts every child and youth, parent, grandparent, teacher, and congregant who walks through our doors and beyond! All are invited to visit the RE bulletin board in the back of Berg Hall to write a name of someone they hold in their heart and post it!
“Let perseverance be your engine and hope your fuel.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Emily Carroll, Director of Religious Education
emily@uuventura.org
by Admin | Feb 2, 2018 | Justice Actions
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.” Seneca
Lift Up Your Voice (LUYV) To End Homelessness
by Kathy Powell
Lift Up Your Voice Lift is as always “weaving a tapestry” in our community supporting our homeless neighbors. Our esteemed Chair Sue Brinkmeyer has handed the baton over after she stepped up for our past esteemed Chair Harold Dale Cartlidge. Many thanks and blessings sent to them both.
Our group monthly serves a big meal at Family to Family to over 100 people, brings dinner to Riverhaven, assists at the Winter Warming Shelter, volunteers weekly at One Stop and we have members in Oxnard and Ventura working with policy issues for both cities.
Please contact me, Kathy Powell if you want to talk about where you might fit in. kathypurpleprincess@gmail.com or 805/910-8860. Sometimes just going out for one time with our Park Outreach Team helps you dip your toe in the water and we laugh and talk and could help direct you where you may fit in best.
Lift Up Your Voice has two boxes in Berg Hall for donations to our homeless outreaches. We need freshly laundered clothes, jackets, shoes, blankets, sleeping bags, backpacks or luggage. These things are so valuable as we go out into the community. Please remember our folks live outside, they don’t have access to electricity or devices we consider common in our houses. Lately we have been getting donations of dvds, electronics and other things they wouldn’t be able to use. I will speak for myself that as I get older my energy level isn’t what it used to be so trying to find good places for those things is a bit difficult. Please keep this in mind and perhaps contact a thrift store or a shelter that can use those precious things.
by Admin | Jan 1, 2018 | Justice Actions
A unique volunteer opportunity is coming this month! The Membership Committee’s Welcome Team is expanding in light of the many visitors and guests that are coming to our Worship Services and other events.
I enthusiastically invite you to join the Welcome Team… you’ve seen those church members on Sundays in the entryroom welcoming visitors and guests and offering Visitor Packets and nametags; you’ve seen them guiding Greeters with their tasks; you’ve seen them sitting at the Visitor Information Table in Berg Hall chatting with newcomers about our faith, our church, our activities; you’ve seen them occasionally sitting in on a Newcomer Chat hosted by Beverly Jordan and the Membership Committee.
If you have read this far and would like to be part of the Welcome Team, contact me at 805/479-4852 or druzel@msn.com. You would be scheduled for Sunday welcoming tasks every six weeks or so, you wouldn’t need to attend Membership Committee meetings (unless you chose to!), and you’ll have a chance to participate in a brief, rewarding and fun training meeting near the end of January after a Sunday Worship Service. Look for an announcement!
-Gudrun Eastham, Chair
by Admin | Jan 1, 2018 | Justice Actions
Dear UUCV Community,
Soon after the Thomas fire began and throughout the long week to follow, a phrase I heard often was that UUCV was a second home. We had play dates for the children all day or half days every day for the next week, and many people told me the sounds of laughter and play warmed their hearts. Times like these make us remember what matters most.
According to Holstee, a company whose mission is to bring more meaning and inspiration to people’s lives, an intention is a deeper purpose that could guide our actions. Love is my intention. To me, love means to offer belonging and welcoming to everyone I encounter and to give everyone a sense that they are seen and worthy of kindness.
January is the start of the Coming of Age program, which is a huge undertaking for the religious education program and our congregation as a whole from now until summertime. It’s an effort that touches many in our community, from the youth, their siblings, parents, and grandparents, the facilitators, mentors, and beyond. We are blessed to have Rev. Dana playing a key role in the program as well. We hope to offer an empowering space to guide and nurture our 12-14 year olds as they evolve into their adolescence. Please keep us in your heart!
I Hope You had a lovely Holiday Season and May You Enjoy the Blessings of Purpose, Inspiration and Meaning in 2018
Emily Carroll, Director of Religious Education emily@uuventura.org
by Admin | Jan 1, 2018 | Justice Actions
Lift Up Your Voice (LUYV) Needs You
by Sue Brinkmeyer
Lift Up Your Voice is this church’s ministry to do what we can to end homelessness and to ease the suffering of those still struggling to survive it. Our work and over 50 volunteers are organized into teams, and each team has a leader or two.
Currently Kathy Powell leads our Park Outreach Team and our Events Team, Neal Ortenberg and Darryl Marquez lead the Safe Sleep Team, Kappy Paulson and Sally Shampine lead our One Stop Team, Pam Waldron leads our RiverHaven Team, Bill Wakelee and Sue Brinkmeyer lead our Family to Family Team, and Ruth Owens leads our efforts to launch Family Promise VC (a program to shelter families with children at churches). Quite a few people lead separate advocacy efforts: Rob March works on Ventura, Yukio Okano on Oxnard, and Kappy Paulson represents us on a coalition advocating for Homes for All and on the Faith Subcommittee of the Ventura Social Services Task Force.
Now Comes The Big Ask: Sue Brinkmeyer is leaving Lift Up Your Voice and is ready to help someone new take over two tasks: (1) convening meetings of the Lift Up Your Voice Steering Committee and (2) being the liaison between the church and the Lift Up Your Voice Team leaders. If you are interested in helping the work of Lift Up Your Voice by taking on either or both of these tasks, please contact Sue at 818/281-6249 or suebrinkmeyer@earthlink.net.
by Admin | Jan 1, 2018 | Justice Actions
Out of the Fire Together
What is arguably the most expensive fire in Ventura county history began on December 4, 2017. Just like many others, Gretchen and I were under mandatory evacuation orders. Early in the morning we packed up some of our belongings and headed for the church. We went to the church because unlike the emergency shelter at the Fairgrounds or Nordhoff High School, the UUCV is our spiritual home. We wanted our known community to be our place of refuge. Although we had talked about the possibility of one day needing to evacuate quickly, we were not as prepared as we might have thought. That was also true of our church when it came to an emergency the size of the Thomas Fire. And yet, as a congregation we showed up and stepped up, making a difference in people’s lives.
As the day unfolded Reverend Dana, Beverly Jordan, Emily Carroll, Gary Zinik and myself made phone calls to everyone that we thought might be affected by the fire. Information trickled into us via phone calls, email, texting and Facebook. We received offers of shelter, food, mattresses, and help. We made plans for the church to be able to house people overnight. Rob March, Kitty Merrill, Dennis Charles and Linda Pietrzak, Kent and Sue Brinkmeyer, and others, made contributions that made it possible for our church to be able to be a welcoming place during a major crisis.
The rest of the week we opened our facility for childcare and made hours available for families to spend time together in comfort. We provided emergency meeting space for an AA meeting and for some community college students to receive extra tutoring for an upcoming calculus exam. We suspended the rules for the Safe Sleep program allowing more space to be available for those who sleep in their cars and in need of a place to park for the night. We instructed our security service to leave anyone found sheltering on our property undisturbed.
We are so fortunate to have a culture of dedication and commitment. We are blessed with an amazing staff. What we have participated in and accomplished during this latest emergency is the place where vision is lived. We can talk at length about our vision and our mission. To me the difficult task is to articulate statements about each. But if you were fortunate to spend any time at the UUCV during the fire and its aftermath, then you would have seen the beauty of people in community together, doing what they could to help people in need. That’s a Mission fulfilled, and it was amazing to watch. Thank you everyone for all that you did, and continue to do each day for our church and faith.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we wish each one of you a Happy New Year in 2018! May the year bring you Hope, Peace, and the Joy of knowing a loving community.
Living in Paradise,
Bryan Buck, President
