Mother’s Day Slide Show

Our service next Sunday will include a slide show in celebration of Mother’s Day. If you would like to honor your mother or someone who has been a mother figure in your life, please email a photo to Rev. Melissa by this Saturday morning.  Include the name of the person you are honoring.  If you are not able to email a photo, you can bring a print to the church office by Friday afternoon instead. 

 

Worship & Music

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

 

May 11 – Colorful Spirituality

Rev. Melissa Carvill-Ziemer and Worship Associate Mary Lou Holly

Hindus celebrate a spring holiday called Holi. It is literally a festival of colors. This morning we wonder together how exploring color might help us explore spirituality.

 

The Library Committee would like to thank the Youth Group and their Advisers for the thoughtful and inspiring service,”Letting Go”, presented last Sunday. Youth participants included Sydney Haines, Allison Norris, Natasha Swango, Paul Marsh, Breanna McCrystal, and Connor May. Their advisers were Mary Ann Kasper, Kathy Kerns, Lori McGee and Beth Kuemerle.

The readings and all the homilies were very moving, the music beautifully chosen, and the sequence of each presentation had a logical and a rhythmic flow from one to the next. We feel fortunate, indeed, that the future of this church rests with such outstanding future leaders.

The readings were taken from The Teachings of the Buddha, Jack Kornfield, ed., Boston, Shambhala, 1996. This book is in the church Library.

The Library Committee: Jane Krimmer, Harry Noden, Carolyn Andrews-Schlemmer, Gene Wenninger, Kathy Wilen, Martha Kluth and Ann Waters.

 

 

Community Within

A Walden information meeting will be held in the sanctuary between services on Sunday, May 11th.  Whether you are a dedicated Waldenite, a moderate Walden-lite, or an uncertain Walden-might, you are invited to attend.

 

Dear UUCK Family,

Thank you not only for the gifts but for all of your kindness, prayers, and comforting words through this journey to build our family.  I look forward to bringing Hunter to church to meet his extended, chosen family.

Thank you, Trudy Diehl

 

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.

 

Surprise Friends – Just a reminder…

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.

 

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 Yeagler.

 

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

 

Outreach and Social Justice

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

 

UU and Interfaith Connections

The Kent Community TimeBank, Inc.  Presents:  “Let The Sun Shine In,”  A TimeBank Fundraiser*

Friday May 23, 2014

5:30-7:30 PM

At the Kent Historical Society Museum, 237 E. Main St., Kent OH

Admission $20

Contact  MaryAnn Kasper if you are interested in purchasing a ticket.

 

Income Generation

Tupperware Fundraiser coming May 18th!!

During coffee hour we will have a cash-and-carry table of Tupperware for you to purchase, then plan on joining us for the kick off party of our annual Tupperware Fundraiser at 12:45 pm in Fessenden Hall.  Please plan on stopping by to see the latest Summer catalog and place your order.  This is also a good time to bring in any broken Tupperware that needs replaced.

We will have Fundraiser brochures available for you to take home and obtain orders from family and friends as well as an online party where out of town family and friends can place orders for the church fundraiser.

The church receives a percentage of the sales from every order placed!

Any questions, email or call Meg Milko.  Thank you for your support.

 

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 150^th 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 150^th 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