President’s Message Summer greetings! We’ve had some beautiful days so far this summer. Hope we’re blessed with more of the same to take us into September. The Board will take the month of August off, as usual, and will meet for a retreat to review goals in September.
The Begin Again group met in July and is planning a series of programs for the new church year. The name of the series is BYOD and I won’t tell you all about it yet. Here’s a hint: it will involve food, fellowship, conversation, and discussion. The series will be held on four Friday evenings in this church year. The first is scheduled for Friday evening, October 12th. Save the date!!
I have included my President’s message, (below) which was presented at our annual Congregational meeting on June 10th. It chronicles many of our outstanding events and the progress made over the past year.
Thanks for a wonderful year! Have more summer fun!
~ Miranda
Presidents Annual Report to the Congregation,
from June 10, 2018
With this annual June look-back over the past year, I’ve realized that it has been one of the busiest and most productive years that I, personally, have experienced at UUFP. The year was packed with financial accomplishments, social action, and lots of fun and celebration.
In the area of finances, we raised the funds we need for new flooring in the RE wing (to be installed in the summer), took special collections for people in need locally and globally, and in our most recent pledge drive, people have responded largely positively to a request for an increase in pledges to increase and improve programs and services. We also have a rental program run by Linda Kozitzky which brings in some extra funds to help with the bills. Did you know that? Thank you Linda!
We’ve made wonderful technological improvements enhancing our communication capabilities, which Rick Duske will tell you about in his report, no doubt; we’ve wrestled with mailing lists and last summer produced 230 lbs of vegetables to help feed the hungry; at the end of this month we will have offered four Labyrinth events and supported environmental and fair school funding efforts. We’ve offered special programming around last year’s General Assembly, a Daring Democracy forum and an info night about the Mariner East pipeline project (which, by the way, has been at least temporarily halted because of people like some in our group who take the time and make the effort to find out about environmental dangers like this and do something about it.
Our newsletter, the Sojourner, gets better and better each month. Our Simply Sitting Group, tiny as it is, begins its ninth year this summer of meeting every Monday evening for contemplation and silent meditation. At the same time, an inspired subset of this membership has started meeting to help the Fellowship re-direct in the area of ministry and work to broaden the scope of “spiritual” programming that we offer — perhaps on other than Sunday mornings.
But on top of all of this we had us some fun this year. We squeezed into our bell bottoms and granny dresses for the 60s Membership Dinner and we had more fun than I’ve ever thought you could have on St Patty’s day at out Pledge Kick-off event. Hope we can do that again. Our 50 Anniversary gave us a year-long excuse to kick up our heels. And that we did with Secret Friends, a wine and cheese, a Prom, a reprise photo at the 4th of July picnic, a native tree planting, the creation of a beautiful new UUFP banner, a 50th Anniversary Logo Contest (Congratulations go again to RJ Duske who won that contest) a letter head/logo contest (congratulations to Erica Duske who won that contest). And of course we topped it off with a wonderful 50th anniversary dinner.
So when I look back at this past year I am simply amazed by our collective ability to play just as hard as we work. For me it was a wonderful year. I hope it was for you too.
~ Miranda