Board Highlights

May 20, 2007 Meeting

——Learned about Kroger/Payless fundraiser

—Committee on Ministry reported on the minister evaluation

—Donated furniture has been moved into storage with help of many members

—Plan to contact current renters at St. Andrew and 7th Street.

—Meeting scheduling policy approved.

—Heard about many transition activities going on.

—Capital campaign update: 40 pledges $115,000

—Voted to provide with porch repair at Union St. property if under $5000 (funds from capital campaign)

—Delegates needed to attend General Assembly

Complete minutes can be found at https://uufolks.org/groups/board/minutes

~Dagmar Murray, Board Secretary

Church Mouse Awards

June’s church mouse awards go to

 Patty Wood and Brett Lahner.

Patty and Brett have been proactive and instrumental in arranging for and participating

the transport and storage of donated furniture for the new church building.We greatly appreciate all Patty and Brett do for our congregation.

Budget Initiatives Needed Now

In last month’s Lighted Chalice, I described the process for planning next church year’s projects, goals and budget initiatives.If you are part of a major church program or committee – especially one that receives funding through the operating budget – you should have received a list of goals and action items to consider.We hope most areas of the church got together over the past month and considered those lists and the questions that were posed (What action items can be taken off the lists?What new ones should be added?). The Board now needs the results of your discussions.Specifically, we need to know what goals

your group intends to accomplish in the 2007-2008 church year, and what new funding you will need in the 2008 operating budget.The latter “budget initiatives” will form the basis for the fall pledge drive.When they are ready, please send your results as soon as possible either to me or to the Board member that contacted you with the lists:

Beverly Seese (Community Within)

(see item below on Program Council meeting June 5th)

Hilary Krivchenia (Worship and Music)

Michele Tomarelli (LifeLong Religious Education)

Kim Harden (Denominational Connections,Outreach)

 If you didn’t get the appropriate list of action items for your group, contact the individual above.If you haven’t met yet, do so soon before everyone disappears for the summer.If you don’t respond with some budget initiatives, we will have to assume that you don’t need any additional funding in 2008!

~Barny Dunning, Past-President 

From the Program Council

All Community Within groups need to send a representative to the next Program Council meeting, Tuesday, June 5, at 6:30 p.m. Community Within action items, goals for the next few years, and budget requests will be settled.

Read Barny Dunning’s article on pp. 2&3 of the May

Lighted Chalice to be informed about what we need to do.

Hope to see you there.

~Beverly Seese, Program Council Chair

Capital Campaign Update

On Sunday, June 3, 2007 we will have a thank you celebration for the Up, Up, and Away – The Meridian Generation Capital Campaign and the resources it has brought to the UU for the transition to our new spiritual home. However, we have not yet completely landed.We still have a ways to go and we need your help.Canvassers are still at work trying to make contact with as many people as possible. If you have not yet been contacted by a canvasser, please call either Volker or Edie Thomas  or Fritz Smith at 414 - 2210 and we will be sure that you get your pledge card.A couple of things to keep in mind;1) this is a 3 year campaign so you may stretch out your pledge over the 3 years beginning with this month and 2) we are flexible on how you would like to make your donation.It can be monthly, quarterly, annually, all at once, or by donating land, shares or stocks or bonds. Please contact us if you need help.It looks like St. Andrew is right on track and we will be taking possession later this summer.We need to be ready so that work that is best accomplished prior to moving in can be completed.Without knowing the full results of this campaign drive, it is more difficult to plan.Please help by turning in your pledge card; calling to be canvassed; or by helping to canvass others.

Church Photographs Sought

Do you have any old pictures or slides that you think would be of interest in depicting the history of our church? I have about 40 slides, mostly from the 1970s, that I have scanned into a digital format. However, some slides that I remember seem to be missing. Does anyone know where they might be? I would also welcome the loan of interesting pictures or slides from any decade that can be added to a comprehensive digital slideshow about our UU Fellowship and Church. Please give me a call

~John Carlson 

 We'd like to invite any interested member or friend (or two!) to become a rotating editor of The Lighted Chalice. This is a creative, independent task for which you'll need computer software, such as Publisher or Pagemaker, to format the newsletter. Preparation of each newsletter requires approximately one working day. We'll explain and share the needed specs and graphics. Please contact us at the lightedchalice@yahoo.com, see us in church, or call for further information!~The Editors

Thursday Dinners at MCL

 All are welcome to drop in at the MCL Cafeteria in West Lafayette on any Thursday eveningwhen UUs gather for casual conversation over dinner.

The group, which varies in size from about 4 to 16, meets in the lobby and starts through the cafeteria line before 5:40 p.m.

Welcome, New Members! The following people attended the recent New UU&U class and have joined the church. Please welcome them at the June 3rd Sunday morning service: Susannah Hall-Justice, Kathleen Peyton, Nancy Bergquist, Andrew & Jessica Bowen, Ed and Kathy Bowen.Suzan Windnagel, Travis Davison, Katie Pope and Bill Kannel will also be formally welcomed at this service. We are delighted to welcome them to this fellowship. ~Della Willmann, Greeting & Membership Committee

Transitions Team Update

The Transitions Team has been busy this month! Each team put together a list of wants and needs (and how much each would cost) for the Capital Campaign, and now are working hard on prioritizing these items to make sure their 'need' lists are taken care of when we move to our new building. The Exterior Team has met and is looking at various issues to be addressed when we move in, such as drainage, signage, and fencing in the playground area.

Several Transitions teams are also busy gathering information regarding construction work to be done on St. Andrews before we move in. We are a Welcoming Community, and that also applies to those who need a wheelchair to get around. Right now the only way to get from the sanctuary to the Fellowship hall is to go outside of the building. There are also several classroom doors that are too narrow to fit a standard wheelchair. Another issue under consideration is whether it is logistically and financially possible to tear out the two rooms adjacent to the Fellowship Hall in order to have a larger hall. These and other issues will be addressed at our next Transitions Council meeting, Tuesday, June12th at 6:30 PM in the sanctuary.All are welcome to attend and learn about possible future plans for our new building.

As many of you know, Chemtura donated a large amount of furniture, including desks, tables, chairs, filing cabinets, and credenzas (low storage units with drawers and shelves) to us. We would like to thank Chemtura as well as those who helped move it to Patty Wood's barn for storage. A special thanks goes out to Tom McConville and Steve Nelson, who removed most of two loads of very heavy furniture out of a 14' U-Haul. Thanks also go to Patty for lending us her barn and providing pizza for the movers. The barn is now half full, and soon it will be filled with tables and chairs and other furniture that were given to us by Family Services and the Red Cross. Thanks go out to both of those organizations. Julie and Brett Lahner were kind enough to let us store additional furniture from Family Services in their garage, thanks to them also. I'd estimate we have two 17 foot U-haul trucks full of donated furniture for our new space. Hurrah! Speaking of moving, we have word from St. Andrew that they are planning on moving out of the Meridian Street property by late July or early August. Thatmeans that, potentially, we could be moving into our new building by late August and opening our doors to the public by mid-September! What does this mean to our fellowship? It means that we have less than two months to organize, think, plan, pack, move, and unpack. Everything. Down to the last chalice. We'll be in our new home sooner than you think, and we need everyone to help make the move possible!If you are willing and able to help in any way,please contact Alanna Steffen

~Christine Schertz

Sunday Morning Forum

The Sunday Morning Forum meets at 9 a.m. at the Red Cross Building across the parking lot from the church. Everyone iswelcome! Childcare is provided.

June 3. "Alternative Fuels" Chuck Reynolds.

What is the reality behind the hype for alternative fuels for transportation use? Since September, Chuck Reynolds has been scouring the Internet and is now in position to make report that may surprise those who look to alternative fuels as the magic bullet for our energy crisis and global warming.

June 10. "Developing a Spiritual Practice" Mark Krivchenia.

The summer edition of the UU World features Unitarian Universalist Buddhism, an emerging trend for those seeking deeper spiritual experiences. Mark will take this as his springboard in leading a discussion of meditation and other means of expanding one's own feelings of connectedness.

June 17. "The Animal-Human Bond" Alan Beck.

What is it that leads to the forging of close, humanlike relationships between animals and people? Dr. Beck, the Dorothy N McAllister Professor of Animal Ecology, Department of Comparative Pathology at Purdue will give an informal talk on the value of animals in our lives and address why it all works.

June 24. "Therapy Dogs" Kyler Laird and Kitty Campbell-Laird.

Kyler and Kitty will be talking about therapy dogs in general and more specifically about the role of their own dogs in the "Paws to Read" program currently going on throughout the month of June at the Tippecanoe County Public Library. In this program, children read stories to the ever- attentive and

appreciative dog.

~Ernest McDaniel

Minister’s Muse

Summer is hot on our heels.I was speaking with a couple in the church who will have been to five graduations in 5 weeks this May.Amazing.Always the end of the school year brings transitions – our family has a graduation this year as our middle child – well – young man – James, graduates from Oak Park River Forest High School to head off to the Berklee College of Music in Boston in the Fall.This summer will be a time for him to savor the end of one facet of life and prepare for the next one. It will be a time for us to reckon on our own changes as a family.Lea has gotten an internship with an NGO in Delhi this summer and will be away all summer doing good work before she returns for her last year of college.We are already making plans for her graduation – where to stay, how to celebrate – we are thinking ahead to another milestone.

Meanwhile – at home – in this congregation – we are facing our own milestone – our own graduation of sorts – to a larger space in which this congregation can continue to grow and evolve.Sometime this summer – perhaps as early as late August – we will close the doors on Seventh Street for the last time and open the doors on Meridian Street as our home for the first time.It’s really going to happen!!!It will be important to close the one chapter of our lives well – celebrating all that this congregation has accomplished in the current building – all the programs, creations, play, joy, sorrow – births, marriages and deaths – all the rich history of the wonderful building this congregation has inhabited since 1979.It will be important to do this together on a Sunday morning – sharing memories, photos (of events, people still with us and people gone, projects shared), and sharing even the sorrow of saying goodbye.

And then it will be important to open the next chapter well – looking ahead with a new sense of mission, a renewed vision, with our excitement tuned to the new possibilities ahead.It will be important to do that with some celebration on a Sunday morning and for a week of special celebration.It is terribly exciting to think about.

I know that at some point we will take down the bright quilt that hangs in our sanctuary and unfold it to hang – perhaps in our new Fellowship Hall – which I imagine to be named after the old Fellowship – as Fellowship Hall.We will have our first potlucks there – not as guests but as hosts to one another.

Of course, the intervening time will be a time of volunteering – a time to help out muscling boxes around, carefully packing worship supplies, RE supplies, office supplies, books and marking where they will be placed in our new home. It will be a time of tasks.But that time of packing is just as much a part of saying good bye and preparing to say hello as the grander events we will share.In the process of packing, cleaning, painting the new space, weeding, planting, unpacking, arranging -- stronger relationships are created. As the building around us changes, the congregation goes through the change together.Passing through the transition creates stronger bonds among those on the journey. I hope that each of you allow yourself the chance to be a part of this time in congregational history together.You would be surprised at how these projects endure in our memories – part of a collective and individual record of meaning.

This won’t be just any old summer. It will be a summer of transition – painful and joyful.It would be wonderful if each person in the congregation would write down one particularly cherished memory from their long or short history in the 7^th street building and gave it to me to collect.When we have our closing worship here we can put the memories and photos in a scrap book and take that with us to Meridian Street.What an amazing time we are getting to share.What an amazing summer.

~Hilary

UU Choir Notes

As the UU Church Choir ends our '06 – '07 singing year, it is quite fitting that we close this season with "Can You Hear" on June 3rd. When our choir sings, can you hear their joy, their sorrow, their commitment to our religious movement through song? Can you hear the hours of service they have given? Can you hear the deeper spiritual meaning they give to our Sunday morning worship services? Can you hear their inspiration, can you hear their dedication to our church?

If you see a singer who has joined us in this past year, please acknowledge them and thank them for their contribution to our church....Jane Alexander, Peg Black, Barny Dunning, John Duvall, Chap Flack, Weaver Gilliland, Martha Gipson, Ginger Hartman, Duane Johnson, Sandy Johnson, Joan Jurich, Nina Kirkpatrick, Martha Lempke, Katie Marsh, Addie McKnight, Sharon McKnight, Lisa Pantea, Wisitsin Potiprapanpong, Edie Pierce-Thomas, Lynn Richardson, Katherine Rubie, Beverly Seese, Melissa Shepson, Janice Thiel, Volker Thomas, Michelle Wallace, and Noemi Ybarra. In a position of high honor is our accompanist, Kaye McSpadden.

"Can you hear my cries, can you see my eyes, I am calling out to you..." If you love to sing, please answer when the call-out is made for our '07 – '08 year. Choir is an important ministry of our church. If you answer the call, you will be giving a meaningful gift.

~Denise Gilliland, Choir Director

Religious Education

 Director of Religious Education Michele Tomarelli

On RE Sunday I told a little story about a Sunday school teacher who was trying to impress on her class the variety of animals on Noah’s ark.She asked the children if they knew who was gray, had a bushy tail and ate nuts.The children were hesitant to answer, but finally one of them said, “I know the answer has to be Jesus, but that sure sounds like a squirrel.”

My conclusion was that I was sure none of our UU kids would mistake a squirrel for Jesus.To a certain degree, I was kidding, but I think this story offers us an excellent comparison of the way some churches teach their children and the way we teach our UU children.And it was told to me, by the way, as a true story.

The big difference between non-UUs and UUs, is dogma vs. principled action.The little girl was confused because for many Christian churches “Christ is the answer” for everything.For some people Jesus has been an answer; I know several people whose lives were improved by giving up worry as well as vices when they simplified their decision making by turning their lives over to Jesus.For the fundamentalist, there is just one reference book, and plenty of people to help interpret it.

Unitarian Universalists do not teach their children that there is only one true faith. This year when our U.U. children studied Judaism and Christianity, the little ones were taught the basic stories, but the older ones were also exploring the history, geography, and the disputes attached to those stories.As a rule, they are taught to question and think things through.UUs also introduce the children to many religions and to scientific inquiry in the belief that as the children explore their own spirituality, they will find in one or another belief system tenets that satisfy their search for the divine in the universe.

So, without dogma, without promises of Heaven and threats of Hell, how do we rear our children to be ethical people?We give them the Principles.The Principles are the code of behavior that allows us to relate well to one another, to other cultures, and to the natural world around us.We adults try to model the principles, and we insist that our children try to live up to them.For UUs, the important thing is not dogma and faith, but solid facts and thoughtful, principled action.

That isn’t to say that our children are never cute in their confusion, it is just that their confusion is liable to be very different.Here is a true story, an event that happened right here in one of our younger OWL classes that illustrates the UU difference.The content was sexuality, something other churches would never even consider teaching, and the teachers had begun by reminding the class that because every person is important, Unitarian Universalists listen respectfully to one another.Well, one young man began to amuse himself by pulling a pair of dinosaurs from the toy box, and clacking them together.His play was noisy and distracting.Exasperated, one of the teachers announced, “Those dinosaurs had better be having sex!”The class stopped its chatter and stared at her, until the boy said, “But I don’t know how to make them do that.”“And THAT is why we are here,” said the teacher.

~Michele

“Change for Change” continues in June for Planned Parenthood

The recipient of our weekly “Change for Change” collection during June will be Planned Parenthood, our community’s leading reproductive health care advocate and provider. It focuses on medical care, education, and advocacy with a goal of protecting, providing and promoting reproductive health.

In the greater Lafayette area, Planned Parenthood serves about 6,000 patients every year, providing annual exams, cancer screenings, pregnancy testing, birth control, STD testing and treatment, and information and referrals. (Abortion services are not available at the local clinic.) Over 80 per cent of patients are living in poverty and for many, Planned Parenthood is the only source of medical care.Planned Parenthood recently built a new health center in Lafayette in order to provide patients with top-notch modern care and the dignity and respect they deserve. Located in Cascadia Business Park off McCarty Lane, the new facility will be supported through a 3-year “Tapestry of Strength” capital campaign. Several members of our congregation are involved with the campaign and everyone is encouraged to contribute (see Bill Asher or Kaye McSpadden).

Because Planned Parenthood believes that an informed population is a healthier population, staff educators offer programs throughout the community, including presentations at our own OWL (Our Whole Lives) classes. Our Change for Change coins will help underwrite Planned Parenthood’s education programs and supplement the Women’s Health Fund, which helps patients who are unable to cover the cost of their treatment. Please give generously.

~Kaye McSpadden, member of

the Social Justice Committee

Book Group

7pm, Monday, June 11, 2007

The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf

7pm, Monday, July 9, 2007

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The Book Group meets on the 2nd Monday of every month at 7pm at Borders Bookshop in Wabash Landing in the lounge area where it joins withPanera’s.All are welcome to join us for discussions of books selected by participants.

For more information contact Dagmar Murray