I believe the children...

A prelude of Sunday's YRUU service.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gKfnPWttH4

Here We Go!

Finally!!!
Congratulations everyone! The UMBC branch of UUth of Columbia, Flaming Chalices, has been approved as an official student organization! Look out for more information in the near future!
If you're at UMBC and you would like to be a part of this group, you can email us at uuthofcolumbia@uucolumbia.net, and put "UMBC Flaming Chalices" in the subject line. Or you can visit our Facebook group (search: Flaming Chalices).

Same old, same old
I have more information about the Youth and Young Adult offices for the UUA, and I encourage anyone who wants to find out about that to come to the next meeting once we schedule it.

Starting Again

Thank you to those of you that attended last Sunday's meeting.

Come back to the light!
If this group is to stay active, and if this group is going to work, we need more people to participate in the discussions, and we need more people to be active participants. If this group is going to survive, it needs to run on the fire of more than one individual. With there being 14 people in the group, more than one person should be responding to each message. If there is a better way to contact people, please notify the executive committee so that adjustments can be made.

Just a reminder...straight from the Facebook event...
Planning is in the works for our fourth annual Racial Justice Conference to take place at First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia with a little help from its neighbor, Holy Community Lutheran Church, on Saturday, October 25. There will be transformative worship, workshops, roundtables and caucuses to inform and inspire and also opportunity for exchange among congregations District-wide. Fees, including lunch and dinner, will be the same as last year: $35 per adult with a 20% discount for those coming from Fair Share congregations, $17 per youth and young adult. Registration forms will be posted on the JPD website by August 30.

First Church is just 9 blocks from the 30th St. AMTRAK station and readily accessible from all directions. There is a large commercial parking lot adjoining the church.

Philadelphia is a great place to stay overnight! Why travel home and back in just one day?

Hosts will be available at First Church from noon on Friday through 2pm Sunday. The church is near Rittenhouse Square, an area with a variety of small museums, galleries and restaurants. Our amazing neighborhood theater, dedicated to plays probing social justice issues, will be featuring the east coast premier of “The War Party,” “a modern political parable about the limitations of the two-party system - a timely and provocative satire..” that weekend. And there is much more.

There are a number of hotels within easy walking range of the church, among them the Latham, the Radisson Warwick, Sofitel Philadelphia, and others such as the Holiday Inn Express a longer walk or a easy bus ride away. Of course, there are also motels near the airport and in other suburban locations that provide easy access. We are approaching all of these regarding special rates but, as it’s also Penn Parents’ weekend, making arrangements ASAP is advisable.

As a side note, we are also soliciting other workshops. Ones already in the planning stages that might be of interest to young adults include: Local Interfaith Action for Racial Justice; Taking UU Sexuality Education Outside our Walls; Communicating the vision through: Spoken Word, Inprovisational Dance, Drama, Homemade Video. Young adults can indicate interest in enhancing one of the existing or proposing something else altogether. Message me if you are interested in any of those.

Somewhere close to home...
We are trying to pick a local organization at which our group members can regularly volunteer. Please post your ideas on the discussion board on Facebook.

Not There Yet...

More?!?!
The paperwork to make Flaming Chalices (the UMBC branch of UUth of Columbia) an official organization under the Office of Student Life is technically all in. The problem is that when it was submitted at the end of last semester, the Committee had stopped meeting, so no one looked at it for a while. However, apparantly they had looked at it and had neglected to notify us of changes that needed to be made. There was an issue with a couple of words in the Constitution, and with the staff letter, but fortunately both of those issues have been resolved. And now that's all over, but we're not quite done yet. The OSL also seems to have misplaced the paperwork confirming that we have at least 5 members. They need another list now, not necessarily of the original 5. Email me if you'd like to be on that list.

Darfur Response

The Answer?
For those of you that did not participate in the Darfur-related action items on the UUA website, this is the letter they send you in response (click for a larger image):