Our congregation life has been focused on searching for and calling our settled minister.  We have also celebrated the installation of the solar panels on our roof, welcomed new members, elected new church officers, and celebrated some rites of passage.  Now we will be entering the time when we will be saying “farewell” to our Interim Minister, Joanne, and worshipping on Sunday mornings with lay-led services in the air conditioned Fellowship Hall.

As your Assistant for Services, I have the opportunity (and yes, sometimes the challenge) of coordinating eight Sunday morning services during the months of July and August.  I try to end up with a balance of services for these eight mornings, so that we may experience many ways to come together as a congregation for worship, as well as focus on a variety of topics.

One of the first things that I do is to ask all of you for your suggestions and offers of participation in these services.  This year, you will be able to do this in a traditional way by filling a questionnaire that will be provided a few times on Sunday mornings in the Order Service and by electronic means (see link below).  As always, if these ways do not appeal to you, please feel free to contact me directly at service-assist@uucuc.org.  We can certainly have a conversation about this.

Some people have already approached me about services, so if you have something particular in mind, now is the time to let me know. We would love to hear from you, please consider filling out our Summer Services Questionnaire http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ee85pmnkj3bpjo03/start

Hospitality Teams are in charge of Sunday morning hospitality (e.g. bell ringing, welcoming, ushering, providing decorations and refreshments) for two months during the year. Hospitality Teams are a great way to meet people and serve our congregation in a fun and important way. All members and friends are encouraged to join a Hospitality Team.  Each Team has 30-35 members so you do not need to help on every Sunday assigned to your Team. 

Stop by the Hub table on Sunday mornings to sign up for a Hospitality Team (or to find out if you are already assigned to a Team.) Questions? Contact Peggy Patten of the Membership Committee.

HeRMES (Helping Revitalize Medical Education through Service) Free Health Clinic is thrilled to be selected by The UUCUC Social Action Committee as the recipient of the Shared Offering in June. Thank you so much for your generosity and support!

Our organization is a student-led free health clinic that provides free medical health services and health education to more than 350 uninsured and underserved patients and their families each year, in Urbana-Champaign and neighboring communities of Illinois. We are a dedicated team of certified medical providers and medical student volunteers. Our mission is to give high-quality and compassionate patient health care to those whom lack or have little access to health care. Furthermore, our goal is to spread awareness to patients and their families of available free health clinic resources in the community.

We provide walk-in clinic hours every Thursday from 6-8PM and give free health screenings and education including: blood pressure readings, glucose, A1C, and cholesterol level checks, physical exams, and school physical and sports physical exams. Your generous donations will help us keep our clinic running and enable us to pay for much needed lab tests and to purchase our health screening supplies (glucose and cholesterol strips). We judiciously utilize these resources for our at-risk patients.

Please feel free to check out our website at http://hermesclinic.org/ or contact Jenn Hou (jhou8@illinois.edu, 408-893-8187) with any questions or if you’d like to help volunteer! HERMES Clinic is a registered Not For Profit Corporation 501 (c)(3) and our EIN is 47-1154138. Thank you!!

Please note "HERMES" in the memo line of checks written to UUCUC. If you prefer to donate through our online system, please click here. 

Sunday, June 4: The water in which we swim: a racial justice initiative service. Unitarian Universalists have a long history of grappling with and seeking to eliminate racism within our denomination with varying degrees of progress and push-back. This has been the focus of numerous initiatives, General Assembly resolutions and actions, and UUA and congregational programs over the years. Despite this, our congregations still have much less diversity than we would wish and our UUA leadership has been largely white and male.

In March of this year, the hiring of a white male minister as a regional coordinator sparked a controversy about the racial justice practices of the UUA, an organization where almost all of the top staff positions have been held by white people. Critics noted that the UUA hiring practices perpetuate white supremacy and a bias toward white, usually male, religious professionals in leadership roles. Three top leaders, including UUA President Peter Morales, acknowledged the need for reevaluation and change and resigned.

In response to a request by the Black Lives of UU collective within the UUA, over 689 UU congregations (more than 2/3’s) have already held or planned teach-ins about white supremacy and our need for commitment to resist it. We are pleased to be joining them with our June 4 service, “The Water In Which We Swim : a Racial Justice Service.” We hope you will join us. - UUCUC Racial Justice Initiative Team

If you would like to be a part of this service, by suggesting someone, doing a reading, leading the chalice lighting, or representing one of the men we will be presenting (all voices may respond), please contact Beth Cobb, service-assist@uucuc.org, by Thursday, June 7.

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