Excellent News on our Building Expansion Project!

Your building committee (Bob Keith, John Foreman, Becky Gentry, Susan Ritchie, and Roger Johnson) is feeling quite joyous and grateful this month.  One of the several gates we have to pass through on our building expansion process is the Orange Township Zoning Board.  They have a stricture that you cannot expand a non-conforming building more than 50% on less than five acres of land. We are "non-conforming" because, in part, the church building is too close to our east property line. They have given us a variance for that in the past since the church was originally built in 1865 before there were zoning codes.   And our, building design would expanding or building 150% and this on only about three acres of land.  Rather than approve another variance, the Township Zoning Board suggested we ask Del-Co Water, whose property adjoins ours (south and west), if they might give us the necessary land.   We did ask, and on Wednesday, July 17, the Del-Co Water Board approved of the donation to us of about two acres.  We will have to shoulder the transfer costs and fees, but we estimate we're getting at least $70k worth of land.  But more importantly this additional land ensures zoning approval, passing a major threshold in our building expansion process.

In case you missed our June update, here is a recap: 

Capital Campaign and Building Expansion Project Going Extremely Well!  An Update. 

Likely you have been wondering what's going on with our building expansion project.  A lot has been happening-while the duck's body above the surface has been calm, the feet below the water are paddling hard.  The building committee has been working hard with Kay Onwukwe, our architect, and Shaun Greer, our construction consultant, on the details of Kay's building design.  Meanwhile, the capital campaign is going well.  We have a total of $795K pledged so far, which is 94% of the low end of our goal for the campaign.  Success for achieving that goal is practically guaranteed, as we have a generous offer of $40K to use to match gifts intended to close the gap between our current collection and our goal.  We also have had three donors who have already indicated their wiliness to contribute generously if we need extra to meet our goal.  At a recent meeting of the Capital Campaign Committee, we decided to wait until Ingathering (the second Sunday in September) to official announce our "close the gap, matching gift" campaign.  This is for a number of reasons.  Firstly, it allows us to both contribute to and benefit from the excitement of the start of the church year.  At that time we plan to show you some exciting renderings of what our building will look like when completed:  both a series of 2-D drawings done by a professional artists and a 3-D building "fly through" put together by our own John Foreman.  Secondly, we want to wait to wait to announce exactly how much we need to close the gap until we know our building budget in exact detail.  By then we will have a specific and detailed cost estimate for construction of Kay's design, as well as specific numbers for some of the "soft costs," including financing for a bridge loan that will allow us to start construction before the end of our three year capital campaign collection period.  This way, we will be able to make our ask based on a precise picture of our needs.  And while we are working to establish precise figures, all signs now indicate that we have every reason to anticipate our financial resources will enable us to build the design Kay has present to us.    When will construction begin?  You might see some action late this summer or fall with some initial steps, but our best projection right now has us breaking serious ground in early Spring, 2020.  Let your Board know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns: board@nuuc.org

Right now, we celebrate that we have every reason to believe that we will be able to achieve our goals.  Thank you for your continued generosity.

NUUC is excited to announce a new Adult Education Opportunity: Stories of Power and Passion: Reading the Hebrew Bible, led by Rev. Joan Van Becelaere.

"Hebrew Bible" is an alternative term for the books of the Bible called the 'Old Testament' by Christians and Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvi'im by Jews. We will explore stories, legends, poetry, songs, prophecies and scandals from passages well-known and others that are pretty obscure. Drawing on the tools of literary, historical, and sociological criticism, we will discuss questions of: Who wrote the Hebrew Bible? Why and when was it written? What role has it played in our western culture? And what lessons can we draw for our day and age, especially from the Literature of Resistance? Then, starting February 2020, there will be a follow up series, "Once Upon a Time in Judea," when we will look at the New Testament.

The class will meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month, at 7 pm in the Fellowship Hall of NUUC, starting Sept. 10 - and ending January 2020. You do not have to attend all of the classes to participate, but do understand that if you join late or miss some classes there might be some catch up to do. SIGN UP for the class by signing the sign up sheet on the bulletin board in Fellowship Hall, or by emailing minister@nuuc.org, or click on this link to an online sign up: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BibleSignUp

Rev. Joan Van Becelaere is the Director of UU Justice Ohio and a passionate lover of the Hebrew Bible, after having the honor of studying with some of the great modern biblical scholars in seminary. In the past, Rev Joan taught a much shorter version of this class at Summer Institute and for the regional online leadership school.