Under the Umbrella

Inspired by our UU principles, we are a vibrant, intentionally diverse congregation that models and promotes both locally and globally: love, spiritual growth, service, right relations, and sustainable living.

Contacting Our Minister

Reverend Ellie's email: RevEllie@uufsd.org.

To make an appointment: calendly.com/revellie

Please remember, Rev. Ellie does not use an "@gmail" email account. These are phishing emails attempting to obtain your personal info. Do not respond to them. Report them to your email host or delete them. Also be suspicious of text messages signed with her name.

Our yearly Pledge Drive for Fiscal Year 24/25 is now over. Thank you to everyone who has renewed, and especially increased, their pledge. Next week the final thermometer will contain the total amount including the continuing pledges.

Sheryl Goto      Antony & Daisy Carter & Leithe Miller-Kramer

Sarah Miller     Pamela Parker & Michael Scott    Rita Mercier

Nancy McCharen & Dave Bellama  Greg & Christine Trigeiro

Victor & Mary Dhooge     Wenda & Charles Alvarez   

If your browser takes you to the old pledge form, clear your cache or use: https://uufsd.breezechms.com/form/4ba3bf781034

FELLOWSHIP LIFE

Easter Egg Hunt Volunteers Needed!

Can you help hide Easter Eggs on Easter Morning (3/31/24) at 9:00am? Or, can you help supervise the children during the egg hunt (approximately 10:30am)? If so contact rose@uufsd.org for all the details and to sign up!

April 2024 Quarterly Magazine

The April 2024 Quarterly Magazine “Dialogue” is now available on our website. I hope you enjoy this issue which features several poets in our UUFSD community. You can also learn about the State of the Fellowship, from the Board of Directors, and what’s happening in our Religious Exploration and Fellowship. We have a summary of our Social Justice undertakings, our ongoing programs, upcoming events and also introduce several new members.

You can access the April 2024 Quarterly Magazine by clicking here: UUFSD Quarterly Magazine. Contact Irv Himelblau at ihimelblau@gmail.com.

RE Volunteer Training

Thursday, April 4, 2024, 3:00pm; Sunday, April 7, 2024, 11:30am

Are you a current RE Volunteer, or would you like to be? Join us at an upcoming (mandatory) RE Volunteer Training Thursday, April 4, 3:00pm to 5:00pm in Founders Hall or Sunday, April 7, 11:30am to 1:30pm in the Footprints Classroom.

If neither of these training times work for you, contact rose@uufsd.org to schedule a 1 on 1 training!

2024 de Benneville Family Camp

Friday, April 12, 2024 to Sunday, April 14, 2024

With wildflowers, rushing streams, and lush foliage, this promises to be a beautiful de Benneville weekend for our fellowship. Among the offerings will be crafts and such with our new DRE, Rose, a writing workshop with Eberly, yoga with Wenda, meditation with Christie, several hikes, games for kids, and Improv on Saturday night with Linda L. As always, all activities are optional. All ages are welcome and this is a great way to deepen connection to each other and the natural world.

Registration open until April 6. Online registration and payment now available at: uufsd.org. Questions? Contact Chris Faller at cfaller5@gmail.com, Betsy Gilpin at betsygilpin01@gmail.com, or Christie Turner at christieturner@gmail.com.

“Planet-Healthy Potluck“

hosted by UUFSD’s Climate Action Task Force (CATF)

Sunday, April 28 2024, 11:00am

Core Area

Let’s ALL participate!

Bring a healthy plant-based dish for a fabulous outdoor luncheon. If you want to eat a more plant-based diet, this potluck makes it easy. If you discovered a delicious plant-based dish, this is when to share it.

What we eat every day makes a difference in the health of our planet, ourselves, and all life. This small action cultivates a new mindset. Doing it with friends is an adventure.

List your main ingredients. Gluten free? Nuts? Dairy? We’ll supply cards to label your dish Vegetarian or Vegan. Or bring a recipe card. Salads & fruit plates welcome.

Plant-based Vegan: no poultry, meat, fish, dairy, egg.

Vegetarian: includes dairy and eggs.

Those who arrive at 10:00am enjoy an Earth Day Service with a guest speaker, singers, and a guest musician!

Memorial Wall

If you have recently visited the Memorial Wall on our beautiful campus, you have seen that four of the five murals have been completed: Agave, Bird, Lotus and Sun and Chalice. We hope to have the fifth mural Tree of Life completed sometime in the near future.

We invite members to arrange individual tiles well in advance for themselves, spouses, partners and children. It is also possible to donate a tile to honor other members, past or present. The minimum donation is still $300 per tile.

Wall history, information and forms are located on the UUFSD website at Memorial Walkway – Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito (uufsd.org). Or you may contact Norma Showalter at noshow8@yahoo.com.

The Great Debate: "Principles" versus "Values"

Sunday, May 5, 2024, 11:30am

Article II of the UUA bylaws contains the core of our faith - our "Principles" and "Sources". A dramatic revision to Article II will be voted on this June at the UUA General Assembly. The revision replaces our “Principles” with "Values" such as Interdependence, Equity, Justice, Generosity, Pluralism, and Transformation. For each Value, we are asked to covenant to specific actions. Our Six "Sources" are eliminated and replaced by a paragraph about "Inspiration."

Do you agree with this substantial change in defining the core of our faith? Is this revision too great a departure from the historical roots of Unitarian Universalism? Are enough UUs even aware of what is being proposed?

Come to the debate in Founders' Hall on May 5 after service! Following the debate, we will begin a voting process that will ultimately determine if our UUFSD delegates to GA will vote for or against the revision. The voting process will remain open through May, and we will be encouraging every member to cast their vote. Mark your calendar!

Send Me Your Favorite Happy Songs!

Cathy Leach-Phillips is putting together the playlist for our SPRING to LIFE Fair & Feast on April 20th.

What are your favorite happy songs? Do you have songs which you love to listen to in the Spring? We will all be able to listen to them during our celebration and silent auction if you send them to me! All types of songs accepted, so ask the kids too.

Email: cathy@leachphillips.com

Text or Call: 650-224-1974

UU’s Got TALENT!! New Songwriting Challenge

This year for our Spring to Life Fair & Feast, our members will be offered a chance to be FAMOUS!—at least in our Fellowship.

We know that there are talented creative folks among us just waiting for the right opportunity. And THIS IS IT.

All you have to do is write a song and perform it, or team up with others to perform it. Here are some details:

• Subject matter: Unitarian Universalism, UUFSD, our site, Climate Change, (see below for other possibilities);
• May be serious or humorous or both;
• May have new words set to a familiar tune or a totally new song;
• Must be performed at the Live Auction by the author or one or more musician/singer/accomplices.

More ideas:

• UUFSD Fight Song (for our values)
• UUFSD Peace Song (for our values)
• Committee meetings
• deBenneville Pines Camping
• A lament
• A march
• A call to action

SUBMITTAL DEADLINE: March 31, Easter Sunday.

Four ways to submit:

• a recording of your song, made by iPhone or other device;
• printed words and music notation;
• printed words and the name of the existing tune/song they go with;
• sing the song to the Song Challenge team.

The best songs will be chosen for performance at the live auction.

So ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE! YOU GOT TALENT!!

Questions? Call or text Greg Brown at 760-994-5317, or email gr8mackinnon@gmail.com.

2nd Monday Book Club

Monday, April 8, 2024, 6:30pm - 7:30pm

Founders' Hall West

We take on a well-researched historical novel for our April discussion:

the first of Naomi Hirahara's mysteries set in Chicago's Japantown, Clark and Division (2021) is named after an intersection in the neighborhood where Japanese families try to rebuild their lives after being released from internment camps in 1944. But Aki Ito's older sister Rose is killed by a subway train before the family can reunite. What is behind this suicide?

We meet at 6:30pm in the West side of Founders' Hall. All are welcome! We hope to see you on April 8.

Questions or Comments? Email bookclub@uufsd.org or call/text Cathy Leach-Phillips at (650) 224-1974.

Spring to Life Fair & Feast: Food, Music, Auction

Saturday, April 20, 2024, 4:00pm - 8:30pm

Founders' Hall and Core Area

Is April 20 on your calendar for UUFSD's Spring to Life Fair & Feast? If not, be sure to put it on. You won't want to miss this all-Fellowship event that will include activities and opportunities for everyone in our community! Have you thought of a donation you can make that will bring people together, provide a service or create an adventure for your old and new friends? If you have something to donate, do it here. These shared experiences create the community we all yearn for. Donations should be made to go online on April 10. Go to uufsd.org/auction to see what's already been given. Be part of the dream we are creating

SOCIAL JUSTICE

THANK YOU'S

Thank you to everyone who furnished a delicious dinner to our Fill a Belly guests on Thursday, March 28:

Norma Showalter, Sara Ohara, Ken Kales, Vanessa Reed, Nancy McCharen & Dave Bellama, Mike Rosen, Marty Vogel, Linda Luisi & Ted Foster, Nancy Romig, Lisa Shaffer & Steve Bartram, Julie Fry & Family, Hedy Aardema & Terry Goan, Mary, Vic & Brian Dhooge, Kathleen Dewhurst, Livia Walsh & Irv Himelblau. Mary Ann & Paul Trause.

Who would you like to thank at UUFSD? Email office@uufsd.org with your brief thank you message.

GOOD NEWS AND OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST

“Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature… Understand them thoroughly.”

– Salvador Dali

• Scientists Discover Potential HIV Cure that Eliminates Disease from Cells Using CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing
• Bumblebees Share Knowledge Like Humans and Chimpanzees, Suggesting the Hive Mind Is More Personal
• ‘The Largest Environmental Restoration in History’ Continues to Restart the Heart of the Everglades

Want to Learn More About

What's Happening at the Fellowship?

Visit our website at uufsd.org.

Share information, ideas and conversation with other UU's at our NextDoor Page here.

Watch your email inbox for our weekly "Stay Connected" update. It arrives on Saturday mornings.

Our Dialogue Quarterly Magazine is available in both digital and print form.

You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/uufsd.

Note: those who use the Le Port School parking lot on Sundays: the gate code is 152