EverGreene
Reverend Elizabeth Greene
As is her usual custom, Elizabeth is on vacation in July.
Wanda's Wonderings
It has been my pleasure to serve as your President for the past year. I am giving this honor to Emmie Schlobohm, whom I am sure will do a great job for you.
Thanks to everyone for their generous pledges. Because of them, the Board was able to pass our budget for the coming year. Please continue to be generous in the payment of your pledges.
Our Junior High group has enjoyed time in Boston and several of us attended the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) General Assembly (GA) which was held in Portland, Oregon in June. We were inspired, educated and enlightened by these events.
We are looking forward to the installation of the flooring in our sanctuary this summer and we really appreciate how the Interiors Committee has gone above and beyond in making decisions. When you see the lovely floor you can thank Erin Logan, Sarah Bratley, Dale Winke and Bev Chipman for their hard work.
We paid off our house last summer and we no longer pay a huge portion of our house payment to the bank as interest. What a relief for us, although we no longer get the tax break we were getting for paying the interest. BUUF is in a similar situation. We are paying huge sums of money in interest to the bank each month on our mortgage and we don't even get a tax break as homeowners do. So there is a capital campaign afoot to retire our debt. Watch for more details.
Traveling Souls: Parallel Journeys. That is the theme of the time when Elizabeth will be on Sabbatical; from January to August, 2008. We will carry on, traveling on our journeys as she travels hers.
We need you to look elsewhere in this newsletter for volunteer opportunities and step forward. I hope you will embrace all of BUUF's happenings and join with us as we continue to create ourselves over and over in this church that you cannot live without!
You may be one last spark we all need to light the whole world!
Pledge Drive Update!
Most pledges would seem to be in by now, with both exciting and strange results. What is most exciting (and unprecedented) is that people reached deeper and were more generous than ever in our history! Most pledges were up more than the 16% we requested. Some pledges doubled, some increased by 50%.
The strange and rather troubling results are that fewer people seem to be pledging. Last year's total was $218,191 from 175 households. This year's total was $234,382 (as of 6/15) from only 149 households. People have been traveling, and some of those 26 may yet send in their pledge forms. But so far, this means that while those who have pledged have increased an average of over 16%, the total pledged only increased under 8%.
| *** 2006 *** | *** 2007 *** |
|---|---|
| 175 Total pledges | 149 Total pledges (as of June 15) |
| $218,191 Total amount | $234,382 Total Amount |
| $775 Median Pledge | $1,144 Median Pledge |
| $1,254 Average Pledge | $1,573 Average Pledge |
Stay tuned for further developments! And there will be a full report in the September newsletter.
Introducing the New RE Co-Directors
Children's Religious Education at BUUF is in the midst of changes and transition. Our beloved Director of Religious Education, Jennifer Thrall-Thomas, has moved to Minneapolis. Cathy Carmen and Karen Raese will be sharing the position of Director of Religious Education and so our title will be acting Co-DRE. We look forward to serving this congregation in this capacity for the next 18-24 months.
Cathy and her family have been active members of the congregation here in Boise for 9 years. Cathy has been the chair of the Children's Religious Education committee for the past five years and has been instrumental in making sure that the RE program at BUUF had the support needed to make it a success. Cathy will primarily coordinate youth programming, including junior high, senior high, and the human sexuality class entitled Our Whole Lives or OWL.
Karen and her family have been active members of the BUUF community for about 15 years. Karen has taught RE classes and most recently has served the congregation as the Children's Program Specialist. Karen's responsibilities will include coordinating nursery care and elementary classes.
Cathy officially begins work in August but we worked together in June to get started with planning. We will continue to prepare for the beginning of the program year in September. If you have children participating in the BUUF Religious Education program please take a few minutes to complete and return the purple RE registration forms. Please remember that we need one per child. Most of you had registration forms mailed to you this spring. If you need another one, please find them in the information rack in the north vestibule, on our website (www.boiseuu.org) or call the BUUF office at 658-1710 to request one. Our job of planning for the fall will be so much easier if we know what to expect.
2007 Boston Bounders at the Massachusetts Statehouse
Book Sale Report
Janet Wyke
The Library Committee and the Boston Bounders would like to thank all of you who helped out with donations of books and other items for our recent fundraising book sale as well as coming to our sale as customers. The money raised added to the youth group's fund for their trip to Boston and enabled the Library Committee to add 20 books to our BUUF library shelves. These books will be catalogued and ready for check-out by the end of summer. We will publish a listing of our newest volumes. Thanks, also, to those of you who submitted titles of interest to you for the committee to consider when ordering new books. It helps us to know what kind of books you'd like to see in our library.
Mészkõ Partner Church News
Cynthia Alleman
On a beautiful Sunday, June 3, we celebrated our Partner Church and Transylvanian Bridge. Elizabeth shared this message from the minister in Mészkõ, Robert Balint:
Dear Friends,
Some years ago, I saw a photo with a bridge. The photo was made in the former Yugoslavia, during the civil war. The bridge was bombed, and only the middle part was still standing, like a rescue place, in the middle of the water. The bridge had lost its former purpose: it could not bring people together from the opposite shore, just like Yugoslavia lost it, being no longer the home for Serbians, Croatians, Hungarians, Albanians.
Wars always destroy bridges. Hate does so.
I saw another picture. It is in my office. It shows a little bridge with a roof. It was made by people who wanted to express their bounds and friendship with other people. It is called the "Little Bridge". The purpose of the bridge is to symbolize the strong connection between two countries and two congregations.
Friendship always builds bridges. Care does so.
To build a bridge, a good, strong bridge, needs a great effort. Just like friendships: you need devotion and care.
I am proud that you, Boise people, Idaho State, and Mészkõ people from Transylvania have succeeded to build a strong friendship.
Go, walk the bridge for peace.
Go, walk the bridge for our dreams.
Go, walk the bridge for our friendship.
We will be there on the other end.
Becky and Rick Groff, Bill and Gwyn Reid, and Cynthia Alleman are traveling to Mészkõ. We take this in our hearts understanding a pilgrimage as "walking beyond known boundaries with a purpose in heart". We return July 14.
On Wednesday, 7/18/07 with renewed enthusiasm we begin planning for Fesztival at 7:00pm. Please join us!
You can learn about happenings at BUUF at the Committee Fair in September.
Summer outreach helps older students
Julie Fanselow
For July and August, our social action outreach offerings will benefit the El-Ada Community Action Partnership. El-Ada provides a wide variety of services to low-income people in our community.
One program that especially needs help this time of year is El-Ada's effort to help pay back-to-school fees for needy middle and senior high school students. Teens are often left out of back-to-school drives focusing on younger children, but their needs are even greater. (If you've sent a teen or two through school, you know these activity and class fees can really add up!)
Twenty-five percent of the July and August offering plate collections will help El-Ada fund this cause, as well as its other projects, which include a Garden City food pantry. If you write social outreach in the memo of your check, 100 percent will help El-Ada Community Action Partnership.
Have you ever wondered whether your favorite justice organization could be the recipient of BUUF's monthly social action outreach offerings? If you'd like to nominate a cause for consideration, write a brief letter about the group and what it does, and give it to social justice chair Rick Groff (or email him at rbgroff@cableone.net). Thanks to everyone who helps BUUF reach out to our community and the wider world through these monthly outreach offerings!
Take Whittier on Vacation
Besse LaBudde
Thoughts of Whittier, that is, and load up on toiletries from motels and hotels. If you're driving there's always room under the front seats!
Social Action uses these sample size toiletries to assemble hygiene kits which are prized by the nurses and students at Whittier Elementary School. Last year we lagged in our gleaning and could assemble about half the number of kits of past years so SCAVENGE, GLEAN, and SCROUNGE while enjoying your vacations.
Green Sanctuary News
The Green Sanctuary Team has been meeting throughout this year to conduct an environmental audit at BUUF and to create an action plan for what we would like to accomplish in improvements over the next year or two. Once we have carried out our action plan and it is approved by the Unitarian Universalist Association's UU Ministry for Earth, our congregation will become certified as a Green Sanctuary.
Watch for upcoming projects that you can participate in to help build awareness of environmental issues, encourage lifestyle changes, motivate community action on environmental issues, build a connection between spiritual practice and environmental consciousness, and work to heal environmental injustices.
There will be several offerings in the Adult Education program, we'll add elements to our Sunday Services, and we'll challenge you with some sustainable living projects. In the area of Environmental Justice we will work with Mike Philley and the Adult Religious Education program on a project of a community-based ecological restoration project in conjunction with some of the refugees in our community.
Green Gopher Project
Men, be the first to make your personal donation to BUUF's Green Gopher Project!
We have a gopher problem on the property and we need your help to get rid of them humanely. It seems that gophers are territorial and if another male (human or gopher) marks his territory with urine, the gophers will move on.
So please help us out after the service on Sunday, July 8. Cups will be provided in the bathrooms and flags will mark the holes. Be prepared to do your part for BUUF. Thanks for your contribution to this grand experiment!
A Spiritual Path...Literally
Mary Anne Hedrich
Carol and Jay Wechselberger spearheaded the Labyrinth Project which is being installed on the site where the sanctuary will be built sometime in the future. The classical labyrinth of rocks is being constructed by volunteers, whose numbers continue to grow. When the new sanctuary is built, a permanent, embedded labyrinth will be developed nearby. In the meantime, the site is being imbued with its own deeper meanings. Labyrinths have been used for centuries as very personal spiritual paths, as walking meditation or as part of a sacred journey. Now we will have those same opportunities.
A Committee Fair is coming to BUUF in the fall.
What will you share about your committee?
Color BUUF Beautiful!
Mary Anne Hedrich
Kudos and many thanks to those people who faithfully tend our "special places" and our mundane, but necessary, needs. One of the great assets that BUUF enjoys are the extraordinary landscape features that grace our grounds. They don't "just happen." It's because special people lend their special talents and time. And we are the richer for what they do.
For instance the Motley Mow Crew (Warren Bean, Coston
Frederick and Alan Schwartzman) fire up the big John Deere mower every
week to make the pasture beautiful. It is more than riding around with a
cup of coffee. It also includes raking gopher mounds and cleaning under
the mower each time — a thankless job.
Then there are John and Sandy Cruise who for the last four years have picked up sticks and whacked the "white top," a noxious weed, each spring so herbicides don't have to be used in The Grove. They also donated and installed the nice picnic table that is here.
Roy Montague built the Wonderfully charming children's playhouse and picnic table, built and landscaped the arbor, adding flagstone and adult picnic tables, designed and created the planting beds and is currently putting a Transylvanian roof on the children's climber.
Did you know that Jolene and Patrick Schow began construction on Jeremiah's Adventure Garden in 1998? It is a lifetime legacy to BUUF and the community. They maintain and develop it further each year plus hire and train many young people along the way in the skills of gardening. This summer Kyle Raese is their right hand man. A new sandstone table and benches are in the works.
Jim and Jan Kosglow's Iris Project began in 2003 with the frantic transplanting effort to save plants from the R.E. Wing construction site. The Kosglows have cataloged all of the iris by color, designed mass planting beds and cared for them on an ongoing basis. They are responsible for the glorious spring iris show at the end of the Courtyard and along Garrett St.
You Are the One That We Need!
Ours is a church which needs everyone to help by volunteering in many ways. Now that summer is here, we hope you have a little more time to give to BUUF. As we are preparing for Elizabeth's well-deserved sabbatical, we find ourselves in need of a Hospitality Committee. If you would be interested in helping in this way, please contact Debra Smith at .
We are always in need of musicians. If you can play the piano on Sunday mornings or if you could provide special music occasionally, we NEED you! Contact Charlotte Tompkins at 322-2467 or .
The Stewardship Committee is in need of new members and this would be a great time for you to join and learn the ropes. Contact Lynne Tolk at 376-1336 or .
And who will coordinate all these volunteers? Could it be you? If you could offer your services as a Volunteer Coordinator, contact Wanda Jennings at 362-7563 or .
The Sunday Services Committee plans the details of each service. This is a fun committee which needs your help. Contact David Ward at 939-2601 or or Carol Wechselberger at 871-2061 or .
Thanks for being here when we need YOU!
A Chalice Circle Awaits You!
New Chalice Circles are forming. Chalice Circles provide a straightforward way to speak of deeper things. They are the best way to create a safe place to share, to trust each other, and to build bonds that sustain.
Chalice Circles are a way to build the foundation of, and expand our beloved community so that we can create and spread peace and harmony throughout the world.
I encourage everyone to participate in and support BUUF's Chalice Circles so we can continue to build the ever growing web of our connections. Choose a time that's best for you and contact Jay Wechselberger at or 871-3765.
Sages Brush Summer
Tom von Alten
Our stalwart sages group meets in both good weather and better weather, 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month. On July 12, guest speaker Ron Berning, the program director of META (Micro-Enterprise Training & Assistance, on the web at www.metaidaho.org) will tell us about his organization's support for small businesses in our community. We'll meet over a no-host breakfast at the Kopper Kitchen (2661 Airport Way).
On July 26, we'll have our mid-summer potluck brunch, hosted by Chuck and Dorothy Hansen at their West Bench home on 2415 Eldorado St. Contact Tom von Alten at 378-1217 or tva@fortboise.org for more information, or if you have a topic you'd like to present (or hear).
Get Ready for Our Committee Fair
Elevator Speeches
Journaling Your Way To Clarity Adult Religious Education Class
In an Adult Religious Education class in spring, 2006, members wrote their "elevator speeches, " in response to the following hypothetical situation: if a person gets on an elevator with you, notices your flaming chalice pin, asks about it, and you only have a few floors to explain the Unitarian Universalist faith, what do you say?
Elevator Speech—Elizabeth Greene—April 11, 2006
We believe that the most important thing about a person's faith is whether or not it makes the believer a better person and the world a better place. God is a mystery beyond anybody's ability to understand fully, so each person in our churches pursues her or his own spiritual path, within a loving, respectful community. We know that all religions, including ours, are inventions of human beings, so we try very hard to pay attention to two things: the sacred, which rises above all belief systems; and human need, within our communities and in the larger world.
Dalai Lama in Sun Valley, by Elizabeth Greene
Take Lots of Pictures...
And Share Them With Us
Jennifer Grush-Dale, newsletter editor
While you are out and about this summer, don't forget to take lots of pictures. As a shutterbug myself, I take pictures of everything from the tree in my front yard to fun family gatherings.
If you are like me, then please help us out. During the next few months we are redesigning the newsletter to reflect the changes in the BUUF logo. One of the ways we want to improve the newsletter is with photographs. So I would love to see what you have.
I want photos of BUUF events, trips or gatherings. They do need to be related to BUUF or UU-ism in some way. Also nice are picture of scenary, trees and flowers. Photos can be in color or black and white, but they will be published in black and white. Please make sure you give me as much information about the photo as possible, especially the place and the names of the people in the photo. Photos need to be in jpg, gif, or tif format. If you don't know what that is, more than likely your digital camera does. Don't have a digital camera but have some great photos -- we can work that out, just give me a call.
Vanishing Ice: Young Artists' Journey into Climate Change In the Landscape of the Northern Rockies
Kim Philley
The Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship's Green Sanctuary Team invites Idahoans to meet the artists at a wine and cheese reception and fundraising event on Saturday, August 11, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 6200 N. Garrett St., Garden City. There are few places in the world where the effects of global warming are more visible than in the vanishing mountain glaciers of Glacier National Park, Montana. The public is invited to meet and support four young artists who seek to explore the impact of climate change in this iconic landscape.
Donations will help make this project possible. A gift of artwork created during the expedition will be mailed to individuals contributing $50 or more.
Background: By the year 2030, global warming will eliminate the 27 remaining glaciers in the park. The artists' mission is to document by artistic expression the imminent loss of many of the last remaining glaciers in the contiguous United States.
In late August, Lydia Burkhalter, Corby Sawyer and Tim Wright will embark on a 17-day traverse of the continental divide through Glacier National Park in Montana, with Kim Philley serving as base camp coordinator. Among other items, the artists will carry with them a 4x5 format wooden field camera, an acoustic guitar, a Roget's Thesaurus and a ball of twine.
The expedition team will also be conducting photographic monitoring under the supervision of technical advisor Dan Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey international expert on glacier retreat. Dr. Fagre is Senior Ecologist and Global Change Research Coordinator at the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Glacier National Park.
For further information, please contact Kim Philley or Lydia Burkhalter , phone: 208.378.1714.
An Invitation from the Twin Falls Church to Camp Together
Hello UUs of Southern Idaho,
This is Jeremy SasserCollins, president of the MVUUF here in Twin Falls. I am writing to invite you all to our annual camp out at Porcupine Springs (30 miles South of Hansen Idaho) from July 27-29.
We are excited to be networking with the UUs in the area and even working together on some ideas. I hope I can encourage you all to make announcements at your service that we are inviting any one who would like to meet other UUs in the area to come and join us at our campout. We have plenty of room and it will be lots of fun.
If we have some from every group, Magic Valley, Idaho Falls, and Boise, it should be a great time to talk about what is working in other areas and how we can work together to spread the joy of our liberal faith.
In great anticipation...
Jeremy
Please call should you like to join us: 208 736-2433
