We hope YOU will join us in person or online July 9-15, 2023 for fellowship and fun as we build a truly Beloved Community at this year’s Central East Region Summer Institute, or CERSI. Registration opens March 1 for this week-long summer camp experience at PennWest University, about an hour south of Pittsburgh.
CERSI is an intentional, intergenerational community that gets re-created each summer as we come together as Unitarian Universalists. It is a vacation week to learn new things, relax, play, and connect with others through music, conversation, worship and friendship.
Joining CERSI this year will be members of Unitarian Universalist Mid-Atlantic Community, or UUMAC. For the past 40 years their summer camp has been building community and energizing their members through a spiritual and fun one-week retreat for people of all ages.
Together we expect CERSI and UUMAC members to create long-lasting friendships and a sense of belonging in loving, multigenerational fellowship.
>> Read more about the CERSI/UUMAC partnership on the CERSI website.
2023 Theme & Speaker
CB Beal
The Call is Coming from Inside the House: Preemptive Radical Inclusion and Practices for Witness, Self Examination and Change
CB Beal (they/them/theirs) is a storyteller, educator, and speaker who is known for their humor, insight, ability to use their own foibles and unfortunate life experiments as cautionary tale, and to hold space where people can be braver and safer, facilitating learning experiences where people get to make their next move towards justice. Through stories, reflections, and conversation about practices of preemptive radical inclusion, CB will help us explore our capacity for witness, self examination and change.
>> Read more about this year’s theme on the CERSI website.
Programming
There is children, youth, young adult, and adult programming – and lots of opportunities to be together in a covenantal community – playing, relaxing and enjoying each other.
Morning seminars for adults include:
- Creating an Urban Ecovillage: A Model for Revitalizing Our Cities
- Everyone is an Artist
- Medical Ethics: What really matters?
- Who Knew Whom: Black and White Unitarians in Early Boston
- Shall we dance? Partner dances such as cha-cha, waltz and west-coast swing
- Yoga for Self-Transformation
- See the full list of morning seminars on the CERSI website
Afternoon intergenerational programming includes:
- Folk orchestra
- Adult and children’s choirs
- Body art
- The joy and wonder of play
- Tie dye
- Creative writing
- See the full list of afternoon workshops on the CERSI website
In the evenings we’ll have a wide variety of events from concerts and sing-a-longs to talent shows, poetry readings, movies and musical performances. For adults a nightly pub with live music and a very competitive team trivia game always draws a big crowd. Pop-up events will happen throughout the day and night as people gather in dorm lounges, hammocks or outside to play games, meditate, play music, build puzzles or join small discussion groups around a wide variety of topics.
There are jobs still available to offset your registration costs. Please see what positions are still available and learn how to apply. Scholarships are also available, please apply before May 31st to be considered. The goal is to make CERSI affordable to all who want to attend by offering camperships, jobs, scholarships.
Registration opens March 1! Visit the CERSI website for more information!
By Dana Wakefield, CERSI Co-Chair.