Featured Resource: Primary Contacts
Do you know who your congregation's primary contact is?
The Central East Regional (CER) has a primary contact staff system to ensure our congregations know who to reach out to for assistance. Every CER congregation and community has a UUA Staff Member who serves as your Primary Contact for all services of the region and the UUA. This is someone with whom you can build a close, working relationship, who will have an intimate knowledge of your congregation's blessings and challenges, and can be proactive in helping you to share those blessings and meet those challenges. Your Primary Contact can help you to navigate all the support and opportunities available to your congregation. Find your primary contact now.
Also, help us help you - To help the UUA and the Central East Region stay in touch with the leaders of your congregation we need YOU to update your leadership information on my.uua.org. This is the same place you update your UU World lists. Need help? Let us know or check out the webpage with the details. Please note that you can make these updates at any time. Many congregations hold elections in the spring or late fall, but appoint new committee chairs in summer or early fall. Each event should prompt a review of what is listed in my.uua.org to ensure it is up to date. Staffing changes should also be listed in this location.
Please note - we will be offering networking calls starting in September on a quarterly basis. Dates and times will be announced in the coming weeks.
Trainings for Board Members in August 2022
Planning and Running A Board Retreat Webinar, August 2, 6:30-8:30 pm online. Learn how to plan and facilitate a board retreat that helps you build skills together. This is a webinar for both board members and ministers. We’ll explore questions like why hold a board retreat? What are the benefits, what are the objectives? Who should be present? Who will facilitate? We will also help you explore agenda setting and what type of activities you could use for your various needs. Can't attend that date? Register to receive the recording.
Helpful Board Habits Series , 6:30-8 pm online - Session 1 - August 16; Session 2, Sept 20; Session 3, October 11. Additional resources and programming online at UU Institute. Help your board develop good decision-making processes by developing helpful board habits. This 3-part webinar series will help your board develop shared practices in communication and leadership and a shared understanding of your board in congregational governance.
Welcoming Neurodivergent People: Skill Up
The UUA and UUMA are launching a series of interviews and live Q&A’s to speak on neurodivergence, neurotypicality, and ableism. We hope that it can be informational for people of all neurotypes! Register for the first live viewing and Q&A.
This series is an invitation into a deeper journey. One that will likely include dissonance and even disagreement. We expect this and welcome it. It will invite all of us to more deeply untangle our internalized ableism and to more clearly perceive the ableism in our communities.
Our first interview is with Heather Petit! Read their bio on the UUA website.
The interview is now available to stream online. We will have a live viewing at 1pm ET/10am PT followed by a Q&A at 2pm ET/11am PT on August 19th. Registering participants can submit their questions ahead of time and receive a recording of the live Q&A, whether or not they’re able to attend the live viewing and Q&A.
We talk about everything from a definition of neurodivergence, models of disability, communication, and much more! We had such a great time interviewing Heather, and feel like we all learned a lot that we're excited to share with each of you. This is the first in an ongoing series! Dates for live events TBD but keep on the lookout!
New! DRE Led Youth Ministry Volunteer Orientation
Congregational Life Staff and Lifespan Faith Engagement staff are releasing a five hour orientation for new youth ministry volunteers. We intend this as something you facilitate with your adult volunteers. It combines video presentations featuring 10 UUA staff along with discussion prompts and several case studies. There are places for you to present what your volunteers need to know about your organization’s structure and safety policy. There are four modules: Roles and Relationships, Safety, Youth/Adult Partnership, and Covenant and Community. Each has about 30 minutes of video and 45 minutes of activities, discussion, and case studies. These four modules can be delivered in one day or over the course of weeks or months depending on your volunteer team’s needs. Learn more at the UUA website.
Jubilee 3 Anti-Racism Training
August 19-21, 2022, Online.
You Are Invited to Participate in Jubilee Three Anti-Racism Training: Learning Together About Systemic Racism, Acclaimed Program, Experienced Trainers
Do you wish to deepen your understanding of how race and ethnicity play out in our institutions and our daily lives? Are you ready to take a leading role to nurture a multicultural future in the face of opposing cultural currents? Come Join Us for this Life-Changing Weekend!
Register Now There is a limit of 70 participants for this training. Deadline is August 17, 2022.
Our Whole Lives Facilitator Trainings in Person Return
Our Whole Lives Facilitator Trainings in person are back! There are several trainings in the works, so do check our calendar often for updates. Several congregations have also scheduled trainings that you can find on the UUA Calendar.
Our Whole Lives Facilitator Training for Adult Levels , Columbia, MD, Sept 30-Oct 2
Our Whole Lives Facilitator Training for 7-9/10-12, Manassas, VA, October 7-9. Registration coming the first week of August.
Our Whole Lives (OWL) is an excellent, comprehensive sexuality education program that offers our young people the opportunity to explore their values, gain accurate information about topics that are often not easily accessible. The overall goal of the Our Whole Lives program is to help participants gain the knowledge, values, and skills they need to lead sexually healthy, responsible lives. The goals of this workshop are to prepare the participants to implement the curriculum as well as the Sexuality and Our Faith component. Through a varied program including practice and participation activities, the trainers will cover implementation techniques, curricula details, and technical information. You can see all trainings at the UUA Our Whole Lives Facilitator Page.
Better Together Blog: Youth and Emerging Adult Realignment at the UUA
by Shannon Harper
Have you heard the exciting news about Youth and Emergent Adult Ministry (YEA) alignment across the UUA? If not, check out this video from the Lifespan Faith Engagement Office (LFE) where we explain what changes are being made and what lead to this reconfiguration of National and Regional YEA Specialists under one LFE umbrella.
The latest news, is that I will be the new LFE Co-Director responsible for YEA Ministry. You can view that official announcement on the UUA website.
News from the UUA
Register for the Aug. 9 RE Meet and Eat gathering from 12pm-2pm (ET)! This months conversations will be led by Anna Bethea RE-engagement: considering the lessons of the covid years so far, what we know about what our families need, how to focus on connecting families without the volunteer power we used to be able to count on. Register today!
JUUst Breathe Live is now a podcast! Find us at any place you get your podcasts, or still on YouTube. Be sure to like and subscribe our YouTube Channel, and follow us on Instagram - JuustbreathePod … spread the word!
Does your congregation have staff? You need the Benefits Tune Workbook, now in a new format. Our popular Benefits Tune-up Workbook, now in its 5th edition, will help you understand key documents, eligibility criteria, enrollment windows, and more while providing a path to putting sound systems in place to ensure compliance with Plan rules. We urge all congregations participating in any UUA benefit plans to complete the Workbook annually - as well as whenever a new congregational leader becomes a responsible party. Make it a team effort among a small group of staff and lay leaders who have benefits administration responsibilities.
The UUA has a Disaster Relief Fund for those who want to make a donation to help congregations who have faced losses due to tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and more. Please donate if you can. To learn more about the work of the Disaster Relief Fund visit their webpage. If your congregation needs assistance, you can apply for a grant on that webpage. We are Better Together.
Virtual Guest in Your Pulpit! The UUMA has a list of virtual speakers, check it out to see who is available! Visit the Virtual Guest in the Pulpit Database to see who is available. Also, don't forget to check out the CER Guest in Your Pulpit program, which includes both lay and professional worship leaders.
New publications from the UUA - Available now for order is Little Did I Know: An Anthology on Loving and Companioning Young Lives , edited by Vanessa Rush Southern, Trusting Change: Finding Our Way Through Personal and Global Transformation by Karen Hering, Incantations for Rest: Poems, Meditations, and Other Magic by Atena O. Danner.
The UUA is hiring for several positions. Find job descriptions and application information at their Job Openings webpage.
Calendar Items and News
For events, webinars and congregation news and events visit the following pages:
- CER Calendar of Events and Webinars
- Find your CER Primary Contact
- Chalice Lighter Grants - October 1 is the deadline for Intent to Apply Applications for the January 2023 grant awards
- News Section for Congregational Stories and Articles
- Better Together Blog
- Congregational and Affiliate Group Calendar
- UUA Jobs Board for congregational job postings of all types