NUUC Construction Has Started
Worship Relocating Temporarily
Starting May 7, 2023, we will be worshiping at the Barn at Stratford while our building is under construction. You can read all about our Building Expansion project here.
The Barn at Stratford is operated by the Delaware County Historical Society. It is located just nine minutes from our church building, just South of Delaware in the community of Stratford. It is immediately north from the junction of routes 315 and 23. The address of the barn is 2690 Stratford Road, Delaware, OH 43015.
While we will miss our beautiful building, the Barn provides a comfortable, historic temporary space that supports all of our regular Sunday morning activities. Please join us! Worship begins at 10:30 AM. Virtual Access to worship will continue to be offered via Zoom.
Some notes about our new space: the parking lot looks small, but it isn't! The entire grassy area North of the barn is available for parking. We recommend that most folks park on the grassy, reserving the paved lot for person with mobility issues. We'll serve coffee and water as usual, but as we will not have our own cups, we'll need to use disposable. So if you can, please bring your own reusable coffee mug and/or water bottle to reduce the amount of our waste.
Our May Worship Schedule:
May 7: "The Story of Us"
May 14: "The Divine Feminine"
May 21: NO WORSHIP--all church picnic (see details below)
May 28: Abbreviated worship followed by the Service Auction (see details below)
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The Service Auction is Coming! New Date May 28, 2023
May at North UUC feels like the movie title 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'. We are moving to the Barn so construction can start on the Lewis Center site. And, we are going to have fun as we Create Connections and Build for the Future at the NUUC service auction immediately after an abbreviated church service on Sunday, May 28, at the Barn.
We will gather to consume Rev Ritchie's delicious appetizers while we mix and mingle with our friends and lift those paddles for winning bids on the many wonderful donations on the 28th. There will also be a raffle for the younger set.
With each deadline, we will be enticing you to get in on the fun.
On May 7, we will release the live and silent auction catalogs. This will give you two whole weeks to peruse the donations and plan your bidding strategy. On May 14, bidding on the silent auction begins. The Silent Auction ends at 1 pm, Sunday, May 28. This year, you can check up on your silent auction bids, so if someone outbids you -- there's nothing to stop you from rebidding to keep your place.
Of course, this assumes you have registered for the auction. Registration is truly a painless process. Go to the Auctria site: Fill in the blanks and register. You do not have to leave a credit card number unless you want to purchase something in the silent auction.
The folks online will be able to participate in this year's live auction. We will have volunteers who will monitor your responses and lift a paddle for you should you decide to bid.
Process for online bidders:
1. Register in advance to participate in the online auction -- and to be sure we can check you in for the live auction.
2. Stay online after the service May 28. Someone will help get you checked in and update your name to include a bidder number.
3. When you want to bid, you will need to type in the chat box. If you are purchasing more than one seat, please enter, 'two seats at $xx each' and for single items, just type in the amount you want to spend.
When the bidding opens for the silent Auction on May 14, there will be one fixed item ready for immediate bidding. There are ten openings at $20 each on a first come, first serve basis for The new, updated Greenlawn Cemetery Ghost Tour led by Rev Susan on Saturday, October 28 from 3-4:30 pm. How's that for an incentive to register so you can tour the cemetery, learn some history, hear a few ghost stores and take home a sweet homemade treat?
While we will have appetizers and drinks to share during the auction, NUUC's team of avid and excellent BBQ smokers will bring boxes of smoked ribs, pulled pork and chicken to the auction. The 20 boxes will range in price from $15 to $50. They will be of different sizes so you can have as much or as little as your want to take home with you after the auction.
In the coming weeks, we will be asking you to help us out with the auction. Your five member steering committee will need some help on May 28th. Directions on what you can do to add to the festivities and how to volunteer
will be coming soon.
We are looking forward to a lively, fun-filled auction on May 28 with lots of good food, laughter and of course, great bidding. What a way to start the summer.
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All Church Potluck Picnic, Sunday May 21, 2023,
11:00 AM (no worship )
Rain or Shine
Who: Everyone - all ages, all friends, members, non-members, whoever.
What: A picnic! Some people may bring games.
Where: We've reserved the picnic shelter at North Orange Park, 7560 Gooding Blvd, Lewis Center, 43035
Why: Connection, fun, outdoors, sample other peoples food, building community, to do stuff together.
Please bring a dish to share and your personal beverage of choice. The shelter has ample tables and chairs, and coverage in case of rain.
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Join NUUC at the Delaware Pride Festival!
10 a.m. – 7 p.m. June 3, 2023
Fellow UUs, we are happy to announce that NUUC will participate in the Delaware Ohio Pride Festival on Saturday June 3rd, 2023 at the Boardman Arts Park on West William St. in Delaware.
We’ll need volunteers to set up, person (people, populate?), and strike our booth! It would be wonderful to have two people there at all times to allow for companionship and liquid leveling breaks. If you’re interested in coming out, please call or email us above. If we have enough people, we can probably keep the shifts mercifully short, and give you time to wander the festival.
We have a TENT! Last year, Patricia and Bruce Reed generously donated a collapsible canopy for our use! Probably because they suffered through being unsheltered in 2021! It was a huge success for 2022!
Margo and I live about 2 blocks west on William St, and can provide parking for 5 or 6 cars for volunteers, should that be a concern. Questions? Contact us:
Margo Hicks 832-465-3167, hicksurbanfarms@gmail.com, or
Ted Hicks 832-465-4207, tedhicks54@gmail.com
Sign up to help by clicking here
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Ways to Connect
Brown Bag Books
Brown Bag Books Discussion Group, on Tuesday, May 16, noon at Nielsen House. The group will be discussing Geraldine Brooks' Horse.
Mindful Writing:
Mindful Writing will meet by Zoom on Monday, May 15, at 7:00 pm. All are welcome to share your original prose and poetry, or just to listen. Please contact Marty Keith if you're interested, and she'll send you the Zoom link. (martykeith@zoho.com)
Wednesday Noon Check In
Join us using the regular NUUC zoom connection at noon everyday Wednesday for informal check- ins and chat with your fellow members. Write revritchie@aol.com for a direct link.
Soul Matters Small Group
We currently have a Soul Matters Small Groups virtually meeting, for regular in depth check ins, and for exploring together different spiritual themes. New members are welcome at any time, write to revritchie@aol.com. NOTE: Teri Cornell's Soul Matters Group is now meeting the Third Thursday of every month from 6:30-8:00pm.
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A New Adult Enrichment Offering
Life has a way of rushing by. Sometimes we feel the need to pause or to reflect more deeply. Join me for a virtual half hour of mindful contemplation that is inclusive, non-judgmental and expectation free. I’ll bring a mix of poetry, music, breathwork, silence, or meditation to create a space for you to relax. Participants are muted. Feel free to turn your video off. Please engage in whatever way feels most meaningful to you. A Space for Reflection is freely offered the third Wednesday of the month at 7:00pm on Zoom. Registration is required (link here).
As for me, Karen McGuire, the facilitator, I’m a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, a retired educator, and a trained Interspiritual Companion who finds it necessary to stop every once in a while, and pay attention.
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Volunteers Wanted to Host Coffee!
Coffee hour hosts arrive at 10:15 AM to begin the preliminary coffee set up and leave at some point after noon when folks have drifted away. While we are worshipping in the barn, Rev. Susan will bring each week portable tubs with coffee, sweeteners, creamers, stirrers and cups. Host duties include taking the large percolator from the prep kitchen, placing it on the table in the back part of the hall, and starting the coffee. The host also fills one of the large water serving dispensers with water, also placing it on the table in the back of the hall. Once coffee is over, the host cleans and returns the percolator and dispenser to where they were found. The coffee host has the option of supplementing the coffee service with snacks as desired. Click here to sign up.
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Introducing the NUUC Caring Committee
Hello! My name is Teri Cornell. Diane Mattox, Karen McGuire and I have formed what we are calling a Caring Committee. In years past we had Pastoral Care/Casserole Brigade committee. When the pandemic hit reaching out became complicated. As we have started to gather more we now see a need to regroup/connect and form a caring community. . NUUC members don’t just come to church or view services on zoom. We are also all a part of a church family. While we encourage you to be your own steward of kindness and caring, we hope to help that effort by reaching out with a card, a phone call, maybe a visit or a meal when needed. Here’s where you come in. If you have a need you’d like to share or know someone in the congregation who could use a little TLC (with their permission) please let us know at Caring@nuuc.org. When joys and sorrows are spoken during the service we are listening. We will also be reaching out to visitors and new members to make them feel welcome. We look forward to moving forward and building our caring community together.
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Mowing at NUUC – We Need Some Help
The mowing season is about to get underway and the Building and Grounds Committee (B&G) again plans for NUUC to handle the mowing ourselves using the same approach as last year. Doing the mowing ourselves would normally save us about $4,550 in the budget by avoiding having to contract out the mowing. This year, due to our building’s expansion construction and the upcoming sale of Nielsen House, we estimate that we will have a 1/3 reduction in the areas to be mowed and in the associated cost. Therefore, we will save about $3,540 this year by doing the mowing ourselves, which is still a significant savings.
The B&G Committee will handle the mowing on a rotating basis with some help from the congregation. This year, B&G will only be able to cover 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks each month. The remaining 2 weeks plus sometimes a 5th week will be handled by volunteers from the congregation. Thus, we will need more congregational volunteers this year to offset the B&G reduction. This approach will spread the work so each B&G member will mow about once a month, and each congregational volunteer would mow just one time during the season. Our approach will keep everyone's work commitments reasonable.
The areas to be mowed include the church yard (bounded by the driveway and the parking lot plus the yard around Nielsen House. In addition, part of the southern field at the rear of our property and the west side of the parking lot are included. However as mentioned earlier, this year the amount to be mowed will be reduced due to building construction and selling Nielsen House.
We have a nice zero-turn riding mower, which we use for almost all of the mowing. Having the zero-turn mower continues to make a big difference in our mowing efforts. It has cut our mowing time in half and some volunteers even say the mowing is now fun!
If you are not familiar with using a zero-turn mower, we will give you some brief training for about 15 minutes that gets you familiar enough with the mower to comfortably mow the main parts of the yard. For a few small, tight areas, which the zero-turn mower cannot handle, you would finish up using a self-propelled push power mower. People who haven’t used a zero-turn or even a riding mower, have done well using the zero-turn mower.
Mowing this season will be a bit of an adventure. You will get to see firsthand what building construction progress has been made. In addition, the areas to be mowed and the amount of mowing will vary each week as the construction progresses.
We would like to get 2 or 3 volunteers from the congregation each month to mow one time in the season. The mowing season runs from early April through early November. This year volunteers from the congregation only will be needed beginning in the 3rd week of April and through October. Two of those months will contain 5 weeks and require 3 volunteers, so we need a total of 16 volunteers.
Please consider volunteering to mow one time this season. If you would like to help the church handle the mowing, you can see the mowing sign-up schedule posted at this weblink: tiny.cc/NUUC-mowing . To get scheduled, contact Bob Keith at bobkeith@zoho.com or 740-815-2825. You also can contact Bob if you have questions or would like more information.
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