Hallie Bowie, President of the Board of Trustees (she/her)

September is always an exciting time at UUCA as we begin our new church year. This year will certainly be different, but there is still a lot of excitement! Certainly, we all wish we were going to be coming together physically for our Ingathering service. But there are advantages to having taken a long view on the need to keep services virtual for a longer time. We aren’t just waiting for things to “go back to normal”; our church community has stepped up and is figuring out how to live our mission in new ways.
And what a community we have! Did you know we have over 50 groups, ministries, and taskforces at UUCA? Some of these are just a few people, and some are much larger. These groups are how we are living out our Mission and the Strategic Plan we developed in 2017. If you haven’t read our full Strategic Plan lately, you can find it on our fabulous website here. With so many ways to be involved, there is sure to be one that is a good fit for you.

Right now the group I interact with most often is, of course, your Board of Trustees, so I know first hand how hard they are working. UUA recently offered a leadership training class, and Bay Gaillard, Deb Lemire, Dan Marksz, and Laurel Winters all did the pre-work and devoted their Saturday afternoons to attending. Thank you! This sort of training can be helpful in life outside of church as well as preparing you to be more effective in church leadership. If you are interested in knowing about future training opportunities, let me know and I will make sure you get the information!

In the next month or so, we will be making our services available on YouTube, with links available right from our website. This will make it easier for new people to try out our services, and possible for existing members to view them at times other than Sunday morning. Now when you are telling friends about the fabulous Sermon last Sunday, you’ll be able to say “here, I’ll send you the link”! We are also coming up with better ways to follow up with new visitors so they can experience our welcoming beloved
community even without walking through our physical doors. And I’m very excited about the innovative and outside the box thinking Abby and Carolyn are bringing to planning the Religious Education program for our children and their parents this year!

So Enter, Rejoice, and Come In! The UU Church of Akron is ready for the new year, whatever it may bring!