UUCSJS Midweek Message

• Announcements
• Call to Action
• Notes from the Board
• Connect to Our Monthly Theme
• Events This Week
• This Sunday
• Last Sunday
• Caring Team
• Connect to Our Faith

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Email admin@uucsjs.org if you need assistance

The evening of the Auction, we need people to bring snacks or drinks. Snacks should be finger-food only (that can be eaten on a napkin without tableware). Drinks include sodas, wine, and cold beer.

Also, after the service on Sunday, Nov. 6, we need people to move tables and set up for the Auction. Strong, able-bodied people are needed! Please stick around after the service to help!

To have your announcement placed in the Midweek Message, please send an email to admin@uucsjs.org by Noon on Wednesday.

Planning a special event? The Communications Team can help. Visit https://uucsjs.breezechms.com/form/42685e for more information.

Book Club will be meeting Friday, November 18th at 7:00 on ZOOM (www.tinyurl.com/uucsjszoom)

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN by Louise Erdrich

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.

Everyone is welcome to join the meeting. Betsy Searight will lead the discussion.

Questions: morellb@msn.com

The Faith Action Fall Issues Conference will be held on November 12, a Saturday, at the Morristown UU Fellowship between the hours of ten and two. It takes about an hour and 41 minutes to get there. So we would have to leave at eight. Hopefully we would arrive in time for coffee served prior to 10.

You will get an overview of all task force activities and then attend one in-depth task force breakout session of your choosing. Lunch is included. You can also attend this conference via Zoom. Registration is free. Just go to UU Faith Action.org and look for Fall Issues Conference registration. We have all task forces covered with the exception exception of criminal justice reform and reparations, but you’re more than welcome to join an existing committee. They are environmental justice, gun violence prevention, immigration justice, and reproductive justice. All you have to do is attend one zoom meeting once a month and report back to us the last Sunday of the month. Hoping you are interested.

Janet Longo

Gina is excited to invite the congregation to our Nov 27th "Share a beloved recipe, share your heart" service. A service where we will be Recipe Sharing and cooking up some joy, good music and thankfulness at the UU!

Gina is inviting all congregation members to please share a beloved or favorite "recipe" for the upcoming Nov 27 service!

You can email your recipe to: music@uucsjs.org

Please keep it to a maximum of one recipe per person, feel free to include a short explanation of what makes it beloved (if you like). Even if it's only because it's your favorite dish to eat! It can be sweet or savory or both!

Please send your recipes in NOW! ...and/or no later than Nov 19th! and Thank you!

At our recent board retreat, we talked about a memorial plaque and a minister’s plaque to be mounted on the wall of our sanctuary. The memorial plaque would have a listing of former members of our congregation that have passed. The plaque would honor them and also remind us of them and their contributions to the congregation. Hopefully most of their names would bring a smile to our faces, The minister’s plaque would list the names of all the ministers that have served our congregation in one way or another and would begin to provide a history of our congregation. We would like to invite members of the congregation to also be a part of this project. If this interests you please reach out to myself or Jessica Dunn Safonof.

We will be sending out the survey asking about your feelings on changing the time of our Sunday morning service from 10:00 to 11:00 beginning January 1st. The survey will be released to you via email on Monday November 14th. We will also have hard copies at the Sunday services through November. We are trying to see if changing the time of our service will increase our membership. We are trying to be as transparent as possible and will not pursue this further until we get the results of the survey.

Marty Quish

President, UUCSJS Board of Trustees

Each week our congregation hosts a number of donation collections. We collect donations for the Food Bank, CARA (the Coalition Against Rape and Abuse), the local animal shelter, and clothing for the ESWA (Eastern Service Workers Association).

Here are some items the animal shelter is in need of:

• Dry cat and dog food
• Canned cat and dog food
• Pill pockets
• Dog toys
• Cat toys
• Cat litter pans
• Kitty litter
• Kongs
• Nylabones
• Office supplies

Please speak with Colby if you wish to bring an arrangement of your choosing to our chalice table for a Sunday Service. Use your creativity!

Contact Colby Tippins call/text: 609-442-0967.

"People don't realize how a person's whole life can be changed by one book."

- Malcolm Little

Malcolm Little is right. Books change us! Sometimes radically so. In honor of this, make time this month to dive into one of the recommended books below. Each one is on the theme of change and is explicitly inviting us to understand our world anew. Your task this month is to open yourself to that invitation. Come to your group with two paragraphs from the book that changed your perception, mind, heart or commitment the most.

• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge & the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, adrienne maree brown
• Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet--And How We Fight Back, Kate Aronoff
• An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt
• Being Mortal, Atul Gawande

Or check out this list of movies

• Spaceship Earth
• Sound of Metal
• A Star Is Born
• Groundhog Day

Or let some music lead you into this month's theme

On Spotify

On YouTube

Click on the graphic below or visit the calendar at uucsjs.org for more information on events and meetings.

CLICK HERE to reserve the Zoom Room or to add your event to the calendar.

The Margaret Circle is meeting on Thursday, Nov 3, at 1:00pm.

We will begin in our traditional way of sharing our joys and our concerns.

Katy Cardwell is doing the program and will be playing a podcast, a segment of a BBC series called "Things Fell Apart," which traces origins of some of the current culture wars. The segment she wants us to listen to and discuss is about the origins of the culture wars on abortion. It is really fascinating, and it actually shares some common threads with the controversy happening in Ocean City regarding the health curriculum. She will touch on that that from her position as recently retired OC school counselor, and a public supporter of the health curriculum that a group of parents in Ocean City have been protesting. The podcast is a half hour long.

All women of the congregation are invited.

Laura Kushner

A look at how important our resiliency is to our convictions and how even the smallest acts can add up to big changes.

PLEASE NOTE: This service will be in person at UUCSJS and streamed live on our Facebook page. A recording will be available later in the day on our YouTube Channel.

*Masks are currently optional at UUCSJS.

Contact a member of the Caring Team

Team members can provide you with support during/after an illness, a death in the family, or other loss or hardship. They can find you resources, run errands, or provide meals in time of need.

Reach out to:

• Tracey Catino at (609) 674-8721 email: Traceysnaps@msn.com
• Denise O'Meara at (610) 316-7495 email: denome53@gmail.com
• Helen Utts at (609) 338-3391 email: HelenUtts@aol.com
• MaryLou DeMaria-Berhang at (201) 247-5635 email: MLberhang@gmail.com
• Tony Zitelli at (201) 463-2800 email: happy85a@aol.com
• Barbara Morell at (215) 805-7599 email: morellb@msn.com

Here you will find ways to learn about and connect with our faith and opportunities to connect with other UU's from outside our congregation.

Click on the images for more information.

Central East Region Information- Updated for November!

Sunday Services 10 am in person and livestreamed on Facebook.

Email: admin@uucsjs.org
Website: www.uucsjs.org
Location: 75 S Pomona Rd, Egg Harbor City, NJ, USA
Phone: (609) 965-9400
Facebook: facebook.com/uucsjs
Twitter: @UUCSJS