BEGINNING the NEW SEASON at UCM!

Every end of summer is the beginning of a "new year" for the UCM community, and especially for the Religious Education, or R.E., program, because we (your DRE, RE Assistant and staff other than childcare givers) are largely inactive from early June through to the week after Labour Day and the Water Ceremony Sunday, which will be September 7th this year.

Naturally, every New Year brings its reflections on what has passed and plans for the future, and this fall those thoughts are especially poignant for me, as I will be retiring next June.  That means I'm aiming to leave our RE program in as overall great shape as I can!  I want to ensure a clear and inspiring sense of purpose is shared among all our RE families, leaders and volunteers, as well as having clear procedures in place for all the usual nitty gritty matters, like who will read for the chalice lighting, how to register or get on RE mailing lists, find name tags or library books . . .

Also, I will continue to have fun with our children and entire UCM community as the main "Time for All Ages" storyteller, while facilitating an expanded list of others who would enjoy that role on occasional Sundays.  The "T4AA" gives us all a wonderful shared aspect of multigenerational worship every week, and I relish my part in it!  As the children are sung out to their more age-specific programs, I intend to exit with them, but step back from the almost weekly classroom teaching I have done in the past two years.  I want to expand my role as mentor/leader with our various very part time RE leaders, both those in the classroom on Sundays and our RE committee members, and I will also be facilitating one of the new church wide theme exploration groups. Those personal relationships are an absorbing, valuable way to share UUism and the many gifts of "spiritual friendships" with one another.

Finally, in this coming year I'll to continue to make what I hope are beautiful and engaging bulletin board displays, on at least three levels of the building (which ones have you noticed?) -- but I would be very pleased to have help with those, so please step up!  We are living in an increasingly visual age in terms of social media, and those boards may be "old school," but they are a vital link to give all ages of attenders a sense of what goes on in our weekly programs in a three dimensional sense -- of course our FaceBook page and web presence are important links, too. [give these?]

An important "P.S." -- Carlene Gardner, our very wise and  experienced Youth Program Coordinator, is not so quiescent during the summer months as other staff.  She and the Lakeshore DRE, Casey Stainsby, have worked out plans to offer a Gr 8&9 OWL series (the UU sexuality and self-identity program called "Our Whole Lives," with a new curriculum).  Children of members and attenders will be able to participate this year in Montreal for the first time since 2007.

Carlene is now in a full time Masters of Education program at McGill, plus in an expanded role at UCM that includes campus ministry.  Although we only pay her for a few hours each week, this responsibility means she's gearing up to be ready to greet incoming students at Dawson College, McGill, Concordia, UQAM, etc. This year we are going to refer to her more often by her full title of Youth Program and Campus Ministries Coordinator -- or "YPCMC."