Second Parish Unitarian Universalist
Hingham, Massachusetts
Glad Tidings
From the Minister –
My parents’ visit from Wisconsin in mid-September provided an opportunity for Deedee & me to enjoy the area we live in as tourists instead of as residents. We looked all around Hingham with the eyes of complete strangers, remarking on how much older the town seems than anything that can be found in Wisconsin. We took advantage of the opportunity to indulge in visits to places we hadn’t gotten around to going – the Mayflower in Plymouth, Emerson’s home in Concord, and the JFK Library and Museum. We were all very moved by the JFK museum, by the excitement of the era, the high promise with which it end, the drama of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the determination to secure Civil Rights for all Americans, and the heartbreaking tragedy of the assassination. I found myself tearing up as I watched Walter Cronkite announce Kennedy’s death; I admired his ability to go on when it was apparent that he was deeply distraught over the news he had to deliver to the nation. I remembered the day I heard the news, in an eighth grade study hall, and the shock it was to all of us.
One of the trips we took this summer was a week in our old town of Ridgewood, NJ, which we used as a base for visiting New York, primarily to see museums there. We saw the Met, the Modern, the Whitney, and paintings by Hudson River Valley painters at the New York Historical Society, including one of Mount Chocorua, which I had the opportunity to climb later in the summer. One of our favorites was the museum of the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA, just outside of Philadelphia, a real jewel of a museum which preserves a brilliant collection displayed exactly as its founder originally designed it. We had lived as close to that wonderful museum for almost fifteen years as we were that week, but we had never taken the time to discover it.
How easy it is to miss great beauty because it is familiar to us, because it’s just part of where we live. What would it mean for you to be a tourist in your own town? At the very least, it would give you an opportunity to see things you haven’t been noticing lately. Perhaps there’s a path you haven’t walked down for a while, a home you haven’t visited, a view of the ocean which would refresh you. We all need to find ways to shake off the familiarity of the everyday and try, as Henry David Thoreau put it in Walden, “see the world with new eyes.”
In Faith,
Paul
Notes from the Leadership Board
The Leadership Board, the minister, and the treasurer met at the Parish House of the Cohasset UU Church on 8 September for its annual retreat. Focusing on the six commissions of responsibility - Education, Finance, Membership, Outreach, Properties, Worship - the participants reviewed and questioned the present role of each one in the life of the church. How is each commission asserting its mandate from the By-Laws and contributing to what is happening at Second Parish? Then each commission considered how it might meet the challenges emerging in a church striving to grow. The next step will be to use the ideas from the day to begin developing a long-range plan for going forward. The Board is ready for a great year.
-Allan Viden, Leadership Board Chair
The Commission of Membership is responsible for welcoming new people to Second Parish and keeping current members invested in our community of faith and fellowship. A wide range of activities - from greeting church-goers on Sunday to supporting people with the caring connection, from proposing new ideas for fund-raising to improving communication through better use of the church calendar - all require this commission to be a presence throughout the church. Let us know how we can help you.
-Dinah Collins, Membership Chair
At the leadership board retreat on Sept. 8 we had a fairly thorough discussion of how our church should go about raising the income required by our programs. We have several general conclusions:
Whereas we are a relatively small church, seeking growth through the excellence of our programs, we will probably never become a very large church.
While we have a small set of events (from services auction in October to art show in May) which together result in a significant percentage of our income, the answer to increasing our income to meet our true requirements is not in adding events and asking our volunteers to commit more and more time. (We do need to optimize the financial impact of our current events and perhaps find a way to restart our spring plant sale.)
Our annual covenant renewal and accompanying individual financial commitments will, obviously, always be the source of the large majority of our church income. We are committed to this and will continue our attempts to improve that process.
But, in the future, we must also become relatively comfortable with, and successful at, a whole additional set of financial initiatives which will provide financial security for our church and our successors.
These include planned giving, challenge giving, securing grants from various sources - some local and some not, and other work which we must do together. At some future time - not this fall but maybe in the spring or fall of 2008, after a careful long range planning process and the resetting and confirmation of our priorities, the congregation should seriously consider the feasibility of undertaking a capital campaign of appropriate size and content in maybe 3-5 years.
Stay tuned. -Kim Shaw, Finance Chair
This summer proved to be an extremely active one as far as our property was concerned. While the majority of the work is not now visible, we did replace and/or install new gutters on both the church and parsonage; new siding on the north side of the church; and new railings on the pulpit. Not visible is the replacement of many of the support timbers on the north wall which had been destroyed by powder post beetles and a cleanup of the dirt cellar under the church. We also removed a small area of asbestos in the basement and installed a new sump pump. All in all, a lot of work on items that had been neglected for many, many years and a major improvement which will help assure us another 250 or so more years of useful life for our church.
-Len O’Connor, Properties Chair
The Commission on Worship supports the work of the minister and worship services at Second Parish. The Commission on Worship will be providing guest ministers and speakers for those Sundays that Paul is out of the pulpit. Working with the minister and music committee, the Commission is also going to contemplate different ways that we might approach our Sunday morning services. This Commission is also responsible for interior decoration and we are planning to work collaboratively with everyone to design a Second Parish banner made that would be displayed in the sanctuary.
-Julianna Lovell, Worship Chair
The Commission on Education acts as a liaison between the Religious Education Committee and the Leadership Board. This board member attends religious meetings and supports educational activities in consultation with the minister.
–Helene Soini, Education Chair
Community
Men’s Breakfast
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The next men's breakfast will be held at 8:00 a.m. in Cushing Hall on Saturday, October 20th. All men of the parish are welcome to join us for a high cholesterol breakfast and conversation. We have no set agenda. Come prepared to talk about anything on your mind. We break promptly at 9:00 a.m. Call Lou Belknap at 781-749-5519 if you can join us, or email me at lsbelknap@verizon.net.
Book Group
The Book Group met on
September 18th at the home of Gene Chamberlain to discuss The World is Flat
by Thomas Friedman. The next meeting will be Tuesday October 16th. Place and
book to be announced. Any questions, call Jennifer Love at 781-749-3243.
Soul Work
Plan
to join members and friends of First Parish UU in Cohasset, First Parish UU
(Old Ship) in Hingham, and Second Parish UU in Hingham for more spirited and
spiritual discussion of the book Soul Work: Anti-racist Theologies in Dialogue.
These conversations will serve as the basis for planning how we might partner
for anti-racist action. Please mark your calendars now for continued
exploration by our three congregations of classism and racism.
The first
meeting of the new church year is scheduled for Sunday, October 7 at Second
Parish in Hingham. We will start with a discussion of Chapter 5, The Other
Side of Route Two, by Rev. Gary Smith, senior minister at First
Parish in Concord. This chapter focuses on classism
and the implications of living in a predominantly white, middle-class suburb.
As has been
our practice, lunch will be available at noon and we will gather from 12:30 - 2:30 pm. There will be no
children's programming but child care will be offered if you let us know ahead
of time. Jan Carlsson-Bull
(jcarlssonb@aol.com)
will have copies of the book at the first meeting or you can order a copy
online from the UUA bookstore for summer reading. Please come and bring your
friends.
Starting with
the first Sunday in October, we plan to meet the first Sunday of every month
with the exception of December. The schedule is as follows:
DATE
LOCATION
CHAPTER
October 7 Second Parish, Hingham 5, The Other
Side of Route Two
November 4 First Parish,
Cohasset 6, Racism and Anti-racism in a Culture
Violence (American Indian)
January 6 First Parish,
Hingham 7, Reclaiming Our Prophetic
Voice
February 3 To be
decided
8, The Paradox of Racial Oppression
March 2 To be
decided
9, Toward a New Paradigm for Uncovering Neo-Racism
April 6 To be
decided
10, Not Somewhere Else, But Here
May 4 To be
decided
Creating Partnerships for Anti-racist Action
If you have
any questions or comments, please contact Eva Marx (tomneva@supportlab.com)
781-749-0485 or Jan Carlsson-Bull (jcarlssonb@aol.com)
at 781-383-1100.
FIRST ANNUAL SERVICES AUCTION
Mark your calendars for the Second Parish Church services auction on
Saturday evening October 13th from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
We’ll start at 6:00 p.m. with a silent auction accompanied by wine, punch and appetizers. A catered dinner will follow, and then will come a rousing live auction.
We will finish up with coffee/tea and dessert. We are looking for dessert donations, please.
Children are most welcome as we will be providing complimentary babysitting. Pizza and juice for the children has been donated by an anonymous member. Thank you anonymous!
A services auction is one that everyone can participate in as both a donor and a bidder. Donations are needed to make the event a success. Be creative; think outside the box; you can even work in pairs or groups. What makes a services auction so special is that you are bidding on items that you would not normally find for sale in a store. Time and talent are priceless; vacations are valuable; and home cooking is an endangered commodity. With that in mind, here are some suggestions:
Vacation home getaways (donate your home for use for a weekend)
Cultural events (organize a trip to a museum or park)
World Series or Super Bowl party (even Pool parties)
Gift certificates from hair salons, spas or manicurists
Brunch, Tea, Cocktail or Dinner parties (see the book in Cushing Hall for ideas)
Prepare a meal or special dessert
Bake cupcakes for a busy working mom to send to school
Garden or Lawn work, basement or attic cleanouts, snow shoveling
Music lessons (voice, instruments)
Craft lessons, jewelry making, or calligraphy classes
The list could go on and on. Remember these are just suggestions.
The cost is $10.00 for adults (to cover the dinner). Children are FREE!
For tickets contact Mariann O’Connor at 781-749-9896.
We will be selling tickets after service for the next few Sundays, too!
Auction Donations need to be in before October 1, 2007 to make it into the booklet. Late offerings will be on a supplemental sheet.
To make a services donation you can pick up a form in Cushing Hall or log onto the Second Parish web site at www.Secondparish.org or email Sandy Peavey at speavey56@msn.com.
If you need additional information please contact a committee member:
Sean Gallagher at 617-306-5372; Mariann O’Connor at 781-749-9896; or Sandy Peavey at 781-749-6081.
-Submitted by Sandy Peavey
News from our Cooperative Religious Education Program
The Primary and Intermediate classes are off and running. Regular attendance is, of course, the most enriching for the children, but please pass on the word to possible visitors that each RE session is a unit in itself and valuable on its own.
You
are all encouraged to read our new RE yellow brochure for information on
curriculum content and more. It is posted on the RE bulletin board and we also
have copies. You can also find a copy on the Second Parish web site at
http://www.secondparish.org/youth.php.
The year long team of Primary level teachers is composed of Julianna Lovell,
Anna Maude, Suzette Droster and Susan Weisenbeck.
Pam King, Sean Gallagher, Anne McGuire and again Julianna Lovell, will co-teach the Intermediate class. We are fortunate to have experienced and dedicated teachers. Many thanks to all.
The Junior Class program, Our Whole Lives, is scheduled to have twenty three
two hours sessions, taking place on Sunday afternoons starting October 7.
Reminder: parents of this group are expected to attend an Orientation Meeting
on Sunday, September 30th at 3:00 pm
at Old Ship Parish House.
Please Do Not Buy Halloween Candies Yet. Wait to try your luck at winning a
great basket filled with goodies that the Intermediate class will raffle on
Sunday, October 28th to raise funds for UNICEF. The class will also host coffee
hour that day as part of their Action Quest, which is a large part of "The
Questing Year" curriculum. So, the students' actions will benefit two good
causes - Second Parish and UNICEF!
The Primary class needs a large appliance cardboard box soon. Please let me
know if you can donate one.
For the Columbus Day week-end, the teachers will have the day off. The children and Liliane will prepare an informational exhibit on being "green" for coffee hour.
The RE committee will meet after coffee hour on Sunday, October 14.
-Liliane Verdier
, Director of Religious Education Lilianevhing@aol.com, 781-749-9581
Music Schedule for October
10/7: The Choir
10/14: Elizabeth Morrell, soprano with guest organist, Carole Lawton
(Second Sunday Collection, TBA)
10/21: The Choir
(Guest Minister: Christana Willie McNight)
10/28: Elizabeth Morrell, soprano