To My Beloved UUFM Community,
RE UPDATE
These first few months as your new Director of Religious Education have been an energizing whirlwind of onboarding, inventorying, orienting, networking, information gathering, assessing needs, prioritizing, experimenting, training and more. I’ve been meeting regularly with the RE Team, Community Team, Core Staff, and attending the Ritual Crafting Workshops, where I get to work collaboratively with the Minister and interested congregants in drawing inspiration for the Time for All Ages portion of the Sunday Service. I’ve been experimenting with lesson plans for Sunday RE Sessions, drawing from the Soul Matters packets and my background in Drama Therapy to shape plans that aim to be accessible and engaging to a wide range of ages and stages as we work to rebuild RE Programming and attendance. Through conversation with UUFM members and the RE Team, we’ve also identified that many of our folks and families are interested in low-key, intergenerational events outside of Sunday Service time. We hope you’ll join us for Trunk-or-Treat on October 26th after the Sunday Service!
FOUNDATION OF SAFETY
As I’ve been getting oriented to the space, the role and existing resources, it’s become clear to me that UUFM’s self-identified need for a comprehensive review of safety needs, policy and procedures is critical to RE programming. Since a Safety Team has not yet formed, I have been getting the ball rolling in communication with the Minister, Office and Communications Coordinator, Building Lead, RE Team, Community Team and Board. To reference a phrase from a workshop I attended at UUA General Assembly over the summer about the concept of Whole Church RE: everything we do is religious education. This is the spirit with which I am approaching safety assessment, planning and policy. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs suggests that physiological and safety needs must be met BEFORE love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization needs can even begin to be addressed. In many ways, the work of RE is to provide space and opportunity for people to develop their individual and collective capacity to get those higher needs met, therefore establishing a foundation of safety upon which to build RE programming is critical for that programming to thrive.
This work is ongoing and has many layers to it, but we’ve made some tangible progress. We now have new first aid kits! The largest one is in a labeled cabinet in the kitchen. There are smaller ones located in the Jupiter room and Nursery. I am working with Hannah, our Office and Communications Coordinator, to develop policy and procedures to establish and maintain a baseline of safety in the building and online – including regular checks of our safety equipment, and working toward getting staff certified in First Aid, CPR and AED. I am working with the RE Team to provide a baseline of training to our Nursery staff, developing a cleaning protocol for the nursery, and reviewing and perhaps updating our Protection Policy for Children and Youth. We’re working toward having at least two adults in the RE classroom, and have recruited a new volunteer to get this started.
CREATIVE LAUNCH
There’s a lot of energy and enthusiasm to launch RE programming, but not a lot of funding in the budget this year to put into it. Because of this, we’ve had to get a little creative around how to gather the little boost of resources needed to get things going. The RE Team has officially received the blessing of the UUFM Board to create and distribute an RE WISHLIST. Items are generally listed in order of priority. This list consists of specific items with links to the purchasing site, as well as types of items with a link to an example. The “item description” and “reason for item” provide more details, and indicate whether a used version or another brand or purchasing source is just as suitable to meet the need. You can claim an item by typing your name next to it in the far left column. Items can be brought to UUFM. If you’d like to order an item, please either ship it to yourself and bring it to UUFM, or ship it to Emily Fraser’s home address, which can be found in Breeze. DO NOT SHIP TO UUFM DIRECTLY, as we do not always have someone on-site to secure them. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.
Grounded in Love,
Emily Fraser (She/Her/They/Them)
Director of Religious Education
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan
(785) 370-6141