Stepping Into the Shade: Tobacco’s Connection to Civil Rights

Feb. 6^th at 1:00 PM

Join us at 1:00 on Sunday afternoon, February 6^th for a sneak preview and panel discussion of footage from “Stepping Into the Shade: Tobacco’s Connection to Civil Rights.” This event is free and open to the public. Zoom login information will be published in our regular UUS:E eblasts or can be obtained by contacting the UUS:E office at (860) 6460-5151 or [email protected]. If public health conditions allow, a limited number of people will be welcomed into our sanctuary to attend the event in person.

Background:

A January press release from Eastern Connecticut State University announced that the school “has been awarded $35,000 by Connecticut Humanities to produce a documentary about Connecticut’s shade tobacco industry and its connection to the civil rights movement. ‘Stepping into the Shade: Tobacco’s Connection to Civil Rights’ will be a six-part mini-series hosted by Connecticut entertainment producer June Archer.” And further: “Filmmakers Kristen Morgan [UUS:E member] and Brian Day, theatre professors at Eastern, are at the beginning stages of the production process and seeking information from anyone with family connections to tobacco farms in Connecticut. They are hoping to speak with migrant workers or relatives of the students from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) who came North for summer work on the farms. The most notable such worker was Martin Luther King Jr., who spent a summer on a Simsbury farm in the 1940s through a program with Morehouse College in Georgia.”

This project is exciting! UUS:E is blessed to have the opportunity not only to learn about a forgotten piece of 20^th-century Connecticut history, but to get an inside look at the film as it is being made.

Questions? Contact Rev. Josh Pawelek at [email protected].

UUS:E’s Rev. Josh Pawelek is co-leading a prayer vigil in support of immigrants and domestic workers outside of Senator Blumenthal’s Hartford office (90 Statehouse Sq.) on Tuesday, December 21st at noon. All are welcome!

Book Discussion
Diet for a Small Planet 50th Anniversary Edition

Sunday, December 11, 1:00-2:00 p.m.

UUS:E members and friends are warmly invited to attend Manchester’s Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service on Sunday, November 21^st, at 4:00 PM. This year’s service will take place online and is hosted by Temple Beth Shalom / B’Nai Israel. Watch from the comfort of your home at https://www.myshul.org/livestream. This year’s service will feature a keynote address by Manchester resident, teacher, and newly elected president of the Connecticut Education Association, Kate Dias. UUS:E member Jenn Richard will present a number of musical selections.

Watch from the comfort of your home at https://www.myshul.org/livestream.

It’s been more than a decade since UUS:E last had a fully functioning Accessibility Committee. In those intervening years the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has learned much about how to address ableism in our congregations, and how to expand our accessibility to people with a wide variety of disabilities. Given that UUS:E is now in the midst of planning for re-opening following the coronavirus pandemic, this may be a perfect time for us to consider how we enhance our accessibility to people with disabilities. Interested? Read on….

In partnership with the UUA, EqUUal Access, a UU disability rights and inclusion organization, has developed the Accessibility and Inclusion Ministry or AIM. AIM is a certification program. Its purpose is to guide congregations to better welcome, embrace, integrate, and support people with disabilities and their families in our communities. AIM attempts to meet each congregation where it is and move it forward at a reasonable pace based on its resources, needs, and abilities, regardless of membership size or type of building.

The UUS:E Policy Board is empowering a team to study the AIM program and make recommendations as to how UUS:E can pursue certification. If you would like to be part of this study team, please contact Policy Board Member at Large, Peg Darrah ([email protected] or 603-540-6495).

An invitation to Dialogue from the Rev. and the DRE

UUS:E’s meeting house remains closed to in-person activity, but we are slowly beginning to imagine how to reopen later this year. While the Unitarian Universalist Association continues to advise congregations to carry on with virtual activities until the coronavirus is fully under control, they are also sharing various models for how to reopen. Our UUS:E Emergency Preparedness Team is reviewing these models and will be making recommendations to the Policy Board in the coming weeks.

As part of the reopening process, we–Gina and Rev. Josh–feel it is critical that we as a congregation learn as many lessons as possible from our pandemic experience. Who are we becoming given what we’ve been through? To explore this question,  we have scheduled four meetings over the course of April and early May. Each of these meetings will take place on line, though two of them will also happen simultaneously outdoors at UUS:E if the weather is nice.  Join us for as many of these meetings as you would like:

Tuesday, April 13 at 1:00 PM. Outdoors at UUS:E. Watch the eblasts for login information.

Wednesday, April 21^st at 10:00 AM. Online only. Watch the eblasts for login information.

Friday, April 30^th, 9:00 AM. Outdoors at UUS:E. Bring your own coffee. Watch the eblasts for login information.

Monday, May 3^rd, 7:00 PM. Online only. Watch the eblasts for login information.

We will be inviting people to respond to the questions listed below from the nationally-known congregational consultant, Susan Beaumont. Note: these may not be the only questions we discuss. You may have other questions. If so, we are happy to include your questions in the conversation. The important thing is that UUS:E members and friends have an opportunity to discern together what we’ve learned from more than a year of pandemic. Here are Beaumont’s questions:

• What were we on the verge of discovering or accomplishing before the onset of the pandemic?
• What was possible before that may not be possible for some time—if ever?
• What seemed important before that feels superfluous now?
• What was undervalued before that may hold greater value now?
• What mattered about geography before that no longer matters?
• What new abundance are we experiencing now?
• Where are we experiencing scarcity now that was not evident before?
• What is our greatest asset now?
• What relationships will we need to build on or strengthen in the months ahead?
• What unique role might our congregation play in local, national, and even global recovery?
• What long term changes in the bigger picture would we like to be part of bringing to fruition?

With love,

Gina and Josh

Members of the Pastoral Friends Committee would like to invite you to join us on June 18 (Friday) at 9 AM for a gathering for any members or friends just to chat. This meeting will be in person outside at UUS:E or by Zoom. If the weather is bad, we’ll be all virtual. There is no specific topic; we just wanted to reach out. Please join us.