10/20/2025 by Shannon Day

Costumes Are Welcome

I love that the whole month of October is costume friendly. We don’t have a specific costume event scheduled this month but rather at Westside, we encourage costuming any and every day. Costuming can very much be art, fashion, fandom, creative expression and a way to love ourselves and each other. Costuming encourages self-regulation, body autonomy, body positivity, gender exploration and affirmation. Costuming says every body is beautiful. Costuming also lends itself to important conversations about cultural appropriation and not supporting and perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Dress up engages learning emotionally, cognitively, sensory, motor skills big and small, language and communication

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10/09/2025 by Shannon Day

Board Update for October

I am full of gratitude for this year’s Board of Trustees, and our ex-officio members Rev. Carter and Shannon. This group is affirming, caring, reliable, creative, and deeply committed to Westside’s well-being. We recently gathered for a retreat to strengthen our relationships, learn new ways to collaborate, and lay plans for the year. After getting a sense of the strengths and perspectives we each bring to this work, we engaged with the Core Team to learn more about the tools that nonviolent communication offers us as leaders and members of WSUU. With that foundation we drafted our covenant and turned

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10/09/2025 by Shannon Day

Pet Blessings

I am so excited to bring pet blessings back to Westside! Here’s a photo of our 6 pets: Willow, Burnham, Sisko, Bubba, Tendi and Rutherford. On this Sunday October 12th, we will bless our pets (through the photos and stuffed animals your child brings) and connect our care and compassion towards animals with our UU values of interdependence, generosity and love. We will introduce some of the concepts from the UUAM.org – UU Animal Ministry. Have you visited their webpage? For more information, including photos, about our special guests coming Sunday, October 12th, please send an email to dre@wsuu.org about

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10/02/2025 by Shannon Day

First Saturdays

Fall Greetings: Last weekend both Youth Group and the children at RE Sunday had great conversations about covenanting and how we treat each other, ourselves, and our spaces. Each time I learned new things about how to craft our time together to be joyful, inclusive, and intentional. I’m still deeply moved and thinking about how the children and youth articulated covenantal language. Tomorrow Saturday October 4, we will start our First Saturdays Family Night event with Parents’ Night Out.  First Saturdays will alternate between Parents’ Night Out, one month and All Ages Games Night the next month, both from

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09/25/2025 by Shannon Day

DRE Lounge

Introducing the new DRE Lounge just outside the northwest sanctuary doors! The DRE Lounge includes Westside’s children and family library and is right next to our nursery. The lounge will serve as: Things to look at in the lounge include an art memo board with fairy lights that features art by our children and recent RE activities. There is also a new JIGLPET (sounds like jigglepet) inspiration display. JIGLPET stands for our UU values: Justice, Interdependence, Generosity, Love, Pluralism, Equity and Transformation and has love in the center.Coming soon are Social Change Now and ASL learning posters. The DRE lounge

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09/17/2025 by Shannon Day

Love Will Remind Us

In hard times, Mister Rogers suggested we look to the helpers, and I think that’s us. We Unitarian Universalists are the helpers working to make our world better, and at the same time, we also need support, rest, and inspiration to fuel us. Where are you finding inspiration? One place I find it is in the words of one of the UU leaders I look up to — Rev. Sofia Betancourt, Ph.D. I have set my web browser with a bookmark so when I open Facebook, it doesn’t open on the Facebook feed, but rather to Rev. Sofia Betancourt’s professional

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09/09/2025 by Shannon Day

Ingathering and Start of the RE Year

Greetings all: I’m so grateful to everyone, especially the youth that joined us last Saturday to lend a hand in reorganizing the Religious Exploration spaces and supplies including the Youth Space. It was special and sweet to cohost the RE clean out event with Katie, our DRE from last year. What makes you feel comfortable in a space? Do you prefer to sit in a chair, floor sit, move around, do small arts and crafts, or maybe a combination of all those things and more? We had you all in mind as we readied ourselves for the start of RE

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09/03/2025 by Shannon Day

Fall Rituals

Greetings all! What is your favorite Fall ritual? Rituals can be “an act or a series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner, an established form of ceremony or a ritual observance.” *Do you and your chosen family have Fall rituals you do every year for the start of school or RE at Westside? My little family would often make a trip to the thrift store for “new” used clothing after school started. I grew up locally in a place where I could see salmon spawn and complete their cycles every year. I still try to make a

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09/03/2025 by Shannon Day

New DRE Greeting!

Greetings all: I’m grateful to have a couple weeks to get up to speed and gear up for the start of our RE program. I am delighted that I will get to follow through, enrich and build on the work I’ve created as WSUU’s Equity, Inclusion and Creativity Advocate. For the last two years, I have worked closely with our previous DREs in weekly sessions crafting our RE program serving children and families, making an inclusive, flexible, value-based program.As your new DRE, I will bring my full self in this work of creating joy, belonging, learning, and a bit of

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08/12/2025 by Shannon Day

Board Report July 31, 2025

I’m happy to report on the first meeting of the 2025-26 WSUU Board after a fun meet-and-greet potluck.  We begin this year continuing to focus on the ongoing work of supporting and growing our Westside community.  I am excited that we are in process of choosing our new Director of Religious Education (DRE) search and will have news to give the congregation soon. Many thanks to Rev. Katie for her commitment to our youth and we wish her well as she finishes out her time with us.  I’m also happy to report that a decision was made to fund training

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