11/24/2021 by Shannon Day

A Qigong and Meditation Morning

Saturday, January 8, 9:15 – 12:45. In person at the Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation Social Hall.Start off the new year with practices that can add vitality and calmness to your life!  The morning is suitable for beginner and experienced meditators. For beginners, we will cover the basics of sitting meditation with an opportunity to practice and ask questions. For more experienced meditators, incorporating movement into your meditation practice can deepen and integrate your practice into your life. Meditation instruction will be given by Jill Boone, a Buddhist Lay Minister who leads the West Seattle Buddhist Sangha. Qigong is an ancient Chinese system

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11/17/2021 by Shannon Day

Aging to Saging Scheduling Survey

Members of the Aging to Saging group at Westside are invited to complete the form below to help determine the best times for meeting for the remainder of the church year, and also to provide some feedback on how/if folks are interested in participating in in-person gatherings in addition to online ones. The current plan is to offer one in-person meeting and one online one each month on a consistent schedule. Thank you for sharing your availability and we look forward to sharing the results of the survey with the group soon.

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10/27/2021 by Shannon Day

Board Update for October 2021

Dear WSUU Friends, The board continues to be busy with several different projects and we are pleased to provide an update. We met this past Thursday and talked about many things, include revisiting COVID policies and discussing the future of RE programs in light of staff changes. As you probably read in last week’s Westside Week, we agreed to plan for in-person worship at WSUU beginning on December 5.  We are deeply grateful for the work of the COVID Task Force (Liz Berggren, Jill Jackson, Amanda Maier, and Chris Hollinger), who have spent many hours reviewing safety guidelines and public

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10/07/2021 by Shannon Day

Moving in Spirit Extended Through November!

The first cycle of Moving in Spirit was a great success, with a growing cohort of movement meditators each week as we visited Kubota Gardens, Lincoln Park and Schmitz Park! It was so lovely to see so many Westside folks gathering to walk on their own, and then to do a little deeper sharing with another person during the second half of our time. It’s such an important time to be making and maintaining connections with friends and members new and old, and I’m so grateful to the new folks who made this a point of connection with the community,

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09/21/2021 by Shannon Day

September Update from Board of Trustees

Dear Westside Community, We are writing to update you regarding one aspect of our board work.  The board is responsible for supervision of our minister, Reverend Christopher. As we self-organize to cover the different board roles and responsibilities, we have designated two board members to be the leads for this function: Laura Pierce and Marco Deppe. We recognize that it may not be obvious how concerns related to staff should be handled, and that without formal channels for feedback, concerns can fester or lead to gossip rather than resolution. The managerial structure of our congregation is that Rev. Christopher is

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09/20/2021 by Shannon Day

General Assembly 2021 Highlights

What is the UUA? https://www.uua.org/about The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is the big umbrella organization for UUs in the U.S. Its membership includes 1,000+ congregations committed to our UU principles; however, each congregation is autonomous—its individual congregational leaders set their own priorities and choose their own ministers and staff. Congregations select delegates who then vote for the leaders of the UUA. The UUA supports congregations by training ministers, publishing books and the UU World magazine, providing religious education curricula, offering shared services, coordinating social justice activities, and more. What is GA? https://www.uua.org/ga. GA is the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists, where we do the business of the UUA, explore our faith, and lean into

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09/15/2021 by Shannon Day

White Center Food Bank Volunteer Opportunity

As part of our Beloved Connections work, WSUU volunteers have pitched in at the White Center Food Bank (WCFB) three times over the summer months. We packed grocery bags of food for distribution, helped with in-person distribution, and worked in the warehouse sorting and storing food. In our most recent effort, six WSUU volunteers packed 1,350 pounds of food and had fun while doing so.WCFB’s mission is to “Minimize hunger while nourishing community, nurturing self-reliance and embracing our rich cultural diversity.” They strive to distribute culturally appropriate food in a dignified and respectful manner.Starting Thursday, October 7, and every first

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09/09/2021 by Shannon Day

Vote for a WSUU Congregational Read

WSUU is going to offer a congregational read for 2021-22, and we want your input on the books you think we should engage with as a community. Each of the proposed books is available from the Seattle Public Library or King County Library, as well as local booksellers. Regardless which book is selected, participants will have the chance to engage in either discussion groups or self-directed reading reflections with guiding resources. The three proposed books are (descriptions are from GoodReads): My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies By Resmaa Menakem The body is

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09/08/2021 by Shannon Day

A new year of Common Quest!

What gifts might you bring? What gifts might you welcome?As we move into another exciting year at Westside, we need your help in replenishing our pool of opportunities to grow in spirit and learn in community with one another, a program we call Common Quest (CQ). The offerings provided through Common Quest are designed to encourage a deepening of spiritual maturity and support Unitarian Universalist faith formation in adults. What kinds of programs would you like to offer? What would you like to see offered? In the past Westside members have enjoyed programs on developing spiritual practices, on UU history

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09/08/2021 by Shannon Day

Westside Conversations for Connection to continue in October

This October, WSUU will be offering Conversations for Connection, a series of three 90-minute virtual conversations that offer Westside congregants the opportunity to feel heard and to renew and/or form connections with others in a small group.  This program gives participants a way to experience intimacy and cultivation of trust in conversation groups during this time when we have limited options to be together in person. This summer, the pilot round of the Conversations for Connection program took place, involving 22 participants in three groups. The overwhelming feedback from these groups affirmed the importance of the program goals of deep

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