Fall symbolizes change and transition. The shift from warm weather to cooler weather, the changing colors of the leaves, the rising to a new grade in school, the continuing emergence out of COVID, the turning of the year in the Jewish calendar, the turning of the wheel in the pagan calendar, and Homecoming this Sunday in our calendar.
This particular fall brings to our community a number of transitions on staff. It is a time of saying goodbye and thank you to two staff members a time of saying welcome to four new staff members.
It is a season of goodbye and gratitude in our Learning Community right now. Cassandra Scheffman (our Director of Family Ministries) and Nicole Bowmer (our Associate Director of Family Ministries with Youth and Learning Community Assistant) have both shared that it is time to move on. However, they will be working with us both to open our programming for the fall and towards a positive transition for these vital ministries. Cassandra will be here through the end of October and Nicole will be here through the end of September to allow for time for the transition to happen. We will be offering ample opportunities for you to be able to say thank you for all the gifts they have shared during their tenure and in ways that are meaningful to Cassandra and Nicole respectively. (You can read the letter Cassandra sent to our congregation, and the one I sent to Teachers & Advisors ahead of Teacher Orientation this weekend here.)
It is a season of welcome and renewal as we greet four new staff members who were all present at our All-Staff meeting on Tuesday. Jennifer Thomas joins us full-time in a new position as our Membership Engagement Coordinator. She also happens to have a background as a religious educator. Garrett Bond joins as our part-time Associate Keyboardist who many of us have enjoyed hearing on the piano throughout August. Kelly Clendenon joins as our full-time six-month Project Intern for the new Shower Project working with Social Justice and our Committee on Hunger and Homelessness. Danielle Garrett is our 2023-2024 Ministerial Intern and some of you have already had the chance to be inspired by her first sermon in our pulpit. Their presence, enthusiasm, and ideas are already percolating and impacting our year for the better.
Many of you will have questions about what next for our Learning Community in this time of transition. We are already reaching out to the UUA and to the interim religious educator networks to explore the possibilities of who and where we might find our next religious educator. This will likely be an acting/interim religious educator and will allow us to explore and imagine the ways that our Learning Community Program can best serve children and families into the future. It was already clear through the Community Conversations last May and June that parents would like to see such conversations happen this year.
In a season of turning, we are both aware with deep gratitude for all the staff and volunteers who have tended our ministries before, all the staff and volunteers who nourish our ministries today, and all the people who will give the of themselves to allow our ministries to thrive in the future. May this season of change turn us towards learning and insights, growth and love.
In faith,
Rev. Alison