Priairie Fire

The Humanist Union will meet on February 10 for a potluck lunch at Noon, followed by an informal discussion with Shawn Francis Peters about his new book The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era.

The technically challenged Program Committee is looking for volunteers to help them operate the new sound and projector systems. On Sunday Feb10, after the service, Al Nettleton will be training volunteers. Help save us from the potential disaster of a Sunday when both Al and Dirk are out of town!!!

The next Soup Sunday will be February 17. Stay after the service for a soup lunch and excellent conversation! A donation of $5 is requested, but, as always, guests and visitors are on us!

Prairie's Board of Trustees will meet on Monday, February 11, at 7:00pm at Prairie.

RE Wild Wintering! Meet up at Cherokee Heights Middle School for sledding at 1:00pm, then come back to Prairie for snacks, hot cocoa, and a Dr. Seuss movie. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Mark your calendars! Prairie's service auction will be held on Sunday, March 17, after the service. There will be a Soup Sunday as well. Please send your auction items to Dan Klock (admin@uuprairie.org or 271-8218).

President's Musings

This has been a busy time for Prairie. The Board is concentrating on creating a Policy and Procedure manual. The house next to Prairie became available and we have met, both in committee and as a body, to consider if we should offer to purchase it.  As a community, we responded to the emergency needs of the some in the homeless community during the extremely cold weather by providing shelter for two nights. That is enough to keep any group busy, let alone our relatively small congregation.

So, how are we doing with all of these challenges. On the homeless front, we hosted people for two nights at Prairie. That effort has now been shifted to First UU Society to provide the space with James Reeb folks doing most of the staffing. We were never the best, or even the logical, facility for this effort, but were aware of the urgent need, thanks to Dorothy Krause, and managed to step up in the crunch. We housed 15 people the first night including some children and about 8 the second night. For those of us who got to meet and talk with our visitors, homelessness will never again be an abstract problem. We now will attach names, faces, and stories to people who find themselves homeless in our city.

Regarding the meeting last Sunday on the house, I was very pleased with the tone of the discussion. It was thoughtful, varied in perspective, polite, and respectful. Reports will be coming out soon on the results of our “straw poll.” From what I have heard so far, there was not a definite trend one way or the other, so more consideration will be needed to come to any conclusion.

Probably the least interesting area of effort to most people is the development of the Policy and Procedures Manual. The effort on that front is slowly progressing. Several people are working on coming up with an easy to use, consistent format.
As a congregation, we are clearly very busy, so let’s have some fun together. As a break from all of this work, be sure to come to the Valentine’s Day Dance at Prairie, Friday evening, Feb 15th.  This will be fun and a fund raiser. See you there and thank you for being such a wonderful community.

Barbara Park
President