WELCOME SPRING!!  It's time to begin the fun process of actively beautifying our church grounds again.

OUR BEAUTIFUL CHURCH GARDENS AND EXTERIOR:  This is an especially important year, with the up-coming installation celebration for Reverend Sarah Stewart on May 3.  Please join the Friends of the Gardens for some fun and fellowship on the 2 Saturday mornings before the Installation, April 25th and/or May 2nd, 8 am to noon--to tidy up and beautify our gardens so we can really celebrate in style (rain or shine!!) Ideas??  Banners, ribbons, flowers....

PLANT EXCHANGE:  Then our spring Plant Exchange will be on Sunday May 10 (Mothers' Day) and Sunday May 17th this year.  For those new to the church, this is a long-standing tradition: people bring potted plants (annuals, perennials, herbs, house plants) from their own garden to donate to the church on those days, and then we sell them after church at $5 per pot, as a fun exchange, AND a fund-raiser for the church and our gardens.  This year we are working toward building funds for projects like an expanded shade garden in the front, and a labyrinth around our Peace Pole.  As the snow melts from your garden beds, please be planning what you might divide and contribute!  We have plenty of large empty plastic pots in the church garden storage shed if you need one. 

Questions?  Please contact co-chairs Kate O'Dell at odellkk@gmail.com or Mary Mcalister at maryalmc@gmail.com

Symphonic transcriptions wowed the audience on Court Hill last Friday night with the 2015 opening concert of 1st U's Young Artists Showcase Series

featuring Jonathan Wessler, organist, who specializes in orchestral transcriptions - a 50-piece orchestra channeled into 10 fingers and two feet

and some 3500 pipes in our glorious Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ (it never sounded so good!).

Next two concerts in the series:  5/29: Jazztrane (from Joy of Music);  6/5: Nicholas Capozzoli, organist.

 for an audio excerpt from Friday's organ concert: 
Guilmant Sonata "Final"

Click here for details of upcoming concerts in this series.

Providing refreshments after worship is a gift of service to the church. The food you bring need not be elaborate. If you would like to provide this hospitality, click here to see if others are contributing that Sunday and to sign up or you can just bring a food offering and put it on the dining room table. Invite a friend to join you in this offering.

Sign Up Here
 

Michelle is a relatively new member of our congregation.  She has quickly become involved with the congregation first by joining our choir and then taking on the responsibility of Assistant Treasurer. She has recently become involved in adult faith development programming.  We asked Michelle to talk about what her involvement means to her and she had this to say:
 

"I value the ability to share my ideas about adult development with a group of First Unitarian members who also are interested in furthering the educational opportunities for adults at church and seeing those ideas come to fruition.   Although I offered to do something different and not a UU program, it was approved.  Thus allowing a Christian based program to be offered at First U.

I appreciate Deb Levering and Liz Gustavson helping me implement the 5 week program, "Embracing a Life of Meaning."  Our first meeting of this series was powerful in the stories we shared about who we are and what gives us meaning today.

The congregation benefits by the many diverse adult educational opportunities that the team was able to bring to First U.  I believe we are being enriched in mind, body, and spirit by coming together to explore ourselves and each other in ways not possible done alone." - Michelle Przekop

Wiogora School of Wonder and Wisdom, First Unitarian's own Harry Potter inspired summer program running July 27th to August 7th continues to accept registrations for students and applications for adult staff and volunteers. For more information, and to register or apply, go to  http://www.wiogora.org/. See Alison Barrows Ronn or Seth Popinchalk for more information. 

The Escalating Inequality Sessions are a series of 5 workshops and a movie discussion about the problem of escalating inequality in this country. At General Assembly in Providence last summer, delegates to the UUA voted escalating inequality as the most pressing issue of our time.

This is a joint project between First Unitarian Church and the UU Church of Worcester. Three events will be held here and four will be held at UUCW, 90 Holden Street, Worcester 01606. We are excited about this partnership.

The three remaining workshops are from the dynamic curriculum put out by the UUA and contain large and small group discussions, videos and personal inventories.

 Escalating Inequality Task Force: Joan McGinn, Chair; Paul Ropp, Randy Ingham, Mara Pentlarge, Joe Delgizzi

Joan McGinn, Chair, Escalating Inequality Task Force