Purpose: The Social Responsibility
Committee works to remedy injustice and empower ourselves and others to stand
up for our values through a balance of study, reflection, and social justice
and social service activities. Our goal is to educate our congregation, and to
educate and serve the community around us. Our role is to contribute to
the church’s mission to be a place where people
can learn, reflect, and mobilize for action.
Chair: The Social Responsibility Committee Chair is Mary “Malia” Till (mlt145@comcast.net). Please contact her to obtain up-to-date information about current social responsibility actions or to learn how you can help in this important work.
Meetings:
Social Responsibility Committee meetings are from 6:30-8:00pm on the first and
third Sunday evenings of the month during the regular church year (in room 7). Our last meeting before summer break will be
June 1st. We will reconvene
again on September 21, 2008. We invite and welcome you to join us.
To confirm meeting dates, please call the church office at 603-625-6854.
Meeting Programming: One of the highlights of our meeting
programming this year was the showing and discussion of “The Great Story” as
presented by Michael Dowd. The Great Story is the 14 billion year epic of
Cosmos, life, and humanity told as a sacred story glorifying all. It is a
spiritual and scientific examination of where we come from and where we are going.
A copy of the CD can be borrowed from the Social Responsibility
Committee. Contact Malia
at mlt145@comcast.net. For more
information on the Great Story, see the
website http://thegreatstory.org/index2.html.
It is easy to
get overwhelmed by the many large problems that face us on a local, national
and international scale--global terrorism, climate change, and rising poverty
to name a few. This year we will be exploring how many of these problems
can be successfully addressed by community actions. And when many communities
all over the world participate, these big problems become manageable. To this
end, our focus this year (2007-2008) will be on the following activities.
Focus
Activities
Volunteers
are needed. Starting May 29th, UUCM will
support The New Horizon Soup Kitchen's Food Pantry in Manchester, NH, with 4-5
volunteers to hand out food and carry groceries. This effort will continue monthly through the
summer, at least through September, every Fourth Thursday evening from
5:45-7:30pm. See Belinda Nerl for a signup clip board or check the Social
Responsibility Bulletin Board.
Dates to
Volunteer- May
29th, June 26th, July 24th, August 28th, September 25th
Belinda can
be contacted at bjnerl@comcast.net
Each Sunday we collect food for food pantries in the area. Supplies are short all over the area and we are moving into one of the busiest times of the year. We encourage members and visitors of our congregation to bring non-perishable food to any Sunday service and place them in the container provided.
We are also collecting toiletry Items (including complimentary sizes as found in hotel/motel rooms) and old cell phones with chargers for the women’s shelter. The old cell phones are programmed for calling 911 and given to women in danger of violence from former domestic partners.
Each month we choose a different charity to receive half of cash contributions from the Sunday offering plate. The list of charities for the 2007-2008 church year follows:
September - Granite State Independent Living
October – Unitarian Universalist Association
November - UU Action Network (formerly Faithful Democracy)
December - NH Food Bank
January - National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
February - Souhegan Watershed Association
March – UUSC
April - Granite State Organizing Project
May - NH Task Force on Women & Recovery
June - Women's Crisis Center; YWCA
In 2004 UUCM voted to become a Welcoming Congregation. As such, we gladly welcome all members of the GLBT community to participate in our services. In addition, our chapel is available for Civil Union ceremonies! Please contact the church office for more information.
Every Sunday during coffee hour, we have fair trade coffee and chocolate available for purchase in the Fellowship Hall. We sell a variety of Equal Exchange fairly traded coffee in 1 pound packages as well as bars of Equal Exchange chocolate and hot cocoa.
Each November and December, we participate in the UU Service Committee’s “Guest at Your Table” drive to collect spare change to support the UU Service Committee’s projects in the US and around the world. For more information about the "Guest at your Table" program, visit UUSC Guest at Your Table
Film Festival: “An Inconvenient Profit”
This fall, the Social Responsibility Committee hosted a film festival about how international corporations impact lives in local communities. The featured films were:
·
Thirst: A documentary about community
vs. corporate water rights.
http://www.thirstthemovie.org
·
The
High Price of Low Cost:
A documentary about how Wal-Mart impacts local retailers, local environments, and
its own workers.
http://www.walmartmovie.com
·
Iraq
for Sale: A
documentary about where the billions of dollars allocated for the Iraq war are
actually spent.
http://iraqforsale.org
·
Sicko:
A documentary about private health care in the U.S. and how it compares to
universal health care plans around the world.
http://www.sicko-themovie.com
·
Thomas
Linzey An interview with Thomas Linzey, Founder Community Environment Legal Defense Fund in
which he discusses how to reign in corporate power.
http://www.celdf.org
We averaged about 15
people at each showing and all were followed by lively discussion and good
food. Anyone wishing to borrow one of these film DVDs for private viewing
should contact Malia Till at mlt145@comcast.net.
For those interested in what they can do to address the issues raised in these
films, we recommend reading the book The Great Turning from Empire to Earth
Community by David Korten. We will be
hosting an ongoing discussion of this book during coffee hour starting in March
Adult
Enrichment Course
The Social Responsibility
Committee is offering an Adult Enrichment course for January, 2008, based on
the writings of David Korten (The Great Turning) and
Paul Hawkins (Blessed Unrest). In this course we will look at how we can
transform the win-lose political and economic games of today into the win-win
games of tomorrow. For more information on The Great Turning visit UUJEC Great Turning
Project. For information on current Adult Enrichment Courses at UUCM, visit www.uumanchester.org and click on Adult Enrichment in the
navigation bar at the left of the page.
Alternative Gift Bazaar
We will be hosting an
Alternative Gift Bazaar at the UUCM Holiday Faire on November 17. We will
have products from women’s collectives in some
of the poorest parts of the world, including India, Afghanistan, Haiti,
Bolivia, and others. Products include clothing from India, hand painted
silk scarves from Haiti, yarn from Bolivia, and crafts from Afghanistan.
Check the holiday faire web site for more information: UUCM Holiday Faire.
Focus on Domestic Violence
We are grateful for a donation to the church made by Robert Lavoie in memory of his sister Annie-France, a member of our church for several years, for use by the Social Responsibility Committee to do community outreach. Our plan is to use an oral history exhibit, created by one of our members, featuring several women who have survived domestic violence situations to raise interest and awareness about domestic violence in our backyard. We plan to send this traveling exhibit to several community churches as both an informative and fund raising venture. In conjunction with the YWCA Women’s Crises center, we are exploring a micro-lending program to help women get through the critical time right before and after leaving a domestic violence situation. This program is in the early planning stages with an intent to start the traveling exhibit early next year.
Associated UU Social Justice Groups
Unitarian Universalist Action Network of New Hampshire
UU Action Network of New Hampshire (formerly known as New Hampshire Faithful Democracy) is an education and advocacy network of Unitarian Universalists in the state of New Hampshire. It is working to strengthen the network of UU churches to help coordinate focused action on targeted issues, so that NH UU's can have a stronger voice on the issues that matter to us.
For more information, click to visit the website:
http://www.uuactionnetworknh.org/
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is a nonsectarian organization that advances human rights and social justice in the United States and around the world. Programs are based on Unitarian Universalist principles that affirm the worth, dignity, and human rights of every person — but one need not be a Unitarian Universalist to join UUSC. Through a potent combination of advocacy, education, and partnerships with grassroots organizations, UUSC supports programs and policies that promote workers' rights, advance the human right to water, defend civil liberties, and preserve the rights of those affected by humanitarian crises. For more information, click to visit the website: UU Service Committee.
GSOP is the largest grassroots community organization in New Hampshire. It is comprised of 32 religious, community, and labor organizations representing 20,000 New Hampshire families. They work on issues such as affordable housing, jobs, health care, and education to improve the lives of all people. For more information visit GSOP.