Welcome to May!

by Tracy Cook on 5/5/2025

Wow, almost a year has passed since y’all elected me as your President. I cannot believe we have just had our Annual meeting again! Congratulations to our incoming members. James Moore is stepping into the President-Elect position this summer, and Lisa Pedersen is taking a Member-at-Large position. I am so glad to welcome them to the Board of Trustees, and am really looking forward to having their input!

I’m also enthusiastic about our newest Covenant Group, the WFPB group. They meet every Saturday on Zoom at 2:30 PM. Whole Food Plant Based is a completely plant-based diet, aka vegan. No animal products are used at all. If you were at the Retreat, we had vegan options there for our friends who choose this path, and I have to say the foods were yummy. I know our vegan friends have been talking since *forever* about getting a group together. And after a few of them went on a plant-based cruise recently, they dove into setting this in motion!

The Board will be meeting to combine the two various budgets into one cohesive proposal. I guess this is what happens when the Board members meet without the Finance team, and then the Finance team meets separately from the Board. Yikes! Those circumstances will probably never happen again, thank goodness. But this year they did. Thank you for being so flexible and trusting us to work out a plan.

Bear with me for just a few more weeks, and then you will get to hear a brand new voice in these blogs as Eric Huckabay steps into his new role as President! Yay, Eric!

Hello, April!

by Tracy Cook on 4/7/2025

Wow, can you believe it is already April?! I can’t! Wowie-wow, sometimes time seems to just fly by.

Our Retreat is at the end of the month, April 25-27, at Blackwood Farms. This is about an hour away, so you could come out for the day on Saturday. But I would encourage y’all to spend the nights with your Tapestry framily. Walk the trails during the days, hike around, and spend time sitting near the campfire in the evenings. Get away from the stress and the busy-ness of the ‘city’, like Rev Alisha said on the 6th! There is a special meal on Sunday morning that you won’t want to miss. Also, TXUUJM is going to be preaching from Blackwood Farms.

Registration for the Retreat is now OPEN! See the Newsletter for complete details and a map to the location.

Next month, on May 4, we will have our Annual Meeting where we vote on our budget, and our slate for the Board. A quorum is needed, and this can be from Zoom as well as in person. We will have a Town Hall meeting on April 13, so if you have any questions about the budget or about the slate of candidates, ask them then!

May 4 is also when we will have our Volunteer Fair! That’s where we get to see what everyone has been up to in the last year, all of the fun stuff and the good trouble! How many events did you attend?! Were you involved with letter-writing? Did you attend a camping trip? Did you march or protest any issues? Did you volunteer to help out? Then good for you! Give yourself a big pat on the back for getting involved!

Welcome to March! And Happy Birthday, Tapestry!

by Tracy Cook on 3/5/2025

Welcome to March!

This is my birthday month, and also Tapestry’s birthday, how exciting is that?! We have so much going on this month, so let’s dive in…

For the first Sunday this month, we have Birthday Sunday, and I will be standing up there hearing all of y’all’s beautiful voices and basking in the love, along with several others! I wonder what kind of cake we will enjoy?!

The second Sunday this month we will be off-site at the Juge’s clubhouse. The location is at 17623 Moss Point Dr. The time is still the same, 11:00-12 noon. But there will be no Zoom, so make sure to adjust your plans if you wish to attend.

For the third Sunday, our Circle of Trees will meet starting just past 11:00. Hopefully we can meet outside! It has been so nice recently! But I enjoy this class any way I can get it. The sermon on Sunday promises to be a good one, from Melissa Huckabay, titled Poetic Justice. She is a published poet, so I think she may know a thing or two about the topic!

The fourth Sunday Rev Alisha Mills will be in the pulpit with a message about Spring. This season is all about creativity and new life, new energies brought into new or familiar projects and activities. I enjoy the invigorations of spring and what all is blooming and sprouting up from the ground.

And this month we have a fifth Sunday! Rev Alisha is in the pulpit again this week preaching about the creative contributions of five wise and wonderful women.

We also will be kicking off our Stewardship Campaign this month. Please keep an eye on our Stewardship Blog. And, hey, this month it features MEEEEEE! As if you don’t get enough of me already, ha! But, please do read the testimonies from other people and not just mine. There are soooooooo many reasons to love this church and this community. I’m very glad I found Tapestry. How about you?

February…a little late!

by Tracy Cook on 2/10/2025

Hello, and welcome to February…a little late!

Tapestry has been very busy at the start of February. On the Cooking (and Eating) Front, we had a Souper Sunday event on the 9th. And we found out that there was NO POWER to the room via outlets. We called Julie, the President for CJCN. She talked to me about the age of the wiring (40 years, can you believe it?!) and the results of the professional testing they paid for February 1st. We tried a few things, but in the end George and I grabbed some pots and reheated everyone’s soups the old-fashioned way. Apparently, we can run the hot water kettle and the coffee maker, and that’s it. Anything else pulls too much power. We solved the issue for Sunday, but that’s something to remember for future events.

Circle Of Trees continues on February 16. I have been attending, and I enjoy it very much. We have a different set of presenters each week, which is wonderful! Circle of Trees only has a few more months before it ends, so if you’ve been meaning to try it out, take a look at the Tapestry calendar (https://uutapestry.org/calendar) for the dates.

Youth Group met on February 9, as well. If this is something you’d like to support with your time or your talents, this is a reminder of our previous discussions. You can volunteer to provide materials for one of the events, or bring some snacks for them to nibble on (contact Rev Alisha for any dietary restrictions, please, but know that we are grateful). Alternately, you can look ahead to any school breaks and see if you’d like to volunteer for an outing. We post some suggestions on our Facebook page, or if you see an event that you think would be enjoyable then make the suggestion. It takes a village.

Happy New Year!

by Tracy Cook on 1/1/2025

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to 2025, y’all!!!

What a night we had last night, wow! We played games and sang karaoke and laughed! So much laughing! We were thinking of all of the Tapestry framily, and wishing all a Happy New Year. It has been a YEAR, has it not?! We welcomed new babies, we said good-bye to some people. There have been major news and weather events in 2024, and we experienced all the emotions that come with those unexpected situations. What is the saying? May you live in uninteresting times? I think I’m ready for a little uninteresting times.

I talked a bit about Tapestry’s Ministries on December 29, however I later learned that Zoom was not working properly and so several of you missed what I said. I apologize for that!

Let me sum up:

• When we signed The Book and joined Tapestry, we promised to support the church. But what does that look like?
• Time, Talent, Money
• UUA suggests 5% pledge and 5% other non-profits (review your pledge and see if you are at this level - I mentioned I do 7% pledge and 3% other non-profits)
• Get on the schedule for whatever Ministry you choose to support!
• Worship Team works hard to have good services *every Sunday*, and this is a LOT of time and effort.
• Can you speak? Do you know someone who would be good? Submit their name to Worship
• Sign up to help get the Sanctuary ready, or break it down after services.
• Join the Hospitality Ministry!
• Get on the schedule to bring a snack, set up Coffee/Tea, or clean up.
• Sign up to write cards
• Sign up to join the Greeter Ministry
• Sign up for a single Event on the calendar
• Participating is not the same as volunteering! Fill out any requested forms so the hosting Ministry knows you will volunteer.
• Sign up for Youth Ministry
• Bring a snack, sign up to buy materials, or chaperone a trip
• Find what calls to you, and sign up!

What’s coming up in January?! The Youth Group has a meeting on Sunday to plan the second half of the year. The calendar does have some suggested activities. If you picked chaperoning as your Ministry to support, then go to the calendar and click on the Youth Group link. Let Rev Alisha know which event you’d like to chaperone, or stay tuned for more events in the future. (Andy Savige chaperoned my kids and other Tapestry teens on a visit to the Holocaust Museum downtown. What a powerful experience!)

Cooking and Eating Covenant Group is holding our annual Calendaring event up at church on Saturday, January 4, from 3:00-4:30 if you want to suggest something. Can’t make the meeting, but still want to make a suggestion? Just contact me by email or text, and I will add your suggestion to the list.