PWR May 2025 Newsletter - Archived

Rev. Sunshine J. Wolfe

PWR Board Updates – Curiosity Candidate Café & Annual Business Meeting

Cascadia Growth Fund Annual Meeting

Annual Program Fund 2025 Leadership Announcement – PWR

News: Unitarian Universalist Association

UUA General Assembly 2025

Actions of Immediate Witness – Needed!

UUA Moderator Candidates Forum

Side With Love

The Gathering

Green Sanctuary 2030 Orientation

Working with the new Green Sanctuary Materials

UPLIFT Transgender/Nonbinary+ Monthly Gathering

UPLIFT Trans/Nonbinary+ Pastoral Care Small Group

What’s next after the Revival? Revival Community of Practice

Emerging Adult Ministry Team News

Sparks RE and Music Leadership

UUA Job Board / UUA Job and Careers

Congregational Incident Form

Community Resilience Hub

Disaster Relief Fund

UU Mental Health Network

April Publications

President, Keith Strohmaier

Treasurer, Mary Nordhagen

Secretary, Libby Fitzgerald

At-Large, Bob Miess, Rev. Roger Jones, David Sheh, Rev. Sunshine Wolfe

Learn more about the PWR Board.

PWR Lead

Rev. Sunshine Wolfe

PWR Program Staff

Rev. Summer Albayati

Dr. Melissa James

Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh

Rev. Tania Y Márquez

Sam K. Pearl

PWR Administrator and Bookkeeper

Hara Madera

Melanie Buck

       We do hope that your congregation is planning to send delegates to our very first Annual Business meeting of the new Pacific Western Region of the UUA organization on Thursday, May 29th. Your PWR Board and staff have worked hard to prepare the budget and new board members for vote as well as to update you on the important work we are doing.  We are now ready to request volunteers for new roles.  The structure of our region is such that only 1 year commitments are asked for Board and leadership roles with much shorter options to come for programs and volunteer work.  It is an exciting time and we look forward to developing the region with you and your congregation or community in mind.

       We use dynamic governance or sociocracy as the basis for PWR’s governance structure.  In many ways, the Board and staff have come to think of this as a “relationship first” structure.  We strive to have decisions be “good enough for now and safe enough to try” rather than attempting a perfect decision the first time round.  We take seriously the questions of anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multiculturalism in our work and continually evaluate for that.  We engage in rounds for discussion and process observation of our work.

         It is rewarding work.  It is work that feels meaningful at a time when so much in our world can leave us feeling lost and uncertain.  It is this because it is where we practice deeply the values that are very much being attacked in our society today.

         If you enjoy participating in the generative work that occurs during transitional time and helping to create programming that is “relationship first” oriented, then we highly encourage you to join our volunteer work with the region.  We are beginning to form the circles (like committees or teams) that guide our work as a region.  We hope to see you participate in some of those circles as we enter into year two as an independent region.

To complete the PWR Board/Circle Volunteer Application, click here. 

Here are two important updates from the Pacific Western Region Board.

In anticipation of our upcoming Pacific Western Regional Annual Business Meeting, we have scheduled two Zoom meetings where you can meet the candidates for our 2025-26 PWR board. Join us on Wednesday, May 14th at 7pm PST, and/or Saturday, May 17th at 11am PST to hear briefly about the region and to meet the candidates. While you will hear about every candidate, not all may attend both meeting times. Please feel encouraged to bring a favorite drink while we chat at our Candidate Curiosity Café.

Click here to register, registration will close on Thursday, May 8th at 6pm PST.

We are fast approaching for our first Annual Business Meeting as a Region, which is on Thursday, May 29th from 7-8 pm PDT, (8pm MDT/ 10pm EDT/ 9pm CDT/ 5pm HDT). We are asking for grace in our first year, we are sending out Annual Business Meeting materials later than we would like to. We are working through some technical aspects of the meeting and will send out meeting materials once complete. Expect to receive delegate registration instructions, meeting agenda, the proposed budget, and reports from the PWR president and lead.

We hope to see you there!

PWR Board

Cascadia Growth Fund provides grants and loans to congregations in the area formerly covered by the Pacific Northwest Distract, that would be Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and parts of Idaho. Also, we administer the PNWD Chalice Lighters Program.

Congregational leadership in former PNWD are receiving an email invitation to the Cascadia Annual General Meeting. This AGM will be gathered via Zoom on Wednesday the 28th of May at 7:00 PM, Pacific Time. We hope to have Presidents, or their Designee, from as many congregations as possible to hear about the good work that has been done this year, to vote on new board members, and share ideas for the future. If you want more information about this meeting, contact incoming board secretary, Rev. Sarah Schurr at sschurr@uuma.org. 

Hello Pacific-West Region! The Annual Program Fund has some exciting news!

Every year at General Assembly, The Unitarian Universalist Association celebrates Leadership Congregations.  Leadership Congregations are the top 50 most generous Honor Congregations across the Association. These are congregations who contribute the full amount requested to the Annual Program Fund (making them Honor Congregations) and are the most generous of all Honor Congregations.

This year, to broaden Regional recognition, we have expanded our definition of Leadership Congregations to also include the top 10 most generous Honor Congregations from each Region.

Please join us in lifting up and joyfully celebrating the following Leadership Congregations in your Region. On behalf of all the congregations across our Association, THANK YOU!

Boulder Valley UU Fellowship. Lafayette, CO

First Unitarian Society of Denver. Denver, CO

First UU Church of San Diego. San Diego, CA

Mt. Diablo UU Church. Walnut Creek, CA

UU Church of Boulder. Boulder, CO

UU Church of Davis. Davis, CA