Meeting in Person

Our fourth covenant reads: “ We preserve the safety of our community. For our aspirations to be fulfilled, our community must be a place of safety.  To this end, we respect healthy boundaries, maintain appropriate confidentiality, and commit to policies and actions which preserve a safe environment.”

When this covenant was written and approved in 2015, I do not believe that a global pandemic was even on the hearts and minds of those who wrote it. But, a global pandemic does exist and we have all faced it bravely.

The VIUF Board hopes we are nearing a time when those who choose can gather in person at Lewis Hall for Sunday services.  We will continue to have our service on Zoom as well. We will be multi-platformed. We will be flexible.  We will expect plans to change as virus numbers fluctuate.  But for now, we hope to allow Lewis Hall to open sometime in January, 2022.

We will follow the UU guidelines, the COVID: Act Now website, get guidance from King County and from VashonBePrepared.

We acknowledge there will be risks from continuing on just the Zoom platform as there will be risks by gathering in person.

We will minimize the risks and each person will make the choice that best serves them on Sunday mornings.

We will utilize the RSVP online reservation program used at Tahoma UU.  This platform will allow us to have 22 people sign up for in person at Lewis Hall.  3 additional spaces will be reserved for tech, the service leader and the speaker for a total of 25 spaces available. (The service leader and speaker may choose to attend virtually.)

Sign ups will occur weekly and more information and a tutorial will be available online to show folks “how to” use it. Persons will register their proof of vaccination, contact tracing information and  phone number(s) as they sign up. The RSVP program keeps this information so it only has to be entered once.

We are currently awaiting approval to continue our services at 11 am.  We are in communication with Burton Community Church about this.

Our tech team will meet in early January.  They will advise us as to how the services will proceed. This information will be written and placed on our VIUF website as well as distributed to the speakers and service leaders.

For now, let’s breathe deeply and know we are in this together.  For our community to be a place of safety where we can all fulfill our aspirations, we have to move forward.  We have to honor that some people need to be closer than a screen away from one another and others are equally as safe at home enjoying the Sunday service online.  It takes all of us, all of our different worship styles and is a great test of our willingness to trust one another and to make supportive choices for one another.  I believe we can do this in a way that is healthy, nurturing and sustaining for our fellowship.