Category: Newsletter

Concerts!

Vermont Youth Opera

THIS WEEKEND! Sunday at 3pm at the Waterbury Congregational Church! The Vermont Youth Opera is under the direction of Sarah Cullins and their accompanist is Mary Jane Austin. They’ve been rehearsing in our sanctuary on Sunday afternoon all fall and are excited to return the favor, this Sunday at 3 P.M. They’ll be performing a mashup of Mozart’s Magic Flute and Rob Reiner’s (William Goldman) The Princess Bride!

Eleva Chamber Players

Elevating the human spirit through music. . .

Eleva, Central Vermont’s only professional chamber orchestra will be presenting “Suite Sounds” at the church on Saturday, November 9 at 7 p.m.

There are three major and beautiful works on the program: Carl Nielsen’s Little Suite for Strings, Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major.

For more information and to purchase tickets you may visit their website here.

Human Food Chain – November 17, 2024

There’s no symbol more appropriate for expressing our theological understanding that God is the energy of love and goodwill in the world, and we co-conspirators, than people linked hand to hand against a trouble.

There are surprisingly large numbers of people, living in Waterbury who face the troubling question of making ends meet this month. An answer, though clearly not the whole solution, is to provide food available for free for anyone in this kind of trouble, be it temporary or long-term. The Waterbury Common Market, aka the food shelf, does this for hundreds of families each month.

On November 17, you are invited to join together, standing arm-to-arm and hand-to-hand against hunger and in support of all of those individuals and families who rely on the Common Market to get them out of a jam. Here’s how we do it:


We’ve been collecting food. If you can bring in a little food (see below for what kinds of food are needed) the next few times you come to church, we’ll be able to make a statement by standing arm to arm in sharing food, and tangibly help people today in our community who struggle with food insecurity. Leave your food in the narthex of the church or in the office, depending on which way you come in. By November 17, we hope to have a large assortment that we will then pass down to the food shelf hand over hand.

Here’s a list of needed supplies from the director of the Waterbury Area Food Shelf:

  • oatmeal (plain or flavored)
  • hearty soups
  • canned meals
  • peanut butter & jelly/jam
  • baking mixes (pancake, muffin, cake)
  • jars of pasta sauce
  • dried pasta/noodles
  • or simply a check (you can make it out to the church and earmark it for the food drive.)

I hope you can join us on November 17, after worship. It’s simple. And it’s powerful.

Thanks to our Grounds Crews!

Two weeks ago, Deb Utton and her husband Curt, clipped down the brown stalks of what once were magnificent summer flowers and hauled them off to some compost pile. Deb, we thank you and your helpers for the care you gave Amy’s Garden this past summer. The color on that side of the church attracted so many lingering looks of appreciation from May to October.

Also keeping the church grounds in tip-top shape this year were David and Nancy Metivier who tag-teamed the lawn once a week and kept it looking classic and neat.

Amy’s Garden Flowers

Dragonheart Sock Sale

Dragonheart is a dragon boat team based in Burlington whose mission it is to “strengthen and empower breast cancer survivors and supporters through the challenging sport of dragon boating, instilling in its members the values of teamwork, fitness and community giving.”

Dragonheart members Pat King and Cathy Buck are hosting a sock sale at the church on Sunday, October 13. You place an order out of the catalog (which is reproduced below) and you’ll have brightly colored, stylish socks to give for Christmas gifts, in plenty of time!

Warning

You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us . . .

2 Corinthians 9.11

I quote Paul, at the top, because I do not want you to come to a specially called meeting (See Warning below) to talk about our budget thinking that the finance committee has bad news and wants to brow-beat you! We do not. Pledges are strong. We are only slightly behind our fairly optimistic guess of pledged income for the year. (I say “guess” even though we have a pledge drive every year, because, historically the total amount of pledged income at the end of the year exceeds the figure we have in hand at the end of the pledge drive.) This is one of the reasons for coming together to talk about the budget — our guess was a little too optimistic.

The fact of the matter is that this year has been tight on cash-flow from the beginning, and very tight in the budget. Last January, we passed a deficit budget and we wouldn’t be calling a meeting if we were simply proposing borrowing money from the trustees to make up the gap in the approved budget. Because income is several thousand dollars down from where we’d hoped to be at this 3/4 way point, we need to borrow more money. While our bylaws do not stipulate a special meeting be called, we felt it was important to share the information with you. We hope you can stay for the conversation and approval.

Warning:
At the request of the Board of Finance, the membership of the Waterbury Congregational Church, UCC of Waterbury, Vermont is called to a special meeting on Sunday, October 13, following worship to see if they will approve the transfer of an additional $6,000 from the endowment to the operating budget.