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Unitarian Universalists
of the Salish Sea
December 26, 2025
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Coming up on January 4th
Sunday Gathering
"Games and Connection"
Mollie Nye House
940 Lynn Valley Road
Join us for a relaxed gathering of games and connection.We’ll have a selection of games available, and you’re invited to bring along your favourite card or board games to share.
Not really into games? No worries—you’re still warmly welcome to come chat and cheer on the players.
Please RSVP to Barb so we know how much soup to have on hand. If anyone would like to make an additional pot of soup for this gathering, also please let Barb know: Barbara.Moore@vch.ca
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Sunday, January 25th at 1 pm - at Jessica's North Van Home
*New* Stitch Witches. The Care & Concerns Team invite you to our new friendship gathering, Stitch Witches. People of all ages, genders, and rainbow identities are warmly welcomed to create yarn- and thread-based crafts while we chat and snack. Bring your ongoing projects, or start something. Bring your questions and curiosity about techniques for crochet, knitting or any craft with yarn or thread for the group to ponder and wonder about. Beginners are warmly welcomed--we can help each other learn. Jessica has supplies to get a beginner started. Nibble donations gratefully received. RSVP to Jessica’s email docjamm@gmail.com for directions and phone contact.
Thank you from Jacky and Jessica
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Come Join Barb as
a Lay Chaplain!
The CUC's National Lay Chaplains Committee will again be offering and facilitating the annual Basics Training for Rites of Passages, and also continuing with the successful LC Chats in the upcoming months. Registration and details to follow.
Dates for the training (1 cohort) are: Saturday April 11, Sunday April 12 and Saturday April 18, 2026. Training will be delivered via Zoom. A certificate will be issued to those who complete the required 3 sessions. This training is intended for those who are interested in pursuing the Lay Chaplaincy path, have been members of their congregation or fellowship for at least a year and have the endorsement of their congregational board.
LC Chats: Monday January 26, 2026 (evening) , Topic: "When things Go Sideways", Monday April 27. (Topic & speaker TBD. The LC Chats are open to Lay Chaplains and aspiring Lay Chaplains.
About the CUC's unique program:
The Canadian Unitarian Council’s unique lay chaplaincy program was created in 1971. The program trains and supports carefully chosen lay members of Unitarian Universalist congregations who create and perform rites of passage, including weddings, child dedications, and memorial services. Lay chaplains are pleased to provide this outreach service to people who want a religious or spiritual ceremony: both to the general public and to Unitarian Universalists in congregations without a minister. Read more about the program here.
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A year end note from Ryan
regarding donations - you have until next Wednesday!
Winter is a special time in many religions, and while the specific traditions and rituals may differ, we all make a point to mark the shortest day of the year and the shortest time between making a donation and receiving a tax refund.
This is your one and only reminder to get any donations you were planning on making in before the end of the year. If you're donating via eTransfer, you theoretically have until Dec 31. If you want to donate cash or a cheque, your best bet is to give it to me (Ryan) at the Solstice Service on Dec 20.
Reminder that all donations have to go through the recently renamed UU Community of Victoria. Instructions are here: https://uusalishsea.ca/Donate
If you'd like some or all of your donation to go toward the Christmas hampers, please tell me how much as I don't see individual donations come in, and I don't want to pester the Victoria Treasurer unnecessarily.
Thanks and happy tax season!
Ryan
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Social Justice
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BC is being threatened with the Alberta - Ottawa MOU for a bitumen pipeline to the dangerous Hecate Strait. LNG is a risk for taxpayers' health and pocketbook and the environment. The more letters the PM and Ministers and MPs get, the more they might listen to our resistance.Access the toolkit here.
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From Dogwood:
Tell your MP: no subsidies for Ksi Lisims
The federal government is considering billions in public funding for this American-owned, Korean-built gas terminal. Tell them to create jobs in Canada instead!
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Mission Report: Lessons and Legacies from the Climate Emergency Unit Read about the successes and challenges the BC Climate Emergency Unit has faced over the past five years, including lessons
and tips for the people who make up B.C.’s climate movement.
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Honourable mention
for UUSS Members!
Some of you may remember when the Justice group of NSUC joined the "Have a Heart" campaign that was initiated by Cindy Blackstock of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. In November 2021 several of us (and our children) wrote to then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking him not to appeal the landmark Decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, ordering the Canadian government to compensate First Nations children and their families for years of chronic underfunding of the Indigenous child welfare system. Trudeau did abandon the appeal in December, and we wrote him thank you Valentines in February. Alex Neve mentions this campaign in his 2025 book on Human Rights, Universal (on page 155), noting how the involvement of non-Indigenous Canadians (particularly the children) made First Nations youth feel like they were not alone in their struggles. Kudos to Harper, Laura and Charlotte and the many more UUSS members who participated in this campaign. You DO make a positive difference!
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