by Rev. Dave Dunn
UUMAN’s 35th Anniversary Celebration is scheduled to take place during service and 2nd Hour on Sunday, May 3. This celebration will coincide with our annual Rites of Passage service. Details aren’t yet finalized but we know there will be fun…and food! (And for once, it will be food that you won’t have to prepare! 😊)
Although UUMAN had been holding some informal Sunday services for a couple of years, the first official “charter” service (where people signed on as charter members of UUMAN) was held on January 13, 1991 at the Barnwell Elementary School.
As Bob Popp mentioned in his January Newsletter article, the congregation moved around a lot in those early years. This reminded me of my home congregation, the UU Church of the South Hills (Pittsburgh) aka “Sunnyhill,” where we once called ourselves the “Church of the Laundromat.” (The “Church of the Laundromat” is now the biggest UU church in the Pittsburgh area!)
Like my home congregation, UUMAN has come a long, long way in 35 years and there is much to be proud of. We’ve had our challenges; with numerous floods in the downstairs in Fellowship Hall (two of them very serious). This has been wonderfully remedied, and it has been dry down there for several years. (I’m knocking on wood here.) Not only has it been dry down there it looks beautiful!
When I arrived in 2016, the upstairs of Fellowship Hall looked very dated and the floor was crumbling. A renovation project that year (or perhaps in early 2017) made the place much more inviting. Again, also beautiful!
Also, when I arrived, Discovery Cottage was in sad shape. The floor was sagging, it was a bit depressing and there was a persistent smell (not a pleasant one either). In just the past few years we’ve transformed that building, inside and out, and it is servicing us well. And finally, we have our playscape, the Whimsical Woods; a wonderful, natural place for the children to play. Once again, it’s all also beautiful!
And let’s not forget the devastating Sanctuary flood we had in January 2023. (I actually loved leading the Sunday service in Fellowship Hall while the repairs were being made. (It was “comfy” in there. 😊…and again, I’m knocking on wood!)
We’ve done a wonderful job with our campus and the Premo School also deserves some credit for both pushing us to make it better and jumping in and doing some of the work themselves.
The campus, operations and logistics aside, UUMAN is also doing an inspiring job in its ministries. We are a known entity in our community. We’ve shown up at Roswell City Council for years and now one of our members is serving there. We know the Roswell police (in a good way). We are regulars at NFCC, Family Promise, Mimosa Hall and elsewhere.
We are grateful for those who went before us, those up established UUMAN and put us in a position to be what we are today; and sometime, years from now, we hope people (and a minister) who are not yet here will be writing about UUMAN’s 70th anniversary. Maybe they will thank us for continuing to lay the foundation upon which they can flourish. May it continue to be a labor of love!
Nurture our spirit. Strive for Justice. Transform the world.
Dave
