June 9, 2019. 9:15-10:15am, BUF Conference Room

Por favor, no entiendo. Necesito ayuda!
Jessica Heck, DVSAS Development Director 

Imagine trying to get help with domestic violence or sexual trauma in a community that does not speak your language. DVSAS is striving to break down barriers for non- and limited- English speakers who have experienced such trauma. Ten percent of our community speaks a primary language other than English. Our DVSAS website has large amounts of information in English but we desperately need translations to Spanish and Russian as well. The BUF collection will help to fund translations of the DVSAS website into Spanish and Russian.

May 26, 2019. 9:15, Conference Room.

Connection through song: African communal music

with Allegra Ziffle and Eli Friedlob

Music is integral to daily life in many traditional African cultures and it has proved to be beneficial to overall health and well-being. Traditional African music-making is participatory, inclusive and accessible to everyone, contributing to a sense of belonging, group identity, and solidarity. It drives the rhythms of daily life, making movements more fluid and coordinated. 

Many of these elements were adapted and incorporated by African Americans through spirituals and work songs. Allegra Ziffle and Eli Friedlob will share their knowledge about participatory music-making and show some videos, but we will also be doing some singing of our own.

BUF's Truth and Reconciliation Resolution, May 12, 2019, 9:15 am

At our Congregational Meeting on May 19^th, Members of BUF will get the opportunity to vote on the proposed Truth and Reconciliation Proposal.  At the request of members of Lummi Nation, we have been asked to be an instrument in bringing about a Truth and Reconciliation movement in the State of Washington. As this will be a statewide effort seeking public support, it is appropriate and necessary for the congregation of the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship to vote, as one body, on supporting this movement. 

We will be discussing the resolution, and what roles BUF members may play in moving this T&R movement forward, as individual members, a congregation, a denomination within the greater faith community and as an ally and partner with Washington Tribes and Nations.  The resolution was drafted using BUF’s historical and ongoing support of the Tribes and Nations and a number of sources and we'll be looking at some of them including the:  

• Proclamation of Support for Truth and Reconciliation in Washington State
• An Expression of Truth and Reconciliation From the Canadian Unitarian Council and Unitarian Universalist Ministers of Canada, March 29, 2014
• UUA’s Truth, Repair, and Reconciliation Responsive Resolution

April 28, 2019. BUF Conference Room

'Depolarizing' America

Edie Norton will introduce the national volunteer organization, Better Angels, whose aim is to politically “depolarize" America. She is the organizer of local skills training workshops, such as a “Red-Blue” workshop in which equal numbers of liberals and conservatives each describe and evaluate the stereotypes they feel others use to label them. She will also introduce the Better Angels Alliance concept, ongoing self-managed groups made up of both liberals and conservatives who want to understand each other better in order to solve problems together. BUF attendees will learn how they can get involved and help depolarize our local county and city communities.

NO FORUM Sunday, April 14 2019.

Due to the Women's Retreat occurring on the weekend of April 12th, 13th and 14th there will be no Sunday Forum.

The following Sunday is Easter, and we traditionally do not hold Forums on holidays, either.

However, check back on the 28th, when the Better Angels, a citizens' organization uniting red and blue Americans, and working to depolarize America, will give us their presentation.

April 7, 2019, 9:15am. Conference Center.

How Much is a Billion Dollars?

Matteo Tamburini of the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center joins us to ask, "How much is a billion dollars?" Engage in exercises to get a handle on some of the trade-offs that we choose as a country when we decide military spending and tax policy.

Matteo Tamburini is a member of the Board of the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center and a Math Instructor at Northwest Indian College.

Students of the Salish Sea, Sunday March 31, 2019

9:15 AM.  Join us as Izzi Lavallee talks about the Students for the Salish Sea, a student organization at Western.  Izzi is a student activist and community organizer at WWU, studying Watershed Resilience. She is a co-founder of Students for the Salish Sea and is committed to water, equity, and environmental justice by seeking long term strategies to heal trans-boundary watersheds.  The student organization collectively envisions a diverse, healthy biological and cultural watershed of the Salish Sea. In this vision, we acknowledge that we are guests on this land and take an active role in redressing the continuing impact of settler colonialism and support the indigenous-led movements in our communities. Throughout this watershed, we are committed to establishing SFSS club branches at universities, colleges, and schools. Within each group we work locally to affect change, thereby positively impacting our transnational watershed as a whole. We collaborate with our other university branches on watershed-wide issues to cultivate lasting change through a diversity of tactics.