Though it's hard for me to believe, my six weeks as your Minister in Residence are already over, and this Sunday is my last one with you. It has been an honor to accompany you for this brief time, and to hear your stories, struggles, and aspirations for this beloved community. You have an interesting and challenging road ahead of you as you navigate what it means to be a religious community in the post-pandemic world. You also have ahead of you the many ways you'll find to heal past conflict and navigate disagreements, and the large decision about whether or not to move in the coming years. I hope you'll let yourselves be guided in all of what's ahead by your sense of mission, asking (in one way or another), Who are we called to be together? What difference do we want it to make, that First UU exists? You have terrific people in leadership - both as staff and as volunteers - and I have great confidence that along with them, your next Minister in Residence and then your new Lead Minister will help you gain clarity and map the path ahead. I'm grateful to have joined my life to yours for this little time, and will be eager to see how your next chapters unfold. With respect and affection, Rev. Kathleen McTigue

PROGRESS: The reopening Team met on Saturday March 5 to review together what we currently know about Covid in our area and the direction things are trending. Based on our discussion we are ready to recommend the following:

• Worship services should continue to be outdoors and masked at least through the rest of March.
• Based on steadily shrinking Covid cases and changed recommendations nationally and in our area, we are comfortable expanding our worship services to include singing and social hour following the service.
• Based on all that we know about Covid transmission and our awareness that some among us still cannot be effectively vaccinated, we recommend that singing outdoors continues to be masked, and that social hour follow “airplane rules,” that is, we remain masked except when actively taking a sip or a bite.
• We recommend that our staff begin working toward an eventual return to indoor worship by reviewing all the infrastructure and staff needs to do so, knowing that after two  years away from what was once “normal”, there will be considerable logistical efforts involved in returning inside.
• Knowing that there are multiple levels of vulnerability among us and widely varying perspectives on risk, we will continue to offer livestreaming as an option even after our eventual return to indoor worship. At that point, we will also offer a third option of viewing worship services from the patio for those wishing to remain outdoors.
• We support our South Bay campus in moving forward at the same pace as the Hillcrest campus, knowing that there are also additional logistical concerns having to do with the Food Pantry. Our staff and volunteers have these issues well in hand.
  

On a key point about infrastructure, skilled people have set up a complex facility outdoors to livestream our worship services. Deciding to move indoors will involve rebuilding all of that in the meeting house. That's a huge effort, hard to undo if an upsurge were to force us back out again. So we're working first on more and more happening outdoors before services move indoors. We'll continue with the livestream option open to everyone, no matter what. We're a solid, loving community. This is a time of trauma recovery, but we're in this together and definitely continuing to make progress.

We'll be back together again for in-person, outdoor worship services on the patio at our Hillcrest campus! Masked, reasonably distanced, and with a clear expectation that all who can do so will be fully vaccinated. This includes a booster.

• But no one is excluded and we'll do no checking about vaccination status.
• All masks must be N95, KN95, or KF94 types, fully covering the nose and mouth. No cloth masks will be allowed. Masks will be provided if needed.
• We trust everyone to use good judgement and we welcome persons of all ages.
• The overall rating for our area and California in general has dropped down to the "Very High" level. It's not down to "High," which we had hoped to reach, but we're convinced by the trends and by the real need for all of us to be together again.
• We know some among us are still struggling, due to being immunocompromised or other issues. We understand. And we hope you will find a comfortable place amidst our decisions.
• Our front-line staff have special, heightened concerns as well. We're trying to reach a balance. We realize we can't avoid all risk and prevent all possibility of infection.
• South Bay presents further issues since there is no designated, regular outdoor space for worship services. We hope the decisions for Hillcrest can guide decisions that will later be made about South Bay's services.
• Any time after resuming in-person services on the 27th we believe it will be OK for outdoor, in-person meetings to resume - in groups of no more than 15 - masked, distanced, and with high expectations about being fully vaccinated.
• Likewise, singing choirs and the handbell choir may exercise their own judgements about resuming practices, while acknowledging the special risks of spreading this air-borne disease through singing. We will not resume congregational singing at this time.
• We're taking some big steps about being together, which makes us happy. But we'll continue to watch many numbers carefully.