Welcome to our Water Communion!

Please remember that things will be a little different than they were before the pandemic. Below is detailed information and we encourage you to read it carefully– we want to make the experience as easy as possible for everyone.

Sign-Up
In order to enable contact tracing and to ensure we have enough seats available, please sign up on Eventbrite (www.bit.ly/westminsterwater), if you plan to join us in person.

Masks
It is expected that everyone will be wearing a mask during the entire service, whether they are vaccinated or not. Why? Our values call for us to protect the most vulnerable among us, without singling them out or excluding anyone. We welcome everyone, including those who are immunocompromised, those who cannot take the vaccine for a variety of reasons, and families with unvaccinated children, which includes all children under age 12. Extra masks are available if needed. During the service, only the speakers will take off their masks when speaking.

Children and Youth
Children and youth are welcome. We ask that they sit with their family.

Social Distance
Everyone will be asked to maintain a 3 foot social distance from others not in their household pod, and all chairs have been placed approximately 3 feet apart. Please feel free to move chairs together with other people in your household.

Live Streaming
You’ll notice the presence of several smartphones, additional microphones, and tech volunteer(s) who are managing the live streaming of the service for the folks at home. We want to include everyone with every service, especially those who cannot attend in person and those who are joining us from a distance.

Music
Until it is safer to do so, we will not be singing during worship. You are invited to hum along (or sway along!) with hymns if you like.

After-Service Fellowship
As this is a special, first of the year service we have arranged to have an iced-coffee/ice-cream truck on the premises after worship. So don’t forget to bring some cash or venmo!

Our online congregation will still hold “Zoom coffee hour” in breakout rooms after worship.

Water Communion Sharing
In order to minimize people moving from one place to another as well as to minimize people speaking unmasked during the service we have designed a way to share using cellphones, zoom chat or paper. More will be shared on Sunday.

Offering
All in-person participants will be invited to put your offering in the plate as you enter or exit Smith Hall.

Wi-Fi
Because Zoom connections take a great deal of bandwidth, we have disabled access to our Wi-Fi to the public for the duration of this service. If you have a device set to auto-connect, it will indicate that the password had been changed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank You

Our staff and many volunteers have worked together for many weeks to plan this Water Communion Service. Many thanks to Beth Adams, Alice Cialella, Sarah Quigg, Deb Weaver, Tracey Wysor, Liz Roper, and Beth Gibson for all their work sorting through the many complexities of hosting this service in person and online. Many thanks also to the Bridge Team (Kamilla Barzykowski, Doug Alexander, Daisy Bassen, April Cambre, Linda Hevenor and Ellen Quaadgras) for their thoughtful considerations and investment in keeping things as safe as possible in a pandemic, while upholding our commitment to UU principles and to the science.

Whether you join us in person or online, we look forward to your continued presence in services as we strive to continue living our values in all the ways we can.