New Vision Notes Thur July 8 2021

Thur July 8 2021

  1. I delegated this afternoon to the City of Hamilton’s Emergency and Community Services Committee to speak in support Councillor Maureen Wilson’s motion to have Egerton Ryerson’s name removed from the Ryerson Recreation Centre in Ward 1. You can read my speaking notes and the questions I was asked by Councillors and my answers here. I addressed Councillor Wilson’s motion as an ordered minister in the faith tradition in which Egerton Ryerson was a minister. I did so as a representative of the United Church of Canada responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to the churches.
  2. Good news: this Sunday, July 11th will be our first Sunday with in-person participation in our virtual worship since last year.  In addition to myself and two volunteers, we may have up to 8 participants in our lower hall at one time for our worship gathering.
  3. As soon as the gathering ends, however, the rules for social gatherings immediately come into force. In Step 2 no more than 5 people can gather together at once. For this reason we will not be holding an after-worship-gathering social time in person for the time being.
  4. Entrance will be through the Youth Centre entrance on MacNab Street. If you have any symptoms of illness, please plan not to attend in person on Sunday morning.
  5. If you have not yet been vaccinated, or have yet to get your second vaccination, please consider doing so. Vaccination has clear health benefits for us all as part of the community. It will make attendance at in-person gatherings more safe for all in attendance.
  6. Following our worship gathering this Sunday we will have an internal community of faith town hall about our Holton campus redevelopment. We will make use of material presented at the June 10 townhalls for the community and talk more about our own engagement in redeveloping the New Vision United Church Holton Ave. S. campus.
  7. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
  8. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone toll free. Call 1 855 703 8985, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.

Hope to see you Sunday ~ again, or for the first time ~

Rev Ian