1st Day Recap

A great first day, everybody! You succesfully navigated registration and enjoyed a beautiful ingathering sermon by Janice Marie Johnson and an introduction to the seminar’s activities by co-chairs Jennifer Channin and Kasey Neiss. Bruce Knotts and Marilyn Mehr spoke briefly on the work of the UU-UNO and Zoya Craig introduced ideas for follow-up activities you can participate in when you all go back home. The first round of touch groups led to fruitful discussions on perspectives on peace.

 A small group attended a luncheon with Amb. Prudence Bushnell in the Delegates’ Dining Hall while others enjoyed lunch in the neighborhood and browsed the UN bookstore. An outstanding panel on sustainable peacebuilding followed lunch with Bushnell, Simone Monasebian, and Sam Cook. A video of the panel will be uploaded shortly.

We moved from the UN to the Community Church where everyone watched “Sometimes in April”, a moving film on the Rwandan genocide. Before breaking into Touch Groups to reflect on the film, everybody enjoyed a pizza dinner and continued to meet other participants in the Seminar. Touch Groups allowed for discussion of the film as well as the day’s earlier panel and the feelings and thoughts they evoked. At the end of the night, the Youth headed back to All Souls for an ice cream party.

 View pictures of today’s events in our Picasa album at http://picasaweb.google.com/uuunoffice/SpringSeminar20081stDay. If you know the names of anyone in the pictures, please make comments so they can be identified! If you have pictures you’d like to contribute, please email them to office@uu-uno.org and they will be included in our albums for everyone to see.

 What did you think of the first day? Comments? Suggestions? Insights? Share your views here!

Welcome to Spring Seminar!

Welcome to the UU-UNO 2008 Intergenerational Spring Seminar - “Picking Up the Pieces: Building a Culture of Peace”!

Nearly 160 people have come together today to learn about creating a lasting peace. As you attend panels and have thoughtful discussions in your Touch Groups over the next few days, please continue to think about how you would like to take action within your own communities! This blog will serve as a way for UUs to discuss what they are doing in their own communities to promote peace and will be updated regularly.

Throughout the course of the seminar, feel free to post your comments, first impressions, bright ideas, thoughts, etc - anything you’d like to share with the UU-UNO community!

We look forward to a fantastic Seminar and thank you all for coming!

-UU-UNO