Dear friends and members of our Beloved Community,

Over the next several weeks, our TJMC Name Change Task force will be holding Cottage Conversations via Zoom,(phone or video), to allow all of us in our church community to have an opportunity to share our thoughts about the proposed motion to change the name of our church from Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist, to a different name.

We will not be voting on alternate names in September.  Our congregation will come up with, select, and vote on a new name, if and only if we decide at our September 23 Congregational Meeting via Zoom that we want to change our congregation’s name to something which does not have the name Thomas Jefferson in it.

Here is a link to the Board Of Trustees letter to the congregation urging the congregation to vote Yes on a name change. We will share additional information with you about the Name Change Proposal via email and the church’s website between now and the date of the September Congregational Meeting.  We welcome you to write to the Name Change Task Force with any questions or comments; our email address is NameChange@uucharlottesville.org.

Here is the link  for the Signup Genius (online registration form), so you will be able to register for one of these meeting times if you wish to participate.  Every church member and friend is encouraged to attend a Cottage Conversation.  If none of our scheduled dates and times work for you, simply email NameChange@uucharlottesville.org  and we can work with you individually to find a date and a time and a format that will work for your schedule and your needs.

If a video/phone Cottage Conversation format is not compatible with your technology setup, your visual and hearing needs and abilities, or any other circumstances which makes a Zoom meeting impossible, please contact us at NameChange@uucharlottesville.org or drop a paper note to Name Change Task Force at TJMC-UU, 717 Rugby Road, Charlottesville VA, 22901, with your name and a good phone number or mailing address or other means for reaching you, and we will make arrangements with you to gather your feedback in a one-on-one or small group setting if  possible, or if necessary, we can solicit your feedback on this topic via Postal Mail, email, or in limited cases, via a scheduled telephone call.

Here are the dates we have scheduled for virtual Cottage Conversations:

Go to the Signup Genius HERE to participate in any of these conversations.

Sun. 8/30 1:00pm
Mon. 8/31 6:30pm
Tue., 9/01 6:00pm
Wed. 9/02 5:00pm
Thu. 9/03 8:00pm
Fri. 9/04 8:00pm
Sat. 9/05 10:30am
Sun. 9/06 1:00pm
Mon. 9/07 7:00pm
Tue. 9/08 7:00pm
Wed. 9/09 10:00am
Wed. 9/09 7:00pm
Thu. 9/10 3:00pm
Fri. 9/11 10:00am – BIPOC* only Cottage Conversation
Fri. 9/11  7:00pm
Sat. 9/12  2:00pm
Sun. 9/13  1:00pm – BIPOC* only Cottage Conversation
Sun. 9/13 1:00pm Cottage Conversation

*BIPOC-only Cottage Conversations are affinity group spaces solely for any Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color (BIPOC) in our church community who wish to have a BIPOC-only space in which to share thoughts on this church name change topic.  BIPOC members and friends may choose to sign up for a BIPOC-only event, or may choose to sign up for a general Cottage Conversation which could have TJMC community members of any and all races and ethnicities in attendance.  If you have questions about BIPOC-only Cottage Conversations or ongoing affinity groups for BIPOC UUs in Charlottesville, please contact the Task Force via email.

Each Cottage Conversation will last between 1-2 hours depending on how many people are in that group.  Each session will be recorded for note-taking purposes but will not be replayed except for note-taking, and the videos will not be made public.  Statements made by participants in the Cottage Conversations will be documented and made available in aggregate form, but without names attached to individual comments.  Church members and friends alike are all welcome to participate in Cottage Conversations.  Each session will be hosted by a Facilitator and a Note-Taker from the Name Change Task Force and/or the Name Change Cottage Conversation Facilitator Team.

In order to attend a cottage conversation, you must register for it in advance.  If you have never used SignUp Genius, you may begin using it right away simply by clicking here. The site will walk you through how to sign up for a meeting;  they make it very straightforward for first-time users.

Please pre-register for a Cottage Conversation *as early as possible, and no fewer than 24 hours before the start of the event*.  Events with very few or no participants preregistered will likely be canceled and participants rescheduled for other times, so please don’t wait to enroll.  Similarly, please do not cancel with fewer than 24 hours notice if at all possible, and please, no no-shows.  Your thoughtful and respectful use of our time scheduling tools and your careful attention to attending a meeting that you sign up for will help your church community members who are working hard to organize these listening sessions to plan properly for attendance. If you must cancel with fewer than 24 hours notice, please email  NameChange@uucharlottesville.org to let us know.

We are in the process of creating a Frequently Asked Questions resource for any and all questions about this initiative and this process.  Please don’t hesitate to submit your questions to the Task Force so that we as a community can address each one, so that we all fully understand what this motion to change the name of the church is, and is not, all about.  This Frequently Asked Questions resource page will be released next week.

We look forward to respectfully sharing and listening to one another during our Cottage Conversations, and we look forward to our September 27 1:00pm Congregational Meeting and Name Change Vote, via Zoom.

In faith,
Christine Gresser & Liberty Powers, Co-Chairs
Name Change Task Force
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church – Unitarian Universalist
NameChange@uucharlottesville.org 

SIGN UP HERE NOW TO PARTICIPATE IN COTTAGE CONVERSATIONS

TJMC Covenant of Right Relations

In order to create the beloved community we all desire for ourselves, we, the Congregation of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian Universalist covenant to:
Communicate with compassion and respect, especially when we disagree
Celebrate diversity and nurture our inclusivity,  
Promote social justice within our congregation and the larger community,
Generously support the ministries of the church with time, money and enthusiasm, and
Lovingly call each other back into covenant when we have fallen short.