Dear FUUSN community,

Welcome back! It’s been good to see so many at our Sunday worship services and in our children’s RE program.

Over the first few weeks of this church year, the Operations Council, Board of Trustees, and FUUSN staff have heard from and talked with many congregants, talked with religious professionals at other UU congregations, and consulted with health care professionals. We believe that it is safe and in the best interests of the congregation to begin relaxing our current masking protocols.

Thus, effective immediately, masks will be optional in all religious education programming activities, including Sunday morning programs, COA, and other youth activities. We will maintain mandatory masking in the sanctuary (except while speaking from the pulpit or lectern) and other indoor spaces at FUUSN for the next month to give members and friends adequate time to obtain the newly authorized bivalent booster vaccine. Assuming the Covid metrics remain relatively stable, we are planning to move to optional masking for all FUUSN activities as of November 1. While masking will be optional, we recommend well-fitting KN95 masks to provide added protection for the most vulnerable among us. We recognize that different people will make different masking decisions and we ask that you respect individual choices.

As a reminder about the safety of our indoor spaces, over the summer of 2021, before beginning to gather for in-person services, we improved the ventilation systems in all our spaces adding MERV-13 air filters and ionizing and ultraviolet systems to kill airborne viruses, and increased air exchanges so that our building meets the standards established for public school buildings. For more information on these changes, see [here].

We will continue to live-stream our services over zoom this year for those unable to attend in-person.

We will send all updates via e-mail and Facebook. All information will be posted on FUUSN’s website: www.fuusn.org. Please feel to reach out to us with any questions or concerns.

Parisa Parsa, Interim Minister
Demie Stathoplos, on behalf of the Board of Trustees
Susan Bartlett, on behalf of the Operations Council