Dear FUUSN community,

We are excited and looking forward to seeing you and being together as we begin our new church year on September 11th!

Over the summer, the Operations Council, Board of Trustees, and FUUSN staff have continued to monitor the Covid-19 metrics and the recommendations of public health officials and the UUA. We have determined, at least for the first month of this church year, to continue the Covid protocols that we currently have in place. Thus, we will all continue to wear masks when we gather indoors. The choir will sing from the chancel masked. Those speaking from the pulpit or lectern may remove their masks while speaking. While we appreciate masks are no longer required in many other venues, the UUA recommends masking indoors as an important strategy to increase safety and inclusion for all members of our community, particularly the most vulnerable among us.

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 monitor the pandemic in Massachusetts and Newton and reevaluate our protocols later in September, after we see how the beginning of the school year and the church year affect the metrics, to consider relaxing masking requirements.

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.

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