It will undergo a full technology and design upgrade. The total down time may be shorter or longer, depending upon what is encountered during the upgrade. (See this article from the September Heirloom for more information.)  Thank you for your understanding.

2023.

Heritage UU Church will be getting a more modern looking, redesigned website in the near future. It will also use updated technology and be constructed so that the webmaster will spend less time on a monthly basis. The one-time cost of this redesign is expected to be $0.

The members of the Heritage UU Church Board of Trustees reviewed plans for the project in February 2023 and received a status update in August. A March Heirloom article informed the congregation of the project, and a May Heirloom article linked to a 12-page redesign plan, with readers being asked for questions, comments and suggestions.

The redesigned website is in development now at a staging location on the Internet.

The tentative timeframe for going live with the redesigned website is early October of this year. If that target window is missed for any reason, the fallback time periods would be early November or early December.

Several days before the going live date, an email with the date and information will be sent out on the HUUC-Announcements Google Group. As much planning and pre-work as possible will be done prior to going live. However, going live will take several hours and could take as much as several days, during which the church website will not be available. It is hard to predict what problems may arise.

When the redesigned site goes live, much older material on the current site, such as older Columns and Essays, Announcements, News Articles, Worship Services, Worship Videos, and Wider UU World articles, among others, won’t be carried over to the redesigned website. “From the Archives” articles are being done in phases, with some in place when the new site goes live, and others added over time afterward. Some parts of the “Members’ Area” will be empty when the site goes live, and will be filled in over time as new material comes along. (At the time of going live, the church directory will be available in the Members’ Area.)

You can read about some aspects of the new site that will be different from our current site, and also view several screenshots of the new website in development. Go to https://huuc.net/sneak-peek-at-the-new-heritage-church-website/

If you have any questions, please contact Russ Araujo at:

8/30/2023.

Our Director of Lifespan Faith Development, Laci Lee Adams, will be on maternity leave through late October as she and Emily welcome their second child. Members of the Religious Education Committee and other volunteers will keep our Lifespan Faith Development program running smoothly while Laci settles in with her family.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact Senior Minister Rev. Bill Gupton at his email address, or leave a message at 513-231-8634. Rev. Bill’s email address is:

8/25/2023.

If you’re not already a member of Heritage Church, this fall would be a great time to join! We’re having our semi-annual Membership Sunday on October 22 (Rev. Bill is even doing a special reflection called “Commitment Issues” that morning, to highlight the many ways we show our commitment to the church – and conversely, how the church community demonstrates its commitment to us.)

Membership involves making a commitment of your “time, talent, and treasure” to HUUC. It includes financial support (at a level that works for you and your household), volunteering to help out in any number of ways around the church (have you ever stopped to think about all that it takes just to keep the congregation and the building operating – much less thriving?), and participating in decision-making (a UU church is a democratically governed institution that chooses its own leaders, raises and spends money and functions independently without any help from “above.”)

If you want to learn more about the rights and responsibilities of membership, stop by the Heritage Room after church on Sunday, September 17 or September 24 for an informal “Membership Q&A” with Rev. Bill Gupton.

8/25/2023

One of Heritage’s fall fundraisers is selling parking spaces for Turpin High School home games. We need at least two volunteers to collect parking fees and direct our customers to parking spots at each event. The time is from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. on each of the four remaining home games on the following Friday nights: September 1, September 8, September 29, and October 13.

Sign up now using Sign Up Genius at this link: https://tinyurl.com/mvefsj3f

Neal Watzman is heading up this project and will contact the volunteers prior to their event. Thanks for helping our community!

2023.

We need your items for the fall auction. The date is fast approaching on September 30th and the community needs you! Dinners, tea gatherings, gift cards, pool parties, board game gatherings—we need your items and donations to ensure we meet our fundraising goals.

What can you give?

The Auction website is here: http://www.togetherauction.com/huuc, and the default set up is your phone number as the user id and last four digits of your phone number is your password. IF that doesn’t work, email John Sandman at jsandman1146@yahoo.com and he can help.

Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church is developing a redesigned website. The project was presented to the HUUC Board of Trustees in February, 2023, and the target for completion is the end of 2023. The project is limited to the website at huuc.net and may also affect the Heirloom newsletter. Other aspects of church communication are outside the scope of the project.

This effort has three main objectives: to provide a more modern-looking website, to upgrade the website technology, and to reduce the time the webmaster spends each month on website work.

A Website Redesign Plan document has been developed that provides high-level information regarding website content, homepage layout, the use of images, and technology. The plan is tentative and preliminary, for discussion purposes only. A link to the plan is at the end of this article.

Described below are some of the main changes from a website user perspective.

~ The homepage will have a more outward focus, with more content intended for visitors surfing the web for a possible church home. The style of the homepage will be updated, and there will be no sidebar.

~ The site navigation will be changed. The main menu will have slightly different choices, and will not use a cascading style of submenus. A set of “tools” links will appear above the main menu. Many of the random links that are at the bottom of each page on the current website will be moved to appropriate sections.

~ The list of upcoming activities and meetings will be moved into the body of the website, available with one click on the homepage but no longer displayed on the homepage.

~ For the images shown for individual activities and meetings, the website will use graphics that, with repeated use, become emblems of the particular type of event or meeting. There will be fewer unique, one-time-use images on the website. People submitting to the website may include an appropriate image to use with their article if they wish. Sunday worship services will continue to have unique graphics.

~ Some content of the current website will not be on the new website. Most of this will be content applicable to the past but not currently needed or kept up.

More information is contained in the 10-page Website Redesign Plan.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions regarding the website redesign plan, please feel free to contact Russ Araujo at:

4/21/2023.

We are delighted to announce that our Music Search Committee has unanimously recommended, and our Board of Trustees has unanimously voted, to hire Sherry McCamley as Heritage Church’s new Music Director and Accompanist. Sherry will join our staff this summer, following the retirement of Les Tacy.

Many of you are already familiar with Sherry since she has regularly subbed for Les for many years. Sherry brings 15 years of experience accompanying choirs, selecting hymns and worship music, and singing/performing at other churches around Cincinnati. She is a composer/director/performer whose credits include “She’s Crazy,” a cabaret-style performance that shines a tender light on mental health issues, and “Sherryoke,” an improvisational, interactive musical experience. Sherry also has taught music and drama at several area high schools, worked with the Ensemble Theatre Company, and offered her many musical gifts to the community in other ways ever since graduating from Penn State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education (Piano/Voice Major).

Our dedicated Search Committee (Alison Lang-Hickey, Joann Meyer, Roger Miller, and Kate Wells) has worked hard since last fall, creating a job description, advertising the position, receiving and reviewing applications, interviewing four very strong candidates, and ultimately settling on Sherry. They are excited to present her to you as our new Music Director and Accompanist.

Welcome to our HUUC staff, Sherry McCamley!

You can show your support for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and in other sexuality and gender minority groups. The Pride Flag “Welcoming” stickers are back. If you don’t have one on your name tag and would like one, pick one up from the bulletin board in the hallway.

3/27/2023.