Unitarian Peace Fellowship - Haiti

The General Assembly has agreed to accept donations to the Peace Fellowship Appeal for those who wish to claim gift aid or use CAF cheques. Please send your donation by cheque to GAUFCC with "Haiti Emergency Appeal" written on the back to Essex Hall, 1-6 Essex Street, London, WC2R 3HY. Alternatively you can also use PayPal to donate.

The Unitarian Peace Fellowship are co-ordinating our appeal. If you are a UK tax payer and this is the first donation you are making to the Unitarians (for this or any other appeal) we can claim an extra 28% if you download, complete and return this Gift Aid form.

Join our Twibe

• UK Unitarians Twibe
• Unitarian Universalist Twibe

Twibes is an application that allows people to group together on Twitter, the microblogging site, and tag posts with a particular tag or word so that they appear in the feed on the Twibe's page. The tags for the ukunitarians group are unitarian, unitarians, ukunitarians, uu, universalist (with or without #). We can have up to seven, so if you want extra ones, post a comment here.

Music in Worship

UUA Announce 'Music in Worship'

The UUA now have a new expanded 'WorshipWeb' with a facility called "Music in Worship". Among other things, this includes a UU Composers Database.

Contributed by Rev Dr Linda Hart

MP3 files of all of the songs in Singing the Journey (STJ) can be downloaded at the STJ website. The UUA online shop has a music section with CDs, songbooks, music for children, and hymnals.

CUUPS Podcast

The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans now has a podcast.

The first episode of the CUUPS Podcast features basic info about CUUPS and an interview with British academic Michael York recorded at the Dec. 2009 Parliament of World Religions provided to us courtesy of the Pagan Newswire Collective.

The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans promotes networking among Pagan-identified Unitarian Universalists, and provides for the outreach of Unitarian Universalism to the broader Pagan community.

Michael York has written a book on Pagan Theology.

A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.

Donating to Haiti Earthquake Appeal

International charities are appealing for donations to help Haiti.
In the UK the DEC - an umbrella group which launches and co-ordinates responses to major disasters overseas - has launched a Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

• Disasters Emergency Committee

These organisations also have ways to donate:

• Unicef UK
• Medecins Sans Frontieres
• International Red Cross
• World Food Programme

You can also donate to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee / Unitarian Universalist Association Joint Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund

What UUSC will do

UUSC’s disaster response in Haiti will focus on those survivors less likely to have access to aid, such as child domestic workers (restaviks), women-headed households that work in the informal sector, and people living with HIV/AIDS. Haiti has a vibrant grassroots movement with a vision of empowering people. UUSC will work closely with partners in this grassroots movement to reach those survivors at greatest risk of being overlooked. As of this afternoon, we’ve already connected with three organizations and will be reaching out to others over the next 24 hours in order to shape our response.

We will be updating our website regularly as our plans develop.

The Landfill Prize

The Landfill Prize - the award for Britain's most useless consumer product
(from Uni-News, 7 January 2010)

In the depths of the global crunch, why would anyone want to waste precious money on pointless junk that ends up in the trashcan after a couple of uses?

But sales of consumer nonsense are still rocketing - stuff such as wand-shaped TV remote controls, desk-top hoovers, and electric toothbrushes costing hundreds of pounds. Even a hollow plastic golf-club you can wee into while playing a round (don't show it to Tiger Woods, please). We're still madly addicted to consumption.

Despite the financial collapse, carbon emissions from fossil fuels rose by 2 per cent last year to an all-time, planet-melting high. Scientists in Nature Geoscience say that much of this was caused by Chinese exports of consumer gadgets to Europe.

So, welcome to the Landfill Prize 2010, a divertingly subversive initiative to help to break this costly cycle.

We want people's nominations for the most needless, wasteful uses of our planet's precious resources that they've seen, bought or been given in the past year. Whether it's an electronic skipping rope, an automatic cucumber peeler or a laser-guided pair of scissors, we want to spotlight such pointless ingenuity as it makes its fast-track journey to the junkheap. This year we're specially interested in 'faux' green goods.

The prize, to be presented to the 'winning' manufacturer in February, celebrates the stupendous creativity of the people tasked with inventing constantly inflated new wants for us to want. It's a monument to perverse imagination and needless consumption. Most importantly, it's a plea for us to say, "Thanks. We've got enough stuff," and to break free from this crazy cycle.

The Landfill Prize site features a list of scientifically backed ways in which you can help to proof your brain against consumerist chicanery, written by John Naish, a national newspaper health correspondent, the author of Enough, Breaking free from the world of more . and the man behind the prize.

Nominations will be judged by a panel consisting of:

• John Naish (author of Enough: Breaking free from the world of more )
• Anna Shepherd (author of How green are my wellies?)
• Carl Honore (author of In Praise of Slow )
• Ben Davis (co-founder of BuyLessCrap)

The winner will be announced on the 16th February 2010. We'll invite the makers along to a little prizegiving. and if they don't want to come, I guess we will have to pop around to their place to make the award.

For more information go to www.enoughness.co.uk

UK Spirituality

UKSpirituality is the most diverse and inclusive listing of high quality spirituality programmes and events currently happening across the entire United Kingdom. They vet each contribution to ensure it is non-dogmatic and participative and open to everyone regardless of age, race, ethnicity, ability or sexual orientation. Spirituality without conformity for people of all perspectives!

UKspirituality is an interfaith not-for-profit association dedicated to helping people live more enlightened, compassionate, mindful and joyful lives.

The network was founded by Unitarians, who take an eclectic and open-minded and inclusive approach to religion and spirituality. Because of this Unitarian inclusiveness, they are now an interfaith network comprising leaders, programmes, and events associated with many different religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions.