Jay Noble attended the Board meeting on Sunday, October 14th to request permission to use the building for monthly group meeting. He, along with Jack McElroy, Tom Mitchell, Betty Golding, Brenda Russell, and Richard Parrish, and Jessica Noble, are in the process of forming a worship and study group whose main focus will be the Christian religion. Jay shared the first draft of the group's covenant statement in order to give the Board a better understanding of what the group is about. He also said the group wanted to pay the Fellowship a rental fee in order to cover any expenses incurred from their use of the building.

The following is a report from Jay about their first official meeting:

We, the covenant group, met last Friday and agreed to meet on the third Friday of each month for one and one half hours. We hope and expect that $30 would be satisfactory to the Board for our rent.

We will meet the third Friday of next month at the main facility in the Sunday School room (aka the Child Care Room) and as a program: we will each share our favorite scripture, Richard will play the piano and Betty will lead us in song. Tom will lead us in the first of our quarterly communion services. At our first meeting, Richard played the piano and Betty led us in the hymn "Holy, holy, holy."

We haven't voted on a name yet, but it is between Christian Covenant Group and UFL Christian Covenant Group. Someone may have a better name when we meet again.

Tom wants each of us to suggest at least one improvement on his proposed covenant to show that we have a stake in it, or at least that we have read it thoughtfully.

Coffee, Pastries & Clean-Up Duty

for November

Jerry Kircus

Sherry Kircus

Al Hummadi

Veronica Hummadi

Coordinator: Hollis Pugsley

Want to decrease your dependence on foreign oil? Worried about global warming? Like to save wear and tear on your automobile engine? Those savvy, wacky Magliozzi brothers, Ray and Tom, offer weekly car advice on NPR and in the Longview News- Journal and recently addressed these very issues.

Here's what they had to say:

RAY: So turning off the engine when you're going to be sitting for more than a minute or two is a great thing to do.

Most hybrid vehicles do this automatically now. When you come to a stop, the engine shuts down, and the moment you touch the gas pedal again, it instantaneously starts up, so quickly that you don't even notice.

TOM: At least one energy expert we know suggested that if all vehicles shut down automatically at idle, we would cut our fuel consumption by 40 million gallons a day!

So, people, don't just sit there and waste gas, pollute the environment and wear out your engine. Turn it OFF!

November Birthdays

What does it mean to be mindful? It means to be fully aware right here, concentrating on what is going on inside. . . . Mindfulness is not necessarily concentrating on an object. Being aware of confusion is also being mindful. If we have all kind of things coming at our senses -- noises, people demanding this and that -- we cannot concentrate on any one of them for very long. But we can be aware of the confusion, or the excitement, or the impingement; we can be aware of the reactions in our own minds. That is what we call being mindful.

--Ajahn Sumedho, in Teachings of a Buddhist Monk