Ministry Days 2024: Watch Party Information

Assumptions: Ministry Days 2024 will be an entirely virtual event. Because one of the key aspects of the UUMA’s mission is collegiality, we recognize that our virtual programming is enhanced when members have opportunities to gather in small groups. To that end, we are prepared, as our capacity allows, to support small group gatherings. Because we want to honor the virtual nature of this year’s Ministry Days, we will call any small groups who gather to share Ministry Days programming, Watch Parties*, rather than pods.

Watch Parties: A Watch Party can be a gathering of 5 to 50 people. To be a sponsored UUMA Watch Party, it must have three main items: be hosted in an accessible space (we do not expect watch parties to provide housing and expect that Watch Party participants will live within a reasonable travel distance of the Watch Party site or will make appropriate arrangements without support of the facilitators), have a Hospitality Facilitator, and an AV Facilitator (for groups smaller than 10 the AV and Hospitality person can be the same). Facilitators will receive an honorarium and be coached by continental staff. We are grateful to those UUMA members who have volunteered to facilitate a Watch Party as listed below. We imagine folks will want to organize after we open registration. We are calling these gatherings Pop-Up Parties. While we can not include them in our registration process we will advertise them to the membership. If you wish to organize a pop-up gathering you may do so through our Meet-Up page. Click here for details.

Registration: We expect that people will register to attend a Watch Party when they register for Ministry Days. There is an additional cost of $50 to attend a sponsored Watch Party (to support onsite costs.)

Sponsored Watch Parties: The below sites have offered to host a watch party contingent upon a minimum registration. The schedule for each party will be driven by those attending and the geography involved. Registration fees for Watch Parties are fully refundable.

Boston Area:
First Parish in Malden
2 Elm Street
Malden, MA 02148

Metro NY Area:
UUC at Shelter Rock
48 Shelter Rock Road
Manhasset, NY 11030

Texas:
Live Oak UUC
3315 El Salido Pkwy.
Cedar Park, TX 78613

SF Bay Area
(may combine with Central CA):
Mt. Diablo UUC
55 Eckley Ln,
Walnut Creek, CA 94596

Mid-Atlantic: Canceled
First UU Wilmington
730 Halstead Rd, 
Wilmington, DE 19803

Option One (one event per day)
(see full time zone schedule here):

  • Monday, June 17:
    • Watch Opening Worship on screen in Main Space
    • Social time
  • Tuesday, June 18: 
    • Watch Celebration of Ministry in Main Space
    • Reception for Celebrants
  • OPT 1 for Wed, June 19:
    • Watch Worship in Main Space
  • OPT 2 for Wed, June 19:
    • Watch Berry Street Essay Main Space
      The BSE is open to the public and the congregation can be invited to attend.

Option One is designed for participants to gather to worship together and have small reception opportunities. It is expected that participants will travel home for those portions best experienced on a device.

Option Two is designed for the full event and is best for locations where people might be close enough to travel home between events, or facilities that have enough space to allow participants to work alone on their devices.

Sites will select an option once they know who is planning on attending.

Florida Area: Canceled
UUC of St. Petersburg
100 Mirror Lake Dr St
Petersburg, Florida 33701

MidAmerica:
UUC of Rockford
4848 Turner St.
Rockford, IL 61107

Minnesota:
UUC of Minnetonka
2030 Wayzata Blvd E
Wayzata, MN 55391

Option Two (full event)
(see full time zone schedule here):

  • Monday, June 17:
    • Watch Opening Worship on screen in Main Space
    • Social time
  • Tuesday, June 18:
    • Watch Worship in Main Space
    • Break for lunch/travel
    • Breakouts from home/room/devices May have spaces (as available) for folks to co-work from their devices
    • Meal Break
    • Stream Celebration of Ministry in Main space
    • Reception for Celebrants
  • Wednesday, June 19: 
    • Watch Worship in Main space
    • Break for lunch
    • Watch UUA President address from home/room/device
    • Breakouts from home/room/devices May have spaces (as available) for folks to co-work from their devices
    • Watch Berry Street Essay in Main Space
      Note: The BSE is open to the public and the congregation can be invited to attend.

Watch Party FAQs:

How Can I Help? If you live near one of the below watch sites and would like to be of help in organizing please reach out to the UUMA staff and we will connect you with the site host. If you want to be considered as a general volunteer you can indicate such on your registration form.

Why isn’t there a party near me? We put out a call for party hosts early in the year and those listed were submitted from those who answered the call. While we expect some more informal sites to be organized we are only able to include those who organized early in the registration process. As parties ‘pop-up’ we will advertise them in this space.

Can I still volunteer to host a party? Yes! While we cannot collect registration fees for pop-up parties we are happy to spread the word and advertise pop-up opportunities.

Do you have another question we can include here please let the UUMA Staff know.

* The Watch Party structure is based on conversations with UURMaPA, who have been experimenting with virtual conferences employing “pods” over the last few years, UUMA experiences with the 2022 Institute and various MFN Retreats, and the January 31st Watch Party Brainstorming Session.