A new Church year begins

Dear Friends,
A Few Announcements from my Blog this week:
Saturday September 7th

Our new church program for Fall 2019 through to Summer 2020 begins this coming Saturday 7th September.  We have Meditation Practice at 10am and our service is at 11amin Unitaria, First Floor Meeting Rooms, Karlova 8, Prague 1.
The theme of our service will be ‘Celebrating Faith Without Borders’ and we will have our annual ‘Water Communion.’  The ‘Water Communion’ is common to all Unitarian Universalist Churches and celebrates the beginning of the church year.  The service will be led by me, Jana and Lukas.
After the service, we will have tea/coffee and refreshments. Then at 1pm, we will have a meeting led by Barbara, our Social Justice Convenor, around establishing a ‘Knitting/Creative Group for Social Justice.’  

Updates will be put in my weekly blog:
We will continue meeting on the first and third Saturdays of every month in 2019/2020.  I will keep you posted about all additional services and congregational activities through this blog.
Visit of the Rev Professor Nicole Kirk
On Saturday September 21st, we are really pleased to welcome the Rev Professor Nicole Kirk amongst us.  Nicole is known to many of you who attended our ‘Eco Spiritual Conference’ in September 2018 when Nicole was the keynote speaker.  Please plan to attend.  Nicole is a truly inspirational speaker and loves Prague.  She will be staying for three weeks at our apartment.    In my next blog, I will forward you Nicole’s Czech mobile number, just in case you need to make contact with her while she is in Prague.  
Our Lay Minister Susan Goldberg:
Susan will be out of action for a while.  She will have her knee operation on Tuesday September 3rd – our thoughts and prayers are with her.  If you would like to make contact with her or visit her, please either make contact by email or via Facebook.

Other Info:
I would like to inform you about two other events, which I would love you to come to, if you are free…………………
Czech Unitarian Academy
The Unitarian Czech Academy which meets in October from Wednesday October 16th – Sunday October 20th.  The Academy will take place in the historical small town of Nectiny, which lies approximately 30 km (19 miles) north west of Plzen and 92km (57 miles) west of Prague.
The Czech Unitarian Academy is the ‘Educational Wing’ of our Unitarian Church here in the Czech Republic.  The Academy is re-envisaging the vision that Capek had about providing life long learning for Unitarians, as well as providing ministerial training.  Lectures are given by special guests and some of us ministers/Unitarian Lay leaders.  The learning, together with the fellowship is truly rewarding and great fun!
The whole programme is done in English and Czech.  We have a translator there for the whole 5 days.  
Accommodation and breakfast are free of charge, the only costs are lunch and evening meal which we usually have at a local inexpensive pub or bistro.
If you are interested in going, please let me know by Saturday September 7th by email or Facebook Message.  It would be lovely to see some of you join us at the Academy.  If you are planning on going, you would be expected to arrive on the Thursday afternoon (as the Wednesday is for ministers in training).
European Unitarian Universalist Fall Retreat:
The European Unitarian Universalist Retreat is taking place in the German Spa Town of Bad Homburg, from Friday November 15th to Sunday November 17th 2019.  Bad Homburg is easy to get to from Frankfurt by train (train journey takes 21 to 24 minutes) and by car which takes about 30 minutes.
EUU Retreats are very inspiring/fun events and the theme speaker for this retreat is the Rev Thandeka (who is also one of the guest speakers at the Czech Academy in October) with the theme being ‘The Heart of Our Faith: Healing Ourselves and the World.’
We may be able to help with a grant towards a percentage of the costs of registration fees, but not travel.   However, if you can afford to pay the fees then please do so.  If the fees are paid by October 15th, then you get an ‘early bird discount’ of 20 Euros per person.
If you are planning on attending the EUU retreat, or want to request a grant, please let me know by this coming Friday September 6th by email or Facebook message.
If you would like to attend this retreat, please follow the link below:
http://www.europeanuu.org/registration/2019_fall_bad_homburg/

In Faith and with love,
Mark