JANUARY 2023 UPDATE!

Facilitators take turns, two people each month, to coordinate and give care to our UFP community; they also link up volunteers with the person needing assistance. Care ranges from a card or phonecall to offering a listening ear or running a few errands. These contacts are all kept confidential and if facilitators feel any needs are beyond our scope, we will do our best to connect the person with appropriate services. When you have news you would like to share with the Fellowship we can also make sure it is added to the appropriate spot on the website.

If you are interested in being a caring volunteer to assist facilitators in driving, making food or other specific tasks, please indicate your willingness to a Circle of Care Facilitator, using the email below. This caring help is not very onerous yet extremely rewarding. Our current facilitators are Donna Flotron, Julia Wallace, Sue Sauve, Sharon Harrison, Hendrika Seshadri, Chris Risley, Gord Drew, Marg and Stewart Holland. To contact the Circle of Care to volunteer or express a need for assistance, you can email this team at circleofcare@peterboroughunitarian.ca. The monthly facilitators and their contact information will also be published in the Flame.

The UFP community strives to live in a culture of compassion, and the Circle of Care reflects this. Please don’t hesitate to contact us to express your needs. It’s so important that we all care for each other during difficult times.

November 2022 UPDATE!

We warmly welcome Gord Drew as a member of the Circle of Care!

SEPTEMBER 2022 UPDATE!

Your Circle of Care team is evolving. Kate Jarrett, Linda Herold and Heather-Lynn Fraser are taking a pause while Hendrika Seshadri, Chris Risley, and Marg and Stew Holland have joined our team. We take turns, two each month, to coordinate care for our community, linking up volunteers with the person needing assistance. Care ranges from a card or call to offering a listening ear or running a few errands.

When you have news you would like to share with the Fellowship we can make sure it is added to the appropriate spot on the website. If issues are brought to the Circle of Care that are outside our scope we will do our best to connect you with appropriate services.

If you are interested in being a caring volunteer, please indicate your willingness to a Circle of Care Facilitator, using the email below. This caring help is not very onerous yet extremely rewarding.

To contact the Circle of Care to express a need for service, you can email this team at circleofcare@peterboroughunitarian.ca. The monthly facilitators and their phone numbers will also be published in the Flame.

FEBRUARY 2022 UPDATE!

Your Circle of Care team is growing — would you be interested in joining us? We are a group of 7 volunteers that facilitate care activities. There are two facilitators per month and with a full complement of volunteers, you would co-facilitate 3-4 months per year. When needs arise, such as sending a card, the facilitators that month either do the activity or contact a Circle of Care volunteer. It is a great way to connect more deeply with our UFP community and it is not very time consuming, less than 3 hours per month on duty.

We are also renewing our roster of volunteers who send cards, prepare meals, provide rides to appointments, etc..

If you are interested in joining the Circle of Care facilitator team or volunteering to carry out activities, please contact Sue Sauve.

A NEW & REVISED CIRCLE OF CARE | JUNE 18, 2020

Beginning July 1st, 2020, a group of 8 trained facilitators will be coordinating care for our community. 2 people will share the facilitation duties each month, and they will link up caring volunteers with the person needing assistance.

Concerns that can be brought to the Circle of Care include but are not limited to the following:

Illness/hospitalization/surgery
Bereavement
Birth of a baby
Personal or family stress
Emergency childcare
Transportation needs
Shopping and errands
Need for a listening ear/heart

The Circle of Care facilitators determine together how best to satisfy needs in order to provide continuity of care. Some issues brought to the Circle of Care may be referred to the Minister if appropriate.

If you are interested in being a caring volunteer, please don’t hesitate to indicate your willingness to a Circle of Care Facilitator, using the email below.

To contact the Circle of Care to express a need for service, you can email this team at circleofcare@peterboroughunitarian.ca
As of July 1st, the monthly facilitators and their phone numbers will also be published in the Flame.

The UFP community strives to live in a culture of compassion, and the Circle of Care reflects this. Please don’t hesitate to contact the team of facilitators to express your needs. It’s so important that we all care for each other during difficult times.

Update | May 1, 2020

A big part of who we are as a community is our tangible expression of care and support one another. We share this responsibility with Rev. Julie with open hands and hearts; she offers pastoral care and counseling, while community members offer other kinds of care.

That support could come in many forms, such as preparing or delivering a meal, providing transportation to Sunday services and other appointments like visits to the doctor, making friendly home or hospital visits, writing occasional cards, making phone calls to members, or helping members with chores such as shoveling or dog walking.

For quite some time, we’ve had a “Circle of Care” in place whereby monthly facilitators acted as a communication hub…gathering requests for support and matching those needs with people who are willing to offer that support. The folks who stepped into the facilitator role over the years have provided an amazing and much appreciated service.

We realized that it was time to evaluate our care system at about the same time as Rev. Julie was leaving for some sabbatical time at the end of 2019. So, we arranged for a Pastoral Care Worker (Martha Comfort) to, during the sabbatical time, both cover what was previously done by our Circle of Care Facilitators, as well as to do an assessment of how we’ve provided care to one another.

Martha’s ‘contract’ as Pastoral Care Worker ended on April 30. She has provided a written report to the Committee on Ministry (COM). That report, along with the feedback gathered at a Community Conversation in February, will be used by the COM to make some recommendations about how to best move forward to provide a care system that is sustainable and which adequately services our community.

But a new or revitalized system is not yet in place!

If you need help, or want to offer help…

If you have a need, or if you know of someone with a need, please contact Rev. Julie or 705-933-3746. She has a list of volunteers and will match the need with some help.
And if you can provide assistance to others…rides, grocery shopping, phone calls, chores…please let Rev. Julie know so she can put you on the list.

This is a lovely way to live into the interconnected web of existence of which we are a part.