UUNITED Wins, One Step Closer to Glory!

"UUNITED."
"Championship."

These are two words I never expected to see in the same sentance, but now, after a gutsy victory in the playoffs last night - we are on the brink.

We were all relishing the prospect of a rematch against our arch-rivals, "More Cowbell", who beat us 9-8 in a excellent down to the wire match last time we faced them. They scored the go-ahead to beat us with only seconds left on the clock - and we have been waiting for another shot at them ever since.

Cowbell is a fun team to play against: our two teams are evenly matched, and their players are competitive but fun, good people. Still, they finished the regular season in first place, while we dropped to fourth. But we knew we could take 'em.

The game was just as we left off last time - VERY closely fought. The first half was a defensive standoff, with neither team able to crack the opposing defense. We finally scored toward the end of the first half, on a brilliant goal by Jen (assisted, as we are so accustomed to, by Morten). But a one goal lead on a team as good as Cowbell is not enough, and sure enough, they equalized just a few minutes later. After that, the game sped up and so did the scoring. Our passing was patient and crisp, our defense resilient and our offense on target - sooo fun!

But every time we would pull ahead, they would come right back with a goal of their own. It wasn't until the final ten minutes or so that we pulled ahead for good, ultimately winning 5-3. It was a great game. Our win is all the sweeter because not only did we get avenge our earlier loss against Cowbell, but now, having beaten the #1 team - we are advancing to the Championship Match for the first time!! It's all been part of a pretty exciting learning curve for us - last season, we finished dead last in our league (although we all had fun doing it!!), and now - here we are...

We will play for Championship glory (such as it is) on January 8th, so send us plenty of good vibes. We will have a cheering section there (which has steadily grown through the season), so if you have some free time and want to come out to support the team, email me and I can give you time/directions.

Go UUNITED!!

UUNITED Soccer Team Begins Playoff Run

That's right, UU sports fans, our soccer team is poised for an epic run deep into the Division C Coed Recreational Indoor Soccer record books! Although we are left in 3rd place at the end of the regular season, we can still climb higher by playing well in the playoffs. It will not be an easy task, as we will have to overcome such storied franchises as "Nice Marmot", "Structurally Damaged" and "We Practice at the Pub!"

I can't say for sure whether we will win or lose, sports fans, but I can promise you this - 1) we will play hard, and 2) we will continue our noble tradition of looking really, really good in our spiffy blue uniforms!

Our first playoff game is tomorrow night at 8:40MST - wish us luck.

UUA Worker Justice Handbook

Howdy, all,

My new Worker Justice Handbook for congregations has just been published by the Unitarian Universalist Association. You can find it by going to the Leaders Library at the main UUA website: http://www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/index.php, choosing Social Justice as the topic, and then scrolling down the page to the Handbooks. The direct link is: http://www.uua.org/documents/mcemrysaaron/power_union.pdf.

Please share this broadly. This resource certainly does not contain all the answers, but I do hope it can help point congregations in the right direction.

Peace to you, Aaron