Raquel Gil

Raquel is a FUSS member and psychiatrist with the Assertive Community Treatments team at Mohawk Opportunities.

The State of Mental Health Services in Schenectady

Jan 13

Melissa MacKinnon

Melissa is currently the FUSS Religious Education Coordinator. She has served on the RE Council, been a mentor for the Coming of Age program, trained for and taught OWL and Spirit Play

Spirit Play

Jan 20

John Good

John is a FUSS member with a keen interest in poetry. He will be reading a few passages from John Donne, George Herbert and their contemporaries, and discussing what the poems say and how they work.

Seventeenth Century Religious Poetry

Jan 27

Wade Beltramo

Wade is a FUSS member and attorney at the New York State Conference of Mayors. He will speak about the current state of upstate New York's economy, the State's current economic development efforts, and how SMART growth and community-based investing are integral to reversing the decades-long decline of New York's historic cities and villages.

Economic & Community Development in NY

Mindy Whisenhunt and Pete Gernert-Dott

FUSS members who comprise the bluegrass band Riverview Ramblers will present on how musical pursuits can benefit one's inner nature.

Nancy Peterson

Chair of the Green Sanctuary Committee, Nancy will show the DVD "Kilowatt Ours" about the hazards of coal including mountain-top removal and the pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Adele & Jim Hayes

Adele & Jim of the Sap Bush Farm will talk about their small local farm that is committed to producing healthy food utilizing sustainable agricultural practices. The farm markets a diversity of pasture-meats to families in the Capital District.

Rev Pat Hoertdoerfer

Lifelong learning, one of our foundational values, is a long-standing tradition in Unitarian Universalism. William Ellery Channing championed the idea that religion was intended to help nurture the sacred seed in all of us; that education from its root origins is about "drawing out" the potential in each of us. And religion from its root is about "binding together" the core values and principles of our community.

Carol Hamblin and Bob Miller

If you are an adult who thinks creatively, enjoys the company of
others, the outdoors, and new experiences, "Life on (a) Star" may be for you.  Star Island, 6 miles off the coast of Portsmouth, NH, has been a Unitarian Conference Center for over 100 years.  This presentation will guide you through a week at Star's Arts conference, held the last week in June each year.  "Old Shoalers" will tell you the ferry to Star is the
time to forget your mainland cares.  Curious?  Come and join us and learn about this summer camp for adults.

William Spolyar  

William Spolyar is the Executive Director of the Schenectady Free Health Clinic which provides free medical care for individuals who do not have insurance.  Mr. Spolyar will speak about the operation of this organization which is staffed by retired doctors and other medical professionals who volunteer their time to see patients free of charge.  Schenectady Free Health Clinic was a recipient of the FUSS monthly collection for social action causes.

Winter Read Discussion

Beth Ayres

Beth was a Refugee Resettlement Volunteer with the Catholic Family Center in Rochester for over 10 years, generally working as part of a resettlement team. After reading "The Kite Runner" (Schenectady County Public Library's current selection for the One County, One Book initiative) Beth was reminded of her experiences with Afghani refugee families, and has offered to share some of her (their) stories. Beth is a volunteer facilitator for the Coffee, Cocoa, and Conversation discussion series at FUSS.

Leslie Weidmann-Herd                  Debbie Forester

Leslie and Debbie will discuss Roots and Wisdom, a youth agriculture and community service program which brings together Schenectady County youth and committed adults to grow organic vegetables for donation to local food pantries and for sale within the county.  The Roots and Wisdom program, which was a recipient of the FUSS monthly collection for social action, teaches its participants about sustainable agriculture, hunger, nutrition, and diversity. Leslie Wiedmann-Herd, is Director of Garden Programs for Roots and Wisdom and a FUSS member. Debbie Forester is Director of Program Planning for Roots and Wisdom.

Richard Chady

Richard is a FUSS member and editor of the FUSS newsletter, Circles. Based on his visit to China and Tibet last year, Richard will speak on the challenges that China is facing with regard to population, environment, and energy.

Sue Cloninger

Sue is a member of the Board (liaison to the Membership Committee) and a lay pastoral visitor for FUSS. She has been a professor of psychology at Russell Sage College since 1979, and also teaches on the Albany campus of Sage (evening classes), and as an adjunct professor at Empire State College. Her specialty area is personality. She has published a couple of personality textbooks. This talk will focus on her reactions to researching a new chapter on Buddhist personality theory in the 5th edition of Theories of Personality: Understanding Persons (published by Prentice Hall), a college textbook.

Diane Cameron

Diane Cameron is baseball fan and writer who lives in Guilderland NY. She regularly contributes columns to the Sunday Times Union, and to other newspaper across the United States and locally on WAMC. Diane is Executive Director of the Slingerlands-based non-profit organization, Community Caregivers, Inc.

Gary Feinland

Gary and Vicki, members of the FUSS Green Sanctuary, will offer a presentation and discussion about the impacts of an economy based on consumption. Featured in the presentation will be a 20 minute DVD entitled "The Story of Stuff." This insightful and entertaining DVD uses straight talk and charming stick figure diagrams to describe the effects of buying lots of stuff upon the environment and peoples of the world. After the video there will be discussion of ways to overcome some of the challenges presented in the DVD.

Pisie Hocheim

Pisie Hocheim is a Senior Youth at FUSS who has traveled with a youth delegation to the US/Mexico border cities of Matamoros and Juarez, Mexico to learn about the conditions of workers in American factories there. Pisie's two trips have been life-changing experiences, and she would like to share her stories and pictures, and to discuss the opportunities for social action in these areas.

George Shaw

George Shaw is a professor of geology at Union College. Prior to returning to Schenectady in 1988 to restart a geology department at Union, he was on the faculty of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Minnesota for fourteen years. He met Paula Fenimore in Steinmetz Club (the senior youth group of FUSS) and they were married at FUSS in 1968. They have two children: Katy is a geologist living in Seattle, Washington, and Clerk is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee. During the Fall of 2007, George was one of two faculty in charge of a term abroad in Australia and New Zealand with 34 students from Union and Hobart and William Smith colleges. This CCC presentation covers several of the places the group visited in Australia, from the outback to the Great Barrier Reef.

Spring Read Discussion

Join members of the Adult Programs Council and others for discussion of this NY Times Bestseller describing Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban. Award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin collaborated on this spellbinding account of Mortenson's incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are often feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson survived kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. But his success speaks for itself: at last count, his Central Asia Institute had built fifty-five schools.