From Brian McDermott, Chair, UUCUC Board of Trustees

The Pride Parade was typically the biggest fundraiser for the year for Uniting Pride (UP) of Champaign-Urbana. But this year, part of the festival is planned for a virtual series of live-streamed moderated workshops.

UP representative Zev Alexander (a friend of our church) asked to use our facility, in order to have a central location with good WiFi and internet support, but could still allow the in-person attendees to stay spread out enough to be safely socially distanced and obeying Health district regulations.

Our Covid-19 Advisory Taskforce thought this would be a safe use of the facility, especially after hearing that our staff was supportive. Limited numbers of people (6 at most), limited locations in the building, and limited time in the building (The talks will be over Friday afternoon, Saturday all day and Sunday morning, Sept 25-27.)

UP will use our facility as the operations hub for the workshops. They are continuing to work with the taskforce and Kate Barton, our Director of Facilities, on appropriate protocols to observe, and how to follow our required cleaning procedures. There were at least 2 volunteers from the Taskforce to act in some capacity of support during the use of the building (IT-support or physical presence as a church host.)

In gratitude for our support of this critical part of Pridefest, UUCUC is listed as a major sponsor of the event. The events and workshops sound intriguing; here is a link to Uniting Pride’s plan for Pridefest 2020: https://www.unitingpride.org/pridefest2020

On a related note, a smaller Advisory task force group is planning to work on creating policies to help manage facility-use queries in the future, ensuring safe usage of our facility.

Please contact me if you have any questions!