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Our Charter Event Saturday, September 30, 2000 we were celebrating becoming a "real" church, after six years as an "emerging group" under the auspices of the Canadian Unitarian Council. We had over 70 people joining us in the Victoria Park Centre in Fergus: our members, friends, supporters, plus Unitarian guests from near and far, who all were invited to celebrate with us. Our Charter Worship Service was lead by our president Nichola Martin and the address by Anne Treadwell, minister of Waterloo (and our previous part time minister) and members Julie Corey, Jim Sannes, and Kerry Boyle. Here some words from Nichola Martin (president in 2000) after the event: Many thanks to the hard-working Charter event committee (Chris Nye, Kerry Boyle and Heather van der Sluis) and all of you who helped to make the celebration such a success. We are authentic. On the Monday before the charter event I opened the mail to read the good news that Revenue Canada accepted our charitable status. This means that we are now legally a separate entity from Waterloo and that we can now write our pledge cheques to Elora-Fergus Unitarian Church. I don’t think there has ever been any doubt about our authenticity. Our road to becoming “real” has been rocky at times. For a small congregation we have had our share of conflicts, personal and otherwise. However, we are still here over six years later with a core group of committed people. Some faces have changed but our values and our vision remain astonishingly similar. – Nichola Martin   We sang, we celebrated and then we ate. Wonderful and delightful food was self-catered by our members in quite an abundance. Some of us could only roll around on the dance floor after enjoying this fingerfood fest. Suphan Wanathu showed us a magic and elegant Thai Dance and the Cisten Ceol (Robin Aggus, Eva McCauley, Carolyn Buck, Irene Shelton, and Sean Geddes) played lovely music, before the family dance burst out in full force and vigour. The Charter Celebration was an event that will be memorable for years to come. Now for the future of our church: MORE RECREATION AND CELEBRATION In mid-September, 13 people huddled in three groups, over bristol board, in a funeral home! We created collages of where we are now and where we see ourselves in five years time. Here’s what we found: Social action is still important to us but we want more spirituality. We see ourselves with some ministry (as long as we can afford it), between 50–60 members who we’ve nurtured along the way. We all want to have some time of stability to build on the foundation created over the last few years. Some visionaries saw us moving towards our own building in five years time, and if not our own building, then a new rental building with good RE space. I thought that maybe our vision would show a need for us to re-create ourselves, instead it shows that we need more recreation and celebration of who we are. We are already beginning to do this with a singing group and music committee. I’m feeling excited about our future growth and the great board I’m working with in the year 2000. – Nichola Martin For more information please contact us at 519-638-5444 or 519-767-8766. Home Page Elora-Fergus