Caroline Balderston Parry became our new part time Director of Religious Education (DRE) in mid-August 2008.
Caroline is an experienced Religious Educator, and calls herself an "Quakertarian", having worked in two large UU churches previously and being an active member of Ottawa Friends Meeting (Quakers). Before discovering Unitarian Universalist religious education ["RE"] as an encore career, she spent many years in schools, community centres, libraries and summer camps as a freelance folksinger, writer, workshop leader and storyteller. She is also the author of two major information books for young people as well as numerous non-fiction articles and poems.
She comes to us from First Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbus, Ohio (where she was Interim DRE from 2006-08), and previously held the position of Interim DRE at Ottawa First Unitarian Congregation (2002-05). Both of those positions were for "lifespan religious education" and included adult programming, which is not part of her job description here, but gives her very useful perspective and broad knowledge. Caroline was born in the USA but immigrated to Canada with her late English husband in 1973, and considers herself an avid Canadian. Her children were born in Victoria and Toronto, and the family moved to Ottawa in 1990 -now Montreal is her fourth experience of life north of the US border.
Members of the Religious Education team:
- RE Assistant
Victoria Schmidt - Youth Programmes Coordinator
Curtis Murphy - Volunteer members of the RE Committee
Susan Gyetvay, chair
Elizabeth Charbonneau, secretary
Bob Barnes, treasurer
Shawn Dohring, children's choir leader - Our Whole Lives (OWL) consultant, Carlene Gardner
To contact any member of the RE staff or Committee, find them in the church phone directory or use dre@ucmtl.ca. Caroline will forward any messages as appropriate.
Note that Caroline's hours are generally Sundays from 9:30 am until 2 pm or later, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 pm until 7 pm (later if an evening meeting is scheduled). If you have an extremely urgent need for a response, ask the church Office to reach Caroline by phone and pass on your message.
