The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus IN, or UUCCI, will be sponsoring two Civics Liberty Labs in partnership with MADVoters of Indiana this September.
For those who want to learn about how the state government operates and how they can interact with it, two sessions, one at 2 p.m. and one at 6 p.m., are available to choose from on Sept. 17. These 90 minute, interactive sessions are free and will be held at UUCCI of Columbus at 7850 W. Goeller Road.
Registration for the 2 p.m. session is available here. Registration for the 6 p.m. session is available here.
Topic points on the workshop’s agenda include voter registration, the parts and processes that make up the state government, developing relationships with representatives and more, according to UUCCI representative Cate Hyatt. Time will be available at the end for questions and answers, she said.
“There are probably going to be participants who have had a lot of experience, may have run for office, know a lot of the ins and outs because they’re politically active, and then there are going some people who, because of things that are happening in the news, are just starting to say, ‘hey, I don’t really know how this works so I need to learn the basics,’” Hyatt said.
These workshops are held in partnership with Columbus Community United, the League of Women Voters Brown County/Columbus, Rise Up Indiana and Bartholomew County Indivisible. The workshops also serve as the kick off to UUCCI’s new BOLD, or “Build Our Living Democracy,” speaker series.
Seeing the changes and issues affecting their congregation, Hyatt said they began planning a speaker series they could offer as a community service. The series, which was envisioned by UUCCI Courageous Action leaders, will see monthly speakers, panels and forums. It is planned to run until the next presidential election, she said.
“It seems pretty ambitious in a way, but there are so many people that we can learn from and once we started thinking, ‘is this doable? Could we really fill it every month with something that would be informative, that would be enlightening and engaging and people would want to come to,’ and we decided it was worth a shot,” Hyatt said.
Hyatt said they are very excited to begin this new series. She hopes people walk away from each session with a little more information and understanding, as well as new skills, about how to be more engaged in the democratic process.
“I think the name of the series, BOLD, resonates with us as we were planning this series because it is stepping outside of our normal work, our normal way of being in the community in that these times call for bold action…,” Hyatt said. “We’ll get bold, we’ll be bold and we’ll embolden the community, I hope.”
