The summer will be over by the time you read these lines. Not by the calendar, but certainly as far as church activities go. The big event of the summer was of course the UUA General Assembly in Boston this year. Our delegation, reinforced by alternates, grows bigger every year. The fact that Boston is practically next door for New Yorkers helped to attract many members who had never been to a GA before to sign up as delegates. In fact, the leaders of our delegation, Robin Bossert and Amy Strano, were among those first time attendees. It is always overwhelming to spend a week with so many UUs. It is even more so when the total number of delegates exceeds 7000. It certainly helps to put our congregation and our denomination in quite a new perspective. The GA reports in this Quarterly cover both the “business” aspects of this annual meeting where decisions about the denomination are reached after much discussion, and some of the delegates’ personal impressions as well as descriptions of the lectures and workshops they chose to attend. This detailed report will let you share in what went on in Boston last June, and help you to understand more what being a UU is all about.

Some of the other articles in this expanded issue complement the GA write-up. The Who We Are profile of Prof. Richard Ford and the report on the Civil Liberties Forum by Lois Chazen echo much of what happened at GA. At All Souls, the summer was relatively quiet although the feeding programs and many other activities went on. The Women’s Alliance particularly attracted a large number of both members and non-members for their two summer outings. Mary-Ella Holst has also provided another one of her popular crossword puzzles.