How to Reach Alison

As UUCSF’s minister, I’m here to serve both individuals and the congregation as a whole. But what exactly does a minister do? And when, or how, can someone make contact? 

Sometimes people have told me they didn’t contact me regarding some concern because they thought I was “too busy,” or the concern was “too small.” The list below has been adapted by many Unitarian Universalists ministers over the years. I offer it not as a checklist, but to suggest places to start our conversations. 

When to Call the Minister:

• When you don’t know me but would like to.
• When you’d like me to know you.
• When you have things you’d like to discuss that relate to your job, children, marriage, relationship, or anything else where a caring listener might be of help.
• When you are going into the hospital - or someone close is.
• When someone close to you has died or is critically ill.
• When you’re planning to be married.
• When you have a child to be dedicated.
• When you’re pregnant but wish you weren’t. Or you’re not pregnant, and wish you were.
• When you have a friend or neighbor or family member who would like to know more about Unitarian Universalism.
• When you’re considering joining the congregation as a member.
• When you have suggestions about our programs.
• When you have suggestions for a sermon, or comments about a worship service.
• When you’d just like to visit or know someone else who’d like to.
• When you’ve been arrested.
• When you’d like to help on a committee or teach a religious education class.
• When there are community issues you’d like to discuss.
• When you wish to discuss funeral or memorial arrangements ahead of time.
• When you’re unhappy with me or upset about something in the congregation.
• When you’d like to talk about religion.

Here’s how you contact me:

The Rev. Alison Cornish
home office phone:  631-725-5987
meetinghouse office phone: 631-537-0132
e-mail: acornish@uuma.org

About Our Minister

The minister of each Unitarian Universalist congregation is elected by its members, not appointed by an external authority. On October 28, 2007, we voted with joyful enthusiasm to call the Rev. Alison Cornish as our settled minister.

Previously she had served us as a consulting minister; the change represents a new covenant between minister and congregation. Mutual in trust, accountability, and care, we anticipate that this covenant will encourage deepening relationships, enhancing future stability for minister and congregation alike. 

Another congregational responsibility, in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, is the ordination of ministers. We were honored to ordain Alison in June, 2004, a few months before she became our consulting minister. Our fiscal constraints at that time meant that she would serve part-time, sharing the pulpit with speakers from the congregation and larger community. Today, full-time service from Alison remains a future goal, an important one.

A life-long Unitarian Universalist, Alison came to the ministry quite gradually. Following her graduation from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she worked for 20 years in architecture and historic preservation. She was equally comfortable wearing a hard hat on site or advocating for preservation in community council rooms. 

From 1993 to 1997, she was Director of the Bridge Hampton Historical Society. Local people remember well the focus and zest she brought to that position as well as to her work as Architectural Consultant for Southampton Town and the villages of Southampton and Sag Harbor. 

Focus and zest are characteristic of Alison.  When she was a teenager, they fueled her pursuit of excellence in figure skating. Skating, she says, first opened her eyes to the necessity of rigorous self-discipline as well as to the varied worlds of sports politics, leadership of not-for-profit organizations, and teaching.

All of this experience connects readily to ministry, to her ability to serve her congregation’s needs for community, caring, ritual, spiritual growth, and social justice. “When Alison talks about equity and compassion in human relations,” a UUCSF member once observed, “you know she’s speaking from her life, not just from theory or something she’s read.” And, as another congregant put it, “Alison may be only part-time, but she’s such a full-time human being you don’t really notice.”

In a deep sense, Alison’s ministry is a homecoming. She began attending UUCSF services in 1989, soon after leaving her native New England to live with the artist Pat Moran in his cottage on Noyac Creek. The couple married in 1994.

Elected President of the UUCSF Board, she had served most of her term when she made her decision to become a minister. This would entail commuting to Andover Newton Theological School, in Massachusetts, for four and a half intensive years of study and practical training. One of her last official acts Board President was to sign, in 1999, the contract for the 2.25 acres where we eventually built our meetinghouse.