New Paltz church welcomes guest preacher
The Rev. Tim Riis will be the guest preacher at the New Paltz United Methodist Church, 1 Grove St., on Sunday, Dec. 4, at the 10:45 a.m. service.
He will be the 12th guest preacher in the church’s yearlong celebration of its 230th anniversary. The subject of his sermon will be the giving season of Advent.
For 34 years, Riis served as the pastor of United Methodist churches in Fleischmanns, Halcott Center, Franklin, Catskill, Smithtown, Hicksville and Poughkeepsie. Beginning in a cooperative parish in rural New York and moving through suburban and urban pastorates, he began a ministry in 2015 as the district superintendent of the Catskill Hudson District, to which the New Paltz United Methodist Church belongs.
Riis has served the United Methodist Church in leadership in many capacities, including International General Conference delegate, New York delegation chair, Interjurisdictional Committee member, secretary of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Committee, director of the denominational missions agency and vice-chair/secretary of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Committee on Annual Conference Boundaries. In addition, he has been the chair or co-chair of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Town and Country Association, the New York Annual Conference, the Board of Ordained Ministry and the Council on Finance and Administration.
A luncheon reception will follow the service.
For more information, call Sharon at(845) 419.5063 or 845.625.8087 or visit newpaltzumc@gmail. com.
media. Our coaches all cheered her on today as they kept passing along reports on her progress. Today, Melissa was finally able to cycle 100 miles in a single day despite the challenges of T1D. She did so while exemplifying the spirit of the Ride to Cure Diabetes.”
••• Marist College honored volunteers and philanthropists Bill Austin and Ellie Charwat at the 49th Annual President’s Community Breakfast on Oct. 13.
President David Yellen presented the awards to Austin, owner of Gold’s Gym Dutchess County; and Charwat, former head of the college’s adult education programs, in recognition of their respective records of public service in the Hudson River
Valley and beyond.
Austin, who taught at Marist and coached its crew team in the late 1960s and 1970s, is a longtime supporter of organizations like the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the Miles of Hope Breast Cancer Foundation and the Hudson River Rowing Association. He has served on the board of the Mid-Hudson Civic Center and is a member of the Pleasant Valley Lions Club.
Charwat, a former Town of Poughkeepsie Board member, is a member of the Arlington Rotary. She has served on the boards of — or otherwise volunteered for — the Adriance Memorial Library, the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, Literacy Connections, the United Way, the League of Women Voters, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at ValKill, where she served as board president.