Here are the minutes from last month’s Parish Council Meeting. The Parish Council is an advisory/work group made up of elders in the church.
Parish Council – 18th Sept, 2014 at 7 pm
Present: Dan Coverdale (Chair), Ray David Glenn, Joe Biggar, Nigel Cox, Ed Lewis, Stewart Teasell, Julia Selby, Naomi Neeb, Bryan Hunt
1. Opening Prayer
2. Rector’s report.
Alpha
Good news story, up until a few weeks before only a few people were registered, however, at the first night 31 people attended and over 40 people are registered. The location is working out well, the pub is happy to have us and it was a good setting for the meeting. The group is comprised of people new to the faith, seekers, new people to St. George’s some from Alton Village, and future leaders of Alpha.
Talent Show
Coming up next Wed Sep 24 at 6pm, will be a fun event and the “acts” will be limited to one song or one “act” by each person to ensure the night keeps moving and that there is enough time for all those showing talents. RD’s talent to be determined, but friendly suggestions were offered.
Services – Prayers of the People
Discussion on how is this going with group prayers. General consensus was the praying in small groups has been going well, good time to connect with others and pray together. Acknowledgement made that it can be a little uncomfortable for some, but there is still value in it. There was discussion around the value in “mixing it up” for the Prayers of the People between One Global prayer – which has a local, national and international focus to it and point made that although led by one, it is a congregational group prayer which is good. There is also value in individual prayer as a time of reflection coming out of the sermon. Point was made to consider moving into prayers of the people after the sermon (switching with Offertory) to facilitate the responsiveness to the sermon. It was discussed that putting a schedule together as the which “type” of Prayers of the People would be on each Sunday was not preferable, but rather dependent on the sermon and what was going on that week. Point made though that the Global Prayers of the People led by one person would need some preparation, rather than an on the spot prayer, so we would need to plan the Global prayer. Point made that Remembrance Day coming up is a good time for a Global Prayers of people and for the persecuted church.
Fundraising
There are items for the new church that are extra budgetary needs. Ie. piano, chairs. We are looking to create a webpage (Bryan is willing to develop) where people can choose the specific items they would like to donate to and provide online payment options to do that efficiently. Discussion was had around whether they should be specific items or the opportunity to donate to broader categories like “Worship”. Points were also made that people may be less likely to donate if they were donating to generic areas. It was clarified, that the items up for donation are items identified by the church that we are already committed to purchasing, however, are currently outside the new building budget. There will be some additional effort from treasury to ensure that all donations go directly to the items specified, and point was made that the list of items would be prioritized and limited as well.
3. Committee Reports
Youth Minister
The recruitment of the Youth Minister is slow, we have a few more resumes and someone may be considering applying for the position. We discussed putting it in the bulletin and/or making an announcement at church along with reposting on the website. Julia will contact chaplains at universities to see if we generate more referrals. It is likely a person that will come out current connections of those at the church. We need to continue prayer around this position and for the right person to come forward in this process.
Newcomers
We welcome our newest St. Georgite, as Brad and Brielle had a baby girl (Lona) on Tuesday. Mention made that Brad is great at reaching out to newcomers in the church.
Follow up item is the status of the newcomers package and update for next meeting.
Communications & Media
Bryan has been working on a newcomers video with Scott. It is less about what we do at the church and more about an invitation to join us targeted to resonate with both Christians and non-Christians. “What if a church made a difference..in your family, in our community”. It is currently in filming stage. Will be able to share more in October.
Bryan has been testing out Google Adwords and Facebook Marketing. The Google Adwords has been successful, so if you google “Burlington church” – St. George’s online.com is the first hit at the top of the page. Bryan has been focusing in Burlington, Hamilton, Milton Oakville words to increase the visibility of the St. George’s website. Complicated process with quality scores etc, but this has been successful. Facebook also yielded a lot of hits to our website, however, it was quite costly, Bryan recommended using that only for certain events like Grand Opening or Alpha, as the exposure level and hits were high from facebook, but would be too costly to do regularly.
Communications – New Building
Discussion about signage for the church is there additional signage needed. It is noted that people are seeing the church and noticing it as it is very visible from 407 and across from busy school. The church was highlighted on the front of an Alton Newsletter and there is an Alton Village website that there are questions being asked about the new church from the community; Bryan has been noticing these questions and responding online. The direction is the that any signage or marketing should be simple clean and pointed to the website, which is the central place for information about our church. New people coming into the church are siting the website as what has drawn them in. Discussion on whether there is opportunity for sign facing 407, but determined it would not be effective as people are going too fast on the highway.
Next Steps to determine a strategy or workback plan for the opening of the new building into the communication. Ie. what are the activities or events that will take place and when in relation to the opening. Items discussed to be part of the plan are “Meet the Ministry” open house and googleads, facebook strategy, local direct mail piece, SNAP “we are here, come join us”. Nigel is going to connect with Andrew Lammie as a resource for the communications plan for the new building.
On Dec 16th the building is expected to be “delivered” or closed, which will means we will have an empty building partly painted. We hope to do a soft launch at Christmas and then an official launch at Easter.
Small Groups
• Joe presented the Framework for Small Groups. Great document! To add to document – Chair of Committee is appointed by Rector.
• Ray David delegated responsibility of approving Small Group Hosts to the Small Group Committee
• Discussion around open vs. closed small groups. Some small groups are closed due to capacity or due to accountability, which is OK, but added discussion around pushing against culture of closed small groups due to affinity.
• Joe would like to prepare a Host Kit with tools and training on how to host a small group. Also discussed providing hidden links to the website for hosts to access materials.
• Small groups are expanding at St. George’s and there is a need for Small Group Hosts as some small groups are ready to be formed, but there is no place to meet or no host. There is discussion on having the new building available for small groups, however, security would need to be determined.
• An idea was discussed about identifying someone or for the Small Group Committee to attend multiple small groups as the initial host with the goal of training someone within the group to take on the host role.
• Discussed the question is a small group meeting considered to be a sanctioned St. G’s event? Debbie is writing up a policy on this.
Next Steps:
• Joe is going to email Brad to incorporate small group content in newcomer cards
• Joe is going to send content to Bryan on small groups to be posted on website and bulletin.
4. Executive Council Report
• Financials are better than last year, envelopes have increased and fixed expenses are behind budget, however we are running a deficit ($17,593), but it is a stronger position than last year.
• Discussed that there are additional expenses related to the new building, ie. interest on the mortgage, as such our expenses will be increasing at a higher rate over the last 3 months of the year.
• Desire is to clear up the deficit now, to ensure we it does not increase to rapidly with the building coming closer to completion.
• A note will be placed in bulletin and Thanksgiving letter will also include information to the congregation to ensure we are aware of the situation.
• Discussion was had confirming that Rector does not have giving information, only the envelope secretary.
• Building Report. Building is coming along well. Dan and RD have secured a 2nd loan in the event of a cashflow problem, there is now a solution in place, which is great news.
• ByLaws Report – Membership meeting was held last night, the new bylaws were passed at the meeting. The name change of church was passed as well.
5. Other Business
• Prayer At The Site – There will be a prayer evening at the new site, only those that have hard hats and steel toed shoes will be allowed on site. The date and time is to be determined. Joe to send out email regarding the details.
6. Closing Prayer
