We’re trying on something new in an effort to help share the work of our parish council with the whole of our church community! Going forward, we will have a monthly update after every council meeting focusing on the highlights of what was discussed at our monthly gathering. This monthly blog entry will be written by a rotating cast of voices from our council so that you will get to hear different perspectives on our work together. If something catches your interest and you want to know more, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our council members or our clergy.
Our March gathering was largely focused on updates on several ongoing projects. We heard from our new treasurer, Sherman, about the progress being made in our transition to our new church database. While the new online membership directory is the most visible piece of this new software for most of us (have you checked it out yet?), the new database is also now handling our accounting and donations information. Tied up in this transition is a move toward storing records digitally in our office, especially as it relates to invoices and bills. Not only does this save physical storage space, it allows our treasurer to do much of his work from the comfort of home.
Adam shared an update with council on the progress of the balcony project as well. After receiving a very high first bid on the needed upgrades to the lighting in the balcony and narthex, he has reached out to a different electrician for a second, and hopefully much more reasonable, quote. The lighting portion of the project is holding up movement on the final two pieces of work: installation of removable hanging walls in the balcony to increase wall space for gallery shows, and replacement of our aging and increasing difficult front doors.
With a new group of members on our council, we spent some time discussing whether we might want to consider implementing term limits for current and future council members. The discussion around this was very positive and members agreed that there would be some real benefits. Namely, that it would allow people the opportunity to step off of council instead of feeling trapped on it, it would make it easier to recruit new people to council because they wouldn’t feel like they were agreeing to a life term, and it would help develop leadership capacity within the whole of the congregation. A small working group will explore some models for what term limits might look like and report back at a future meeting.
Council also spent some time on ministry matters, discussing a change up to the offering of services during Holy Week. With the input of council, Adam will be altering our Good Friday worship schedule to include a noon, traditional Good Friday service, with a neighbourhood stations of the cross walk being offered in the afternoon. Council also spent some time looking at the scheduling of our annual Boulevard Sale, one of our biggest outreach fundraisers. We’ve had some difficulty this year picking a date because the announcement of the timing of Diocesan Synod coincided with the date that we had originally chosen. To address this conflict, the council is recommending that we move forward with a date for the Boulevard Sale of June 7.
Facility Notes
- John, the chair of the property committee, shared that we had a recurrence of a water leak next to the elevator in the lower hall following one of the extraordinary rain events at the end of February. The problem is likely that the drainage system around the church is clogged up and we have scheduled a company to come out, clean, and inspect the drain system later this month.
- Kami, our Communications Director and Administrator, has finalized a contract with Kiwanis Music Festival, who will be making use of our sanctuary extensively during the month of April. This will impact how folks can access the sanctuary during the week and communications with the congregation about it will be coming out shortly.
This month’s Council Update comes from Adam, our rector. If you are interested in being on the mailing list to receive the full monthly council minutes, please contact Adam.