Dear Friends
PCC Away Day
Towards the end of September the Church Council spent a day considering the values of our parish. We had a very creative day out of which emerged three words which we feel define who we are and what’s important to us. It’s vital to say that this is not about working out what we want to be like, but what are like. These three words will help us to become even more “us” than we are at the moment. I will be talking in all three churches on these values during October and you have your chance to chew over them at this month’s Church Forums. This is the first part of a piece of work which now moves on to encourage each church to develop their own vision statement … more of which at a future date!
So what are the values of our parish? INCLUSIVE, GENEROUS, LIFE GIVING.
Parish Administration
Over the last few months we have reviewed the administrative support in the parish. Caroline Smith is paid for particular hours every week yet, like Mary Tucker before her, is often in the office outside her hours and works for more hours than she is paid. As the parish gets busier more demands are made on us all, including Caroline. A number of options were explored before we decided to split the role into two posts and to appoint a Parish Secretary to work alongside Caroline as Parish Administrator. To that end, we interviewed a very strong field of candidates, from which, I am delighted to say that, Alex Humphreys has been appointed. Over the next few weeks, Caroline will establish a new office in the Parish Rooms, next door to the Rectory, and we will draw up a list of who is doing what so we all know who to contact. One of the reasons for this is our lack of capacity to do work that I believe is vital if we are to grow together. You may remember filling in Belonging Forms; if so, you would be right to be wondering what happened to the Directory that was promised. This is one example of things that have not made it off the back burner in the last couple of years. So in the coming weeks you will find Alex in the Parish Office from 9.30am to 12.00 on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday … but there will be a few weeks of handover when ‘office hours’ may be more fluid! Please make her welcome and bear with her as she settles in to this new role.
REinspired Caversham
We have made a second, equally exciting, appointment. Churches Together in Caversham is seeking to establish a schools work project based on the model that I was part of in Earley. In June we ran a session for Thameside School in St Peters Church and Micklands are setting dates for sessions in December. Thanks to funding from Church House and St Laurence Church Lands Trust, we have been able to appoint Jane Borgeaud to the role of Project Co Ordinator. At the moment we only have funding for this post until July 2012, so not only will Jane be seeking to get to know the churches and the schools, not only will she be seeking to develop a volunteer team and deliver RE sessions for schools, she will also be exploring how to make the project financially sustainable. Jane is a member of St Andrew’s Church in Caversham and comes with a vast experience in school teaching and leadership.
September has been a busy, but very exciting, month!
Dan