June 2013

June 10, 2013

Finding a New Rector

The Recruitment Process – Progress

You will know by now that our first attempt to find a new Rector did not go as we had hoped. We received nine applications, and, although applicants were generally of a good standard, the shortlisting team (consisting of Bishop Andrew, the Area Dean, the Patrons and the three Parish Representatives) agreed that none provided the right fit for the role. The Parish is a large and complex one and it was felt that many of the applicants did not have sufficient depth of experience for such a role. All applicants have now been informed of the decision.

This is as disappointing for the recruitment team as it is for the other members of our three churches. However it is crucial that we attract someone who can lead us effectively in our effort to meet the challenges that we face.

Next Steps – Timetable

We will re-advertise the post in September, changing the role specification slightly to emphasise the level of experience we believe necessary.

The timetable for re-advertising the post is as follows:

If we are successful in finding our new Rector on the 21 October, we would expect him or her to be in place by the end of January 2014.

In the Meantime

All this obviously means that the vacancy will last longer that we had originally hoped. This will put extra strains on our ministerial team (particularly with Graeme’s departure); Jeremy and Marion will be looking after all three churches during the vacancy. It also means extra work for the administrative team, who have also had extra responsibilities since Dan left and who will continue performing these until we have a new incumbent. So please think of all of these people and consider whether there are any ways you might lift some of the burden from them at this busy time.

Please continue to use the special prayer to ask God to guide all the people involved to ensure we appoint the right person.

Nigel Smith, Parish Representative

What do the admin team do?

It has been suggested to us that you might like to know what we do and when we do it. So here is a little flavour of our working lives.

Alex Humphries – Parish secretary

0118 947 1703 – secretary@ctmparish.org.uk

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays between 9.30am and 12 noon, during school term time, you can find me in the chilly front office in Church House, with a great view of the mini roundabout and where I do a good line in chatting. I am the first point of contact for most enquiries about any of the churches either from the congregation or people outside of the parish wanting to know more about us. On a day to day basis I answer initial enquiries about weddings, baptisms and funerals and who or what is in church when. The slightly more unusual calls I’ve received have included an urgent enquiry via funeral directors wanting to know exactly where grave diggers can start digging, a conversation with a film crew hoping to use St Margaret’s, and a query from an upset lady who was concerned that her relative’s grave had vanished under a car park. Mostly the queries I receive are passed on to the Clergy or Caroline Smith in the Parish Rooms, but my grateful thanks go to Ian Lowry for assisting with both the grave diggers and the car park lady! A major part of the role is putting together the notice sheets for all three churches each week and printing most of the documents that make their way into your church. I also maintain the prayer lists and update as requested and I keep the anniversaries lists for St Peter and St John.

My other hat is keeping the bookings for Church House ticking over. We currently have 20-30 regular users of Church House. I liaise with them to maintain the bookings diary, and I do the invoicing and banking. The less glamorous aspect to this role is filling up the loo rolls, hoovering up crumbs and acting as official traffic warden for the car park at the back of Church House and keeping our tenants in line.

Copy for the Caversham Bridge also passes through my hands on its way to the editors and I enjoy a sneak preview of what may be printed in forthcoming editions.

Those hours that the parish office is closed I’m looking after my five and seven year old daughters, helping Caroline Smith run Rainbows (that’s pre-Brownies, for the uninitiated), taking and writing up minutes for school governing body meetings (my other job) and helping to organise events for Emmer Green Primary’s PTFA. In June I mainly want to be pottering about the garden, sunbathing and watching Wimbledon . . . if only all those other things that need doing could just wait!

Alex Humphreys

Caroline Smith – Parish Administrator

0118 996 8836 – office@ctmparish.org.uk

I work all year round on 4 mornings a week, not Thursday, from about 09:00 to 13:00. My office is in the Parish Rooms next to the Rectory, with a view of the Rector’s garage.

I am the PCC Secretary and with that hat on I am also the PCC minute secretary, the Standing Committee minute secretary, APCM secretary & coordinator and Electoral Roll officer.

I am the administrator and treasurer for banns, weddings and funerals. I am usually the first port of call for funeral directors and often for wedding couples. I liaise with and invoice wedding couples and have just taken on holding the first face to face meeting with prospective wedding couples, hopefully only until the new Rector arrives. I book and coordinate all people needed for weddings and funerals and pay them as appropriate. Each quarter I pay the churches, the Parish and the Diocese their portion of the fees for banns, wedding and funerals and each year I attempt to balance the fees account and have to be bailed out by Richard Lonsdale who very kindly makes it all ok for me.

I maintain the diary for the Co-ordinating Group. This group meets monthly to ensure that all large, resource heavy events are flagged in good time for resourcing, publicity and graphics.

I lay out, produce and make up services booklets; permanent and one off specials, as required by the churches.

I maintain the parish database and produce the Parish Directory. I store the parish central filing.

I complete CRB & reference checks as required for our Sunday school leaders and our pastoral care teams.

For St Peter’s, I produce the monthly service booklet list which I took over from Dan on his departure, I put together the chalice assistant rota, I lay out hymns for printing and hold the “hymn bank”, which I inherited from Mary Tucker, and I produce posters for special events. This was something Dan also used to do.

I do lots of “one off” things: answering insurance questions, taking old papers to the Records Office, showing prospective brides round church, getting the phones reconnected in the Rectory (thank you Utility Warehouse), designing and making wedding booklets for prospective wedding couples, making a Safeguarding handbook, designing and making cards for Caversham Consolidated Charities.

And some regular things: in November I produce letters for all those we invite to our All Souls services (having kept a list during the year), in spring I order pastoral candles and palm crosses, each month I find out if any of the recently deceased should be on the anniversaries list and make sure that they get there and I get the banns information to the three churches for reading, each quarter I submit the marriage returns to Reading Borough Council and to Oxfordshire County Council.

During the school holidays I cover for Alex and work in Church House on 2 days a week, producing the three notice sheets, collating the Caversham Bridges, filling up the loo rolls and generally trying to keep all the plates spinning.

In my spare time I am doyenne of the online diary, mail merge queen & stapling supremo.

Beyond work I am a member of St Peter’s congregation and a server of 34 years standing. I am a Brownie and Rainbow Guider plus I do lots of administrative things in my Guiding District of Caversham. And sometimes I spend a little time at home where I love being in my garden.

Caroline Smith

The Gospel according to Delia Smith?

We’re all just muffins, really. What I mean by that is that it is not always easy to tell, by the look of us, what ingredients went in to us to make us who we are. Sometimes it seems obvious: a triple chocolate or a blueberry muffin is easy to spot; until, that is, you take a bite and what you taste does not match up to your expectation. Perhaps the flour was poor quality, or the eggs were off; what should have been a delight, turned into bitter disappointment. People are often, if not always, the same; judging from external appearances, then, is rather foolish and rash, because it doesn’t necessarily tell you about the ingredients that matter.

More than that, though, when our experience of someone is a bitter one, we are left with a choice: stay well away in future, or get to know what has made that person so. In Christ’s call to Do Unto Others &c., Christians are commanded to seek out the best potential in others, helping them thrive, whilst allowing others to do the same for them. This is one of the key witnesses of the church as God’s catalyst in the world: a group of people who seek to know one another beneath their bitter, bland, or fluffy exteriors, to celebrate what makes them each unique, whilst also striving to know what it is to be one in Christ, One Heavenly Muffin.

Graeme Fancourt

Fete – Caversham Court, Saturday 13 July 2013

After our first Spitfire flypast in 2011, people asked me whether we could get a Lancaster. A second Spitfire flypast in 2012 was very popular but still there was that question… ‘What about a Lancaster next year?’ Well, I had no idea what the chances were. But a few weeks ago I learned that the BBMF WILL this year perform a flypast by a Lancaster*, flanked by a Hurricane and a Spitfire! It will take place at 1.30pm, which is earlier than the fete usual starts so we hope to have all stalls and sideshows up and running by then.

The fete is a major fundraising event so please do whatever you can to help. There are flyers in the churches telling you what sort of things are needed for sale and who is collecting them. There is also much to do on the day – setting up begins at 8am, stalls will need to be manned throughout the afternoon, then clearing away will start at about 5pm. Please turn up when you can or speak to one of the organisers beforehand to find out how you can help.

In addition many of you have been sent draw tickets – please collect your envelopes from church (either St Peter’s or St Margaret’s) and sell as many as you can. Additional tickets can be obtained from Bridget Cumming-Bruce or Sue McQueen.

Let’s pray for a calm day and glorious blue skies – after 2012 we deserve it!

* Actually THE Lancaster!

Nigel Smith, Chairman, Caversham Church Fete

Other editions of this newsletter can be found at the archive page