A Clear Direction From The Church-Wide Planning Meeting

Our Church-Wide Planning Meeting held last Saturday, the 27th of September was a success in terms of comming up with clear parish priorities for the next two to three years.  Those who attended were asked to place sticker dots beside the items they thought were priorites.  (See the results below).  Then a discussion took place in terms of how we might achieve the goals and primary objective we identified.

The first list below shows how people voted with their dots - the higher the number the higher the priority.  Then below are the notes, taken by Raili,  that detail our discussion.

Congregational development - 25

Increased communication - 12

Church exterior/ visibility - 10

Nurturing our ministries - 9

Development of church property - 9

Ideas:
- we need to communicate to nurture people - need one on one and small group talks/ socializing / new events or reconfiguring old events / rebrand things/ (Open Mic, Rummage sale, craft fair), care for people in times of need, follow up after meeting new people and spending time with them
- change or redo service and offer new services
- educating people about what costs are i.e. for full time priest
- more lights needed outside building, cutting back foliage on 13th, signage at parking areas/ lot and Queen Mary as well and knowing you won't get towed
- choir could take on helping getting to know people on an individual's basis - interview and profile people and put and name tags 
- reach out to other people when we do events and let people know what we are doing!
- planned giving
- ID newcomers and make sure they get altar flowers
- continue with welcome table and greeters make a point of welcoming newcomers and invite them downstairs!
- make sure we get contact information from new people
- ID people who are not showing up and get in touch 
- get a schedule of churches activities that is visible and posted in lounge
so there is no surprises!
- curb appeal - keep front doors open on Sunday when it's warm enough
- illuminate signage outside and inside church at night 
- help Jean with front gardens 
- participate in community events i.e. Canada Day parade hand out flyers, invite community in more, Queen Mary's school blessing of our work together, have another blessing of animals 
- provide support to people with bible study, informal coffee and Christianity Cafe' on Saturday mornings, 
- exterior and interior - suggest chairs, not pews upstairs for more flexibility, Start a bottle drive to start saving money for big projects, continue working on memorial garden is great and it does have an impact, speed bumps on 8th, improve signage, especially on 13th

Question - How do we do stewardship to get the full time Priest?!
- write down financial info in weekly bulletin 
- need to say how much!
- talk about costs in bulletin (monthly) but change it up every once in a while, 
(Financial stories?!)
- share weekly and monthly contributions on website or do it quarterly in an envelope for people to read or letter from Wardens,  or have a sign up with a home based group that talks through financials
- tell people about other things we need in the church too (such as projects like new windows)
- share operating costs with people too - put a graph in bulletin to show what it would cost to have a full time priest and how we actually are doing towards this goal
- ask Patrick to give a stewardship sermon!