Mid January Update

We have had some technical difficulties getting everyone on the Team signed on to the Evaluation Team blog. I know how frustrating this can be to people, and hope this hurdle has not discouraged anyone. As we remind ourselves in the library, our digital environment is an infant technology requiring a great deal of patience. Thanks for hanging in there with this effort.

Since we have not been able to settle upon a next Team meeting date, perhaps those of us who will be at the Presbytery Meeting Saturday 26 January at Deerhurst can chat, bring one another up to date, and propose some possible next steps for the Team.

I'll handle the questionnaires at this Presbytery Meeting, and would love to have any extra available hands.

Rejoining Team

As I told John, I am going to be leaving my position as Pastor of Island Presbyterian Church. After more than 10 years, it is time. My last Sunday will be Feb. 10, then my husband and I are going away on vacation for 2 weeks. I plan to begin active participation in the Evaluation Team after I return on March 1. I am going to be taking some time to care of some family needs and responsibilities for at least 6 months, so I should be able to be an active participant on the team even though my commitment to the Search Team for the Director of Discipleship and Spiritual Nurture is ongoing. I plan to check in on the blog conversation until I rejoin you in March.

Diane

Evaluation of the Transition Process

While we were in the midst of developing our current plan and structure for the presbytery, I was serving on General Council. I agreed to participate with a group completing an evaluation of Tim Rogers Martin's work about a year and a half into the 3 year contract. I suggested to the group Assigned to work on this that we needed to evaluate our own work (particularly the Council) as well as that of TRM. I think we did a good piece of work that got approved and shelved by the General Council. The report we produced actually had some action steps for the Council. I just came across the report while purging my office of unneeded paper. I think we might have a look at the report. As John discovered, we cannot attach documents here on the blog, so I am going to send it out as an e-mail to everyone.

It may be of value, maybe not.

LIstening Sessions

Responding to Cathy's blog tonight: I have wondered if we should, as a team and by assignment, take on the task of visiting each congregation in our area to "listen". An offer to do that, and not to sit in a session meeting as an evaluator or any other visitor from afar, might open some important avenues. From my own experience in Jamestown, I doubt that winds of change, which I feel flowing freshly in the Presbytery, are soothing the foreheads of many in the congregations. Lots of time would be required (and probably the whole next year, at least) and perhaps not the best use of our time, but it occurs to me.
Dick R.

Attendance Tracking

I was just reading John's thinking about trends in Pby WNY and across the country and thinking about his interest in tracking attendance at meetings of every sort -- presbytery, council, committee, etc. It seems like we ought to be able to craft some sort of electronic way to track people. Online signing in, swipe cards, text messaging, twitter, something that takes advantage of our ability to instantly communicate and feed into some kind of data sorting mechanism. It would require someoneto look at and interpret the data, but it should not be that hard to collect.

On another note, something I have given a bit of thought to as we think about a report to the presbytery on meeting our mission goals and priorities, is that we need to do another round of listening sessions. Whether people felt listened to or not, the listening sessions have been talked about since they happened and they were a way that we got in the door and heard something from most of the congregations in the presbytery. We could ask questions that were far more open ended with a few that were yes or no and/or multiple choice. We could gather quantitative and qualitative information to then use as a way to mark progress toward goals and priorities.

Cathy

Happy New Year & Things To Do

Well, it is 1 January 2008 and I wish everyone a year of joy and adventure.

A couple of things I'd like to jump on ASAP:

Can we agree to pass along the Comments section of the December Presbytery Meeting Questionnaire as before? That is, to Rex with copies to Bronwen and Lance, with the encouragement to share these with the Presbytery? If I don't hear any objections in the next couple of days I will do this in time for the Council Meeting.

I think DickC's notion that the next questionnaire (for January Presbytery Meeting) should be the same is fine, but we did get a suggestion to ask about Saturday Presbytery Meetings in the comments section from December and this will be our last chance for a while to ask about this. Let me suggest that the questionnaire remain unchanged except for the addition of a true/false question, "It is only because this meeting was on a Saturday that I was able to attend."

DickR's list of items to focus on is a good one. Let's keep plugging away at those.

Finally, could we meet next on Monday 21 January, 5- 7 PM? I have this day off of work and so could make a 5 pm meeting.

A great year to you all.
John.