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Draft Minutes of
the Church Council Meeting |
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On: |
At: St Marc’s Church Centre |
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Present : |
Stephen
Coffin (chaplain), Craig Alciati, Elizabeth Cherhal (deputy secretary), Lara
Confort (churchwarden), Alison Coulavin (synod rep), Claire Naylor, Segun
Odunlade, Richard Sheppard (treasurer) |
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Absent : |
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Excused : |
David
Bailey, Alan and Valerie Golton, Mark Lewis, Troy Simoni |
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Agenda: |
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43. |
Prayer
& apologies (please
notify Chaplain) (2 min. -
Standing Item) |
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44. |
Approval
of minutes of last meeting and any matters arising (3 min. -
Standing Item) |
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45. |
Treasurer's
report (3 min. -
Standing Item) |
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46. |
Committee
reports 46a – confirm church donation to bona fide organisation.(follow
on from item 32a) 46b - No other committee reports. (4 min. -
Standing Item) |
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47. |
Define
maximum yearly amount above which church investments are considered to be
major investments. (4min. -
follow on from postponed item 19 & item 34) |
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48. |
Additional
service - questionnaire feedback and resolution
of times & dates (28 min.
- proposed by Chaplain - follow on from items 4a, 21,33) |
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49. |
Review
of past & future events 49a - Church Away Weekend evaluation and
assessment (proposed by Elisabeth - follow on from
postponed items 25a,38a) 49b – No other Events (5 min. -
Standing Item) |
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50. |
Church
project(s) –
nothing up for discussion (0 min. -
Standing Item) |
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51. |
Church
Web Site – The
church web site is “on the blink” again. How to
proceed with the domain name & web space? (6 min –
proposed by Chaplain) |
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52. |
Editorial
Committee for Church Magazine, “St Marc's Matters”. (6
minutes - follow on from postponed item 22 & item 35) |
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53. |
Church
Committees
(Evangelism; Events; Music; Social/catering; Building; Finance) Would you
please volunteer for the committee you would prefer to join or create? (10 min.
- Follow on from item 7 & postponed items 20 & 40) |
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54. |
Any
other matters 54a - Church Video Projector - Practical
questions(proposed by Secretary) 54b - Church Publicity Material – Logos
& Tee-Shirts…(proposed by Alison) 54c - Making Birthday’s Special – choose
a hymn (proposed by Alison) 54d – Programming the next meetings
(proposed by Secretary). (10 min.
- Standing Item) |
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55. |
Closing
Prayer (Time as
needed. - Standing Item) |
Meeting
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44. |
Approval
of minutes of last meeting and any matters arising The
minutes of the last meeting were adopted unanimously. |
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45. |
Treasurer's
report The treasurer
does not consider that it is urgent to give a report to the congregation at the time
being. Church finances are relatively stable. Donations and money from pecusa
(?) are coming in. However, the SMIG has been raised in France, and an
increase in the chaplains’s salary should be considered. Social security
payments have increased (will increase?) by 2.5% this year. The treasurer has
been invited to attend the annual meeting of “cavimac” (social security
system for clergy). This is unanimously approved. |
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46. |
Committee
reports 46a – confirm church donation to
Emmanuel College (John Lenton) or to another bona fide organisation.(follow on
from item 32a). A sum of 700E was agreed, which could either
go toward financing part of a sholarship, or buying 2 washing machines. The council
voted for the purchase of 2 washing machines. |
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47. |
Define
maximum yearly amount above which church investments are considered to be
major investments. The
amount was fixed at 300E. |
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48. |
Additional
service As suggested
by the chaplain, due to the absence of many councillors, no decision should
be made, but discussion should take place in a prayerful and loving atmosphere,
to further new ideas following the questionnaire feedback. (chaplains’s
report below) - questionnaire feedback and resolution
of times & dates Questionnaires: 41 returned, plus 2 e-mails (some are from
couples filling in only one form) (Where numbers don't add up to the full number it's because people did
not answer the question.) Would you support the proposal to have a 2nd service even if you
wouldn't attend? 29 yes 12 no Would you attend this kind of contemporary service instead of the
current services? 1 regularly 16 sometimes 14
no or in addition to the current services? 1
regularly 19 sometimes 15 no Would you like to attend a different service on different weeks?
25 yes 16 no Do you have friends or contacts you would invite to such a
service? 16 yes 25 no Do they have children for whom we'd need to make provision?
10 yes 29 no Would you appreciate "Holy Communion" weekly if
possible? 10 yes 30 don't mind Option of running services one after the other with a coffee break
between. Would you welcome any of these options? 24 A
14 B 21 C 12 D 7 E 12 F Would any encourage friends to
come? 16 A
9 B 7 C 4 D 2
E 5 F Would any stop you
coming?
2 A 2 B 6
C 6 D 8 E 10 F Would you welcome meeting with people from both services over
coffee? 37 yes 1 no Would you worship at one service and help at the
other? 21 yes 8
no 4 sometimes We could offer the new service at a completely different time. Saturday evening 8 yes (5
of whom might bring guests) Sunday afternoon 4 yes (2
of whom might bring guests) Sunday evening 21 yes (18
of whom might bring guests) 1=5pm; 3=6pm; 1=6to6.30pm; 2=6to7pm; 1=6to8pm; 1=6.30pm;
1=6.30to7pm; 1=8.30pm; 1=after6pm No other times/days were suggested How about holding "seeker-sensitive" on Sunday & one for
more mature Christians at another time? 20
against 7 pro Running services in parallel Would you positively like this sort of pattern? 16
yes 22 no Would you tolerate this pattern if
implemented? 10
no Would this encourage your non-Church going friends to come? 15
yes Would you move from one service to the other at 11.15 or
11.50? 5 yes We'd need to use two different rooms. Any comments? 13
against using "grand volume" Would you help sometimes at either service with Children's
work
5 at contemporary service 14 at
current service Setting up & other tasks 14 at
contemporary service 19 at current service Church meals Would you help with this if we continued with it on 1st
Sundays? 19 yes Importance of midweek meetings - 12 commented in
agreement with these being important How would you feel about stopping the family service, since our
children don't like it & we lack gifted people to lead it? 2 avoid this service; 3 want
it stopped; 4 are happy for it to stop; 2
defer to those with children; 8 want it to continue; 2 suggest
replacing it with a monthly contemporary service; 4 enjoy it
but are willing for it to stop; 3 want it at least occasionally; 3
suggest looking at the format afresh, with more participation,
testimony, groups, etc. Important to underline that the biggest concern expressed by doubters
or those against was that we might split the Church. Several expressed that they value our diversity and the unity we have
sought to maintain within that. Council deliberations Given the survey results, it seems there is yet no clear consensus in
favour of any particular changed pattern for Sunday mornings. The most
popular "one service following the other" pattern A with
a 9h30 start will not be possible because it would clash with both Reformed
& Catholic services, and the Centre has made known that this will not be
acceptable. The Centre President has expressed strong reservations
about our overlapping at all with the others, which option C would
also require. Objections to using the Grand Volume for a parallel service are
strong, which would make this option difficult. The option of offering a Sunday evening contemporary service in
addition drew the most positive indications of this being attractive to
outsiders (18), and was welcomed by 21 people. The Council concluded that we should try to investigate this Sunday
evening option further. Stephen was asked to prepare a follow-up set of
questions about this option, including practical issues about feeding
children, etc., including encouraging those without children to consider what
times they would support if it helped those with. He was also asked to
solicit more questionnaire replies. Stephen was also mandated to work on specific plans for the first
services, with those who'd like to help him, with a view to having some
outlines ready for the September meeting, when we will discuss further and
decide the best way forward. |
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49. |
Review
of past & future events 49a - Church Away Weekend evaluation
and assessment It transpires from return of questionnaires
and general discussion that:
49b – Men’s supper:
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50. |
Church
project(s) – We
are still awaiting news about Cécile Forestini’s house. |
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51. |
Church
Web Site – The
church web site is “on the blink” again. How to
proceed with the domain name & web space? After a
short period during which we had managed to get the church domain name “grenoble-church.org”
back pointing to the proper St Marc’s content (actually on Stephen’s personal
“wanadoo” pages), the name was purchased again by John Sanders who has it
pointing to content having nothing to do with St Marc’s church. It seems we
have to give up the name “grenoble-church.org” and secure ourselves another
one. It was
explained that a .com domain name was not a good idea, because .com is for
business and we do not want give the (misguided) impression that we do
business. It was decided not only to obtain a new name (such as grenoblechurch,
or church-grenoble), to clearly specify that the name belongs to the church
association,that the conctact person is the chaplain, but also to set up a
website with a good amount of disk space. Craig Alciati and Elizabeth Cherhal
are mandated to deal with this. |
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52. |
Editorial
Committee for Church Magazine, “St Marc's Matters”. Alison
reported that Suzanne Ware and Elizabeth Cherhal have agreed to work on the
editorial committee for the church magazine. A contact has also been made
with Sam Hughes (by profession a journalist), who should also be able to give
sound advice. Elizabeth
suggested that a member of the clergy should be consulted for general orientation.
It was decided that the committee could seek advice from Stephen or Alan when
needed. The committee should meet twice a term, once for planning the coming
issue and once for editing it. |
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54. |
Any
other matters 54a - Church Video Projector -
Practical questions The video projector has now been purchased. 54b - Church Publicity Material –
Logos & Tee-Shirts… Alison proposed to make some publicity
material for the church. 3 supports were suggested: T shirts (portraying the
church logo), address labels (such as many charities propose), and postcards
(portraying one of the quilts). Some reticence was expressed about T shirts.
It was thought that they might not be much of a success with teenagers. The
other items were thought to be interesting, and Craig (postcards) and
Elizabeth (T shirts) are to make enquiries about prices. 54c - Making Birthday’s Special –
choose a hymn. This idea, proposed by Alison, was that a person could choose their
favorite hymn to be sung on their birthday. This idea was rejected, mainly on
the grounds that hymns were chosen to go with the content of the service. 54d – Programming the next meetings
(proposed by Secretary). The next meeting is to be held on the
September 8th at 20:00 in St
Marc’s. |