Volunteer Participation Group

May 15

Present: Dave Allen, Chris Dow, Elinor Redmond, Elsa Peters

Chris read two poems by Mary Oliver to open the meeting.

Elinor suggested a purpose statement: To study the process of congregational involvement in volunteer opportunities in order to create a structure that increases participation.

Elsa asked for a ‘history’ of our group: it formed out of concern expressed at the April Spiritual Life and Worship meeting that the new Governance structure, while working, has not attracted a large number of new volunteers. Elinor had worked with the lists with the Participation Opportunities forms; Dave and Chris represented the Council at that meeting.

Elinor described her interest in the forms. If rose out of the realization that people had signed up as interested in volunteering with Wayside and she and Tracy did not have a list. She then worked with Barbara to distribute lists for all interest groups to the groups involved.

Further points:
· The Church needs a document describing each group and what it does. It could be printed and available on bulletin boards, in the office. It could be accessible from the web-site. Each group could write its own description.
· The survey itself could be electronic as well as print.
· Ways to solicit volunteers in addition to the survey: coffee hour, telephone. Many groups solicit their own volunteers.
· Does Church Windows export to Excel?
· Find out who has not filled out forms and encourage these people to fill out a form.
· Homecoming lists should go into the database.

We discussed having a specific group for stewarding volunteerism. One idea would be to have a rep from each team involved so there is a strong connection/communication.

Elsa miraculously printed a master list of all signups for the groups. Wow!