Education Growth and Fellowship

Meeting Minutes of January 7, 2010
Recorded by: Margaret Thibodeau

Team members attending: Ginny Gledhill, Karen Pierce, Jana Frank, Margaret Thibodeau, Elsa Peters

The meeting began with the approval of the December Minutes.

Richard Angell joined us as a representative of the Growth Group. He updated the Team on activities of his group, which is a subcommittee of EG&F working to create a welcoming atmosphere in the church, and endeavoring to enhance the growth of our congregation.

Our Team was asked to trim our budget for 2010. The Team agreed to make modest changes to line items which include Adult Education, Library, and Supplies and Equipment, in order to meet the revised church budget.

Team members shared updates regarding their respective subcommittees:
• Jana shared that Coffee Hour continues to get volunteers on the sign up sheets available at coffee hour. The Mission Team has offered to host the next two Sundays.
• Karen reported that the Library and Scholarship Committees are going along fine.
• Ginny shared that coverage in the Nursery has been adequate.
• The next Inquirer’s meeting is January 26th, and Margaret will be there to provide refreshments. New Members occurs on February 7th.

Elsa asked for questions regarding the Faith Formation Update. Concerns for Sunday School center around inspiring parents to assist with the Kindergarten class, and behavior concerns in Grade 3-4. Suggestions for these issues include having the Kindergarten teacher enlist a support parent for each Sunday, using a signup sheet. Ways to handle the behavior concerns include making sure teachers discuss classroom rules and behavior at the beginning of the semester (set expectations). If there is a problem, teachers should contact the parent. Students will be given a warning, and their parents notified. If issues continue, the parent will be asked to have the child join the parents in the regular church service. The Team reviewed the remaining Faith Formation activities. In reference to our prior discussions regarding the children’s offering and Communion Sunday, it was decided that a special offering would be collected during the Children’s Sermon starting in Lent. The Team will focus on planning for the Communion Sunday Kids Worship for the fall of 2010.

Margaret shared the YM update sent by Aaron French.

The team should be thinking about ways to enlist new members.

Our next meeting is Thursday, Feb. 4 @ 7:00 p.m.