Growth Group

Meeting Minutes of 10/4/10

Members present: Rick Angell, Elinor Redmond, Sue Ross, Dave Allen, John McCall. We send our apologies to Stan for needing to schedule the meeting without him. Every member is important and we look forward to seeing him at the next meeting.

Dave will ask different members to provide the opening for each meeting. He opened the meeting with a prayer.

Dave sent out the following documents before the meeting: Growth Group Ideas (a table listing activities spotlighted at the last meeting), Friendship Sunday Ideas, and 2 versions of the Welcome brochure. We followed the Growth Group Ideas table along with the meeting agenda.

1. Friendship Sunday: John said we have not had a designated ‘Bring a friend to church Sunday’ in 3 years. We need several rounds of notice in the Beacon and a postcard as a tangible reminder for people to take with them from worship. We agreed to go ahead with planning for Sunday, November 21st. Tasks were divided as follows:
• Rick will announce the event during a hospitality moment on Sunday, Nov. 7
• Elinor will create a written invitation (postcard) for people to mail to a friend.
• Elinor will write the Beacon article
• Sue will talk with EF&G about the Growth Group’s hosting the coffee hour.
• John will plan the sermon with a theme around friendship/making people feel welcome. He may include a way for the congregation to actively participate in the service.
• Mandy Shumaker will be giving the children’s story. Dave will ask her to use a friendship theme.
• John will call Robin invite if the Joyful Noise to sing.
• Sue will talk with Elsa about having the Sunday School groups make posters for the church

2. Invitation to Worship in Thanksgiving baskets: Dave will contact missions and he will create the invitation.

3. Article for Beacon on hospitality: Elinor is working on it.

4. Verbal invitation to groups using building: John will contact AA and Al Anon to ask whether there is a time to visit them with the invitation.

5. Handwritten notes for newcomers: These notes would be mailed to first-time guests. They would be identified by their names on the friendship pads. We focused on process. If we have a generic note, does it matter if the address is in different handwriting? We discussed enrolling a group to write the notes. The church would supply paper, stamps and the text for the note. Rick will talk with Darla about whether the Prayer Shawl group would be willing to take on this project.

6. Bookmark: Dave will work on the bookmark. ‘Keep it simple’

7. Ushers: Rick has scheduled a meeting for Sunday, November 7th. Topics include demeanor, posting (where ushers stand), seating particularly welcoming people near newcomers. Rick wants to provide a handout to remind ushers of the points discussed. Sue suggested keeping a copy with the carnations. Also, Rick will e-mail the points to each team on the week of its turn.

8. Welcome Brochure: We looked at the 2 versions of the brochure. We did not have the most recent version from our group and Elsa had based her version on the ‘older’ text provided. We agreed we need to have the Mission segment inside the brochure. John will work on the Open and Affirming text. He wants it to more precisely follow the wording voted upon by the congregation. The group preferred using the more traditional headings (‘worship’, ‘music’, etc.). We decided to keep it simple and not use any photos. The UCC was formed in 1957. Dave will work with Bryan Wiggins to bring together the ideas.

9. Church Signage: Dave is working with the A-Team.

10. Building Tours: Rick will give tours to new people as requested.

11. Hospitality Moments: Dave had prepared a list of ideas for hospitality moments. He will speak on October 17th and ask the congregation what Hospitality means to them. Rick will be providing the moment on Nov. 7th when he announces Friendship Sunday. We hope Stan will agree to appear in December.

Next meeting: Monday, November 8th.

Respectfully submitted,
Elinor Redmond

Agenda items for next meeting:
Friendship Sunday
Welcome brochure
Walk down ‘Growth Group Ideas’
Elinor will do the opening