Connect Team Minutes - 2005-03-07

Connect Mission Team

March 7, 2005 Meeting

Minutes

Present: Laura Barron, Sissy Caldwell, Marc Sherrod, Emily Anderson, Diane Constant, Kathleen Farnham & Steve Benz

Absent & Excused: Cynthia Freeman, James McTyre, Vickie Bell & Perry McCallen

Business:

Team priorities, understanding what Connection is to smaller churches in Presbytery, identifying and recruiting new members for the Connection team, planning the group breakouts by topics with facilitators for April Presbytery meeting.

Decisions:

1. To have 7 topics for Presbytery attendees to select their group to attend at the
beginning of the meeting. The topics are:
1) Stewardship facilitated by Sissy Caldwell and Bill Barron,
2)Youth programs for middle & high school ages facilitated by Chip(Emily),
Jackie (Diane) and Jennifer Jarvis
3) Congregational Care programs (stephens ministry, Parrish nurse, etc)Emily,
Julie Hinaman (SP) ( Marc Sherrod) and Lana Daverman (Laura),
4) Mission Trips facilitated by Steve Music, Sharon White and Chuck Sternberg
5) Hispanic Congregations facilitated by Wayne Freeman and Ed Umbach (Steve)
6 ) Spiritual Renewal and Growth facilitated by Laura Barron & Chris Carrasco

7) COM facilitated by Emily Anderson and ?

2. All team members are responsible for contacting facilitators that could help answer questions in the 45 minutes group breakouts. A list of questions will be prepared and emailed to us by Sissy Caldwell prior to the April 5 PET meeting. The point is to get the different church representatives talking to each other and connecting not to have presentations by the facilitators. The facilitators need to meet with the Connect team at 2:00 p.m. on April 5^th at Eastminster in Knoxville for explanation of how the small group breakouts will work and what information we need them to return to Connect. The small groups will meet from 3:00 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. and then we will convene in the main sanctuary for the rest of the PET agenda with a hot meal provided by Eastminster.

3. Steve is to ask Eastminster to limit PET entrances to two and have tables with Eastminster hosts to give a list of topics, provide directions to topic room locations and refer to a floor plan of the church.

4. Team decided it is critical to create a contact information list of all churches in the Presbytery. A simple form would be created in the PET office and mailed to church offices or pastors to complete and return. The compiled data would be provided at Presbytery meetings for each church to pick up on an ongoing basis. We developed a total list of areas/programs and provided it to Steve for the office to move forward. It should also be announced at Presbytery April 5 meeting as a critical first step to help churches connect and we need all their help in providing the information in a timely way. The survey will go out with a cover letter from the Connect team.

5. We identified from the PET provided lists of interested members, Laura is to contact Walter Mencer from Emmanuel, Steve will contact Linda Whitehead, Kathleen will contact Ann Slagle and Marc will contact Molly Garnett and get back with Laura Barron on their acceptance.

6. Diane Constant is also involved with the Visiting Teams for Equip. We asked that before these teams contact congregations with their survey please let Connect have some input. We want to be able to add the questions we need input from Congregations to be successful. We also are concerned with not having our act together from all the teams so the survey is comprehensive and we don’t have to go back again to them team by team.

Some of the Questions we discussed were:

• What can we do to make you feel a part of Presbytery?
  
  
• What can we do to help you? Give us specific examples of the help you want
  
  
• How do you want Presbytery to communicate with you? Email, fax, mail, answering machine
  
  
• Please provide us a key lay person for us to connect with as well as the pastor.
  
  

7. Team decided to ask Perry McCallen if he would be the coordinator for the June PET Connecting Event at Fairfield Glade with Emily Anderson agreeing to work on the committee. Perry declined but will work on committee and we are currently looking for a coordinator.

Next three meetings of Connect, please add to your calendars. We need everyone these next few months to get our work going.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 from 12:30 p.m.*. to 3 p.m. at Eastminster in Knoxville.
(prior to Presbytery meeting at 3 p.m.) Time change to earlier

Sunday, May 22, 2005 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian in Cleveland, TN
(immediately following Presbytery meeting for only 1 hour)

We may have to have a called meeting to plan the Connection Event unless someone has a strong coordinator they could recruit. I cannot take this one; I will be on a Westminster Mission trip to the Dominican Republic June 18-26.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 Connection Event at Fairfield Glade and Presbytery meeting

We all will be needed to work this event and take responsibilities
for it to make it successful…only a short debrief at 6 p.m.,
no formal meeting.