Jen Jow writes,
Quarterly update from chapter meetings held in April, May, and June. If you are interested in comprehensive chapter minutes it is available by request at the front office.
HIGHLIGHTS
• The big take away in April’s meeting is chapter approved a “Safe Church Policy” which St Paul’s has never had before. The policy is very straight forward and provides the cathedral a guideline to follow. Many months and hours were dedicated to this project by several chapter members and Dean Penny. Details of this policy is available by request at the front office.
• Lay delegates to the Convention of Episcopal Diocese of San Diego in November,2017 (alphabetical order): Elizabeth Carey, Lisa Churchill, Susan Hubert, Mark Lester, Auggie Matt, Marshall Moore, Joan Reese. Alternates: Rob Donaldson, Bill Eadie, Vicki Hppenrath, Jen Jow, Susan Mcclure, Mark Patzman, John Will
• Update on Cathedral Campus Redevelopment Project (CCRP) by Dean’s Warden Mark Lester.
• New Audio Visual Equipment: Have you seen the new giant monitors located in the Great Hall? With the new equipment we can live stream and if events or services overflow we can seat people in the Great Hall and they can view/hear what is happening in the cathedral. The sound quality of PA system has greatly improved too.
• Relaunch of the Peace & Justice Ministry : email address peacejust@stpaulcathedral.org where people can send ideas for peace and justice-oriented activities. Marshall Moore is chair of this ministry and will monitor the email address and bring possible items to the attention of executive staff for consideration. See blog for more information
Quarterly Chapter Key points and updates was presented in staff reports.
Kathleen Burgess – Director of Adminstrative and Operations
➢ Security Grant: Environmental & Historic Preservation (EHP) document that was being reviewed by FEMA for our security Grant was final approved. The caveat came with special conditions, the sub-recipient will install all equipment so its installation does not damage or cause the removal of character-defining architectural features and can be easily removed in the future.
➢ ACS & Shelby (Church Software): Decided to go with a combination of two different company’s offerings, ACS Technology’s Realm for our membership and facilities management needs and Shelby Next Financials for financial products. Conversion will be in a few weeks.
➢ AUDIO Visual Project: The sextons, Bob and I have had some basic training on the new audio and visual system installed in the Great Hall. Thank you to volunteer Todd.
➢ Cathedral Floors: once the paperwork with the insurance company is settled (thank you to chancellor Andrew Brooks for looking over the documents), we will receive the funds from the insurance company and can begin the work of repairing the floors in the cathedral.
Jeff Martinhauk – Director of Congregational Life
➢ Easter Appeal : for the first time in recent history to all active household on record. We had soft numbers and the response was not encouraging, Easter Plate was soft too.
➢ Legacy Dinner planned for June 3 in the Great Hall. Invitations and cultivating new members (10 new to date) to the legacy society.
➢ CAT Scan Launched: Takes temperature of the overall health and vitality of the congregation, discovers where members would like to go in the future an identifies the critical success factors for improving organizational climates. This scan was done a few years back and it’s time again to take another pulse check. Overall data will be sorted and delivered in a diagnostic format for the staff and People’s Warden to review and evaluate sometime the first week of July.
➢ Cathedral Life and enews redesign launched in May.
➢ KPBS: 2 ad runs completed/ 2 more to run ( 1 in fall, 1 right before Advent)
➢ Greeters at 10:30am are now using a new scheduling (Ministry Scheduler Pro) which allows automated scheduling, replacements, and reminders. Also, gives me/cathedral visibility into how volunteers are being utilized, possibly migrate this tool to other ministries. Recruited 4 new greeters and need 3-4 more volunteers to have a good pool (allows for rotation).
➢ Pride planning: Off to a great start and plan to partner with Diocese this year and trying to include other parishes in the planning as much as possible. Not going to have a booth at the festival this year and try something new to by celebrating Pride at the cathedral. Plan to have a DJ , dancing, and other “fun’ stuff to catch people on their wary from the parade to the festival and let them know that St Paul’s welcomes them. Next meeting June 14 @6:00pm at the cathedral.
David Tremaine – Director of Outreach and Formation
➢ Outreach: St. Paul’s was again represented in the annual Earth Fair in Balboa park with a table sponsored by C4CC in collaboration with Simpler Living. Phil Petrie and Simpler living worked with the C4CC and the communications to come up with a clear message about our mission as it pertains to creation care. See photos.
➢ Showers of Blessings: Celebrated its 2-year ministry anniversary by providing showers to 23 people, haircuts to 16 people and breakfast to 85 people, totally 105 plates of food. We have also spent the month of April continuing to collect clothing for distribution at showers of blessings and had several large donations which have helped keep our clothing supply well stocked.
➢ Formation: Lenten Book Discussion and weekly small group discussions. Overall, the turnout was very good (about 70 people per week), the group was positive and we were able to create a space where people could enter into deep and meaningful dialogue across faith boundaries. It was a joy to put together and a blessing to be a part of every week. In the summer I hope to continue that dialogue in some way, and work with our faith neighbors to continue to build on the foundation of fellowship which we developed in the last couple of months.
➢ May and June Forum series: Simpler Living on Creation Care and Earth Stewardship, focusing specifically on solutions to Climate Change. Peace and Violence in our culture and our faith.
➢ Children, Youth and Families: Podcast, the “Faith To Go” for parents to engage children of all ages in faith discussion at home, so far it is running relatively smoothly. Posted opening for a Director of CYF position which we are hoping to fill soon, is vital for the life of our community as a whole and especially for the life of the CYF community and the youth group.
Betsy Monsell, Finance Committee
➢ Cash position is very good for this time of year – staying in the black.
➢ Working with Kathleen Burgess to evaluate SDGE bill and identify where we could save more dollars during peak time usage. She has already reached out to SDGE and will have more details at next meeting.
Brooks Mason, Director of Liturgy and Music – nothing new to report
Dean Penny Bridges
➢ A full accounting of much of the action mentioned above. Additionally, Chris Wells has passed away and a memorial service was held at the cathedral at the end of May.
➢ Delighted to receive from Joanne Roberts a box of historic materials pertaining to the cathedral: news clippings, programs, and photographs of St. Paul’s activities in the 1940’s to 1970’s. Her parents were very active at St. Paul’s. She even had an old church sign which is now, along with the papers, in our archives office.
➢ Attended planning meetings at the LGBT Center for the San Diego March for Equality on June 11. Wayne Blizzard will be taking this over from me, but I have been the only faith leader present at the first two meetings, and it’s significant that Pride and the Center, the co-hosts, are including the faith community. St. Paul’s will be a sponsoring organization. This doesn’t carry any financial responsibility but we will recruit marchers.
June 11, Equality March: Clergy and parishioners had a procession from the cathedral to the starting point at Sixth and Juniper. I was called to officiate a blessing at the starting point prior to the event march. More pictures on our Flickr page.
