Leadership Retreat

On Saturday the 14th the Vestry held a "retreat" at the church to discuss longer-range plans. (When the idea was initially raised we'd considered a weekend retreat away, but doing this early in the year is very difficult for the Senior Warden who is traveling a lot that time of year, with other pressing business at home.) With the impending Annual Parish Meeting the Vestry decided to add on a meeting, producing the following schedule:

10:00 Matins
10:30 Morning Session, Outreach & Programs
12:00 Lunch Break
1:00 Afternoon Session, Building & Grounds
2:00 January Vestry Meeting
3:00 Evensong

This was a good exercise, because we now have a good idea of how much time it will take to get through a full agenda.
Fr. Daniel led off with an interesting discussion of a flyer he had put together: "What does it mean to be a Christian within the Anglican tradition?", with a number of elements as follows: Anglicans are...
...catholic and apostolic
...reformed
...evangelical
...sacramental
...scriptural
...spiritual
(and concluding) Do you know any of these famous Anglicans?

For Outreach & Programs we had 18 items on the agenda, but only touched on about 6 and fully discussed only 3. For example, we discussed "Hospital Visitation" (our Deacon volunteers at the VA hospital) but noted also visiting the sick, widows, the elderly, and prisoners (one of our group helps out with Kairos Prison Ministries). All worthy programs, but some training will be required. A number of people were taking notes for the future.

Buildings & Grounds featured the initial presentation of a 5 year plan to improve the appearance of the property. It was one thing when our property was well out in the country, but the developments that have gone up around us have changed all that. It's an ambitious project, but broken down into sections it will become more manageable.

One interesting item was the discussion of adding a cupola. Some members had wanted one back when the church building was being designed back in 1985, but there was simply no money for one. It's a pretty low-priority item, but 20 years later it's back on the the table. Sadly, one of the strongest proponents for the cupola back then died in 1990 with her young daughter in a terrible car accident, but it was (informally) decided that if we erected one, it would be to their memory.

In the Vestry meeting we discussed having a longer retreat away and determined that mid-August would be a much better time (at least for the Senior Warden).