Church Council
From the Council President
By the time you read this, the Church Council will have met for its annual retreat. The retreat had two main areas of focus. First was providing all members of Council with a briefing on Rock Spring processes and procedures to lay the groundwork for a successful year. Second was beginning a discussion about the mission and vision of Rock Spring.
A sampling of the questions before our church includes: How do we define “benevolences” and how do we allocate those resources? How much should we rely on the Endowment to fund the operations of the church? How do we grow our membership, and inspire all members to give of their time and their treasure? None of these questions has an easy answer, and none stands alone. They are intertwined, and with limited time and financial resources, the answer to any one necessarily helps to define the answer to every other.
Over the coming year, we will continue to wrestle with these issues. Based on our conversation at the Council Retreat, we will be seeking input from all members of the congregation. I hope we will be able to clearly articulate a mission and vision for Rock Spring, and then make decisions that will allow us to achieve that vision.
Before we could get to the Council Retreat, however, there was the minor matter of a couple of blizzards. When I agreed to take on the job of Council President, I expected that there might be some “storms” to deal with over the course of the year. I did not, however, expect it to be quite so literal!
I can’t thank enough the Rock Springers who worked tirelessly to ensure that church could open on Feb. 14 . “My kingdom for a parking lot!” was a common refrain as it became painfully obvious that the streets around Rock Spring would not be cleared for parking. Instead, through a combination of fortuitous encounters, creative thinking and good old-fashioned hard work, a small group was able to develop and implement a remote parking and shuttle system that allowed us to worship together and enjoy Women’s Sunday. My thanks to everyone who contributed ideas, who worked to clear the bus from under its thick blanket of snow (and a fallen tree!), and who provided the “boots on the ground” to keep the system working smoothly. My thanks, too, to the congregation for their patience and good humor!
Thinking spring thoughts,
Ashley Martinage
*Updated on March 9th, 2010
Semi-Annual Report to the Congregation
On the Temporary Suspension of Portions of the Rock Spring Constitution
April 18, 2010
Background
At the January 2009 annual meeting, at the request of the Nominating Committee, the Rock Spring congregation voted to undertake a study to review how to better align the church’s structure with its volunteer resources. The initiative grew out of the challenges that Nominating Committees have faced in recent years to find enough willing volunteers to fill all of Rock Spring’s constitutionally mandated positions, and other jobs. Many boards operate at less-than-full strength, and also experience attrition where members quit their terms early, or do not actively participate. The initiative sought also to make volunteer service more spiritually rewarding and to find ways to integrate newcomers into the ministries of Rock Spring.
A four-member task force conducted a 12-week study that involved surveying Rock Spring boards and researching some models used by other churches. Its report, “Answering the Call: Strengthening Volunteerism,” and proposals were then reviewed by Church Council, each of the boards and posted on the church Website for review by the congregation. A series of listening sessions was held to receive input from the congregation.
At the October 2009 Budget Goals Meeting, the congregation voted to adopt a key proposal of the task force, suspending certain portions of the Constitution that relate to Board names, meeting requirements, number of members and terms of service for Board members.
Specific Changes
Most Boards reduced the number of members and/or the length of term for serving on the Board. (Previously all terms had been 3 years.) Specifically:
- Christian Education: Reduced from 12 members to 8 members; reduced to 2 year terms
- Church Council: Maintained 6 at-large members; reduced to 2 year terms
- Deacons: Reduced from 18 members to 12 members; maintained 3 year terms
- Finance: Reduced from 9 members to 6 members; reduced to 2 year terms
- Music: Reduced from 9 members to 6 members; reduced to 2 year terms
- Personnel: Reduced from 6 members to 4 members; maintained 3 year terms
- Social Action Board and Stewardship Board: Combined the 2 Boards into 1 “Board of Social Action and Mission” with 12 members (reduced from a combined total of 24); maintained 3 year terms
- Property: Reduced from 12 members to 9 members; maintained 3 year terms
Immediate Impact on the Nominating Process
For 2010, the Nominating Committee recruited for about 27 positions and, for the first time in recent memory, a full slate of nominees was able to be presented at the Annual Meeting. While this number represents a reduction from previous years, it is a bit artificially low. For 2011, if no changes are made, there will be at least 35 positions to fill.
Many challenges in nominating remain. The biggest hurdle is identifying volunteers. We continue to seek new and different ways to match people in the congregation to available jobs, and vice versa. There is some sense that the same people are recruited too often, while some people are never asked. One Board chair summed it up as, “Some feel pressured; others feel ignored. Some dread the face-to-face approach; others really want to join a Board but want to be approached face-to-face.” Several people, on both the Board side and the Nominating Committee side, noted that additional clarification about the nominating process is needed – who is doing the recruiting and who has final say over filling slots? Some Board chairs also noted that having new nominees identified earlier would help with planning for the coming year.
Impact on Boards
The biggest change was the combining of the Boards of Social Action and Stewardship. The response to this change from new Board of Social Action and Mission members has been very positive. The merger
is helping the Board (and thus the Congregation) to implement a more coherent approach to these two aspects of our outreach.
Other Boards report that downsizing (or as some put it, “right-sizing”) has worked well. Some say it has resulted in “more active/engaged” Board members, and has reflected realistic practices – many Boards felt they had previously been larger only on paper, and that the reduced size represents the true number of active members they have relied on for some time.
At this early stage, no major problems have been reported with the new structure. Several Boards are relying more heavily on non-Board volunteers. For some (eg, CE), this has long been the case; for others (eg, Finance and Deacons), this is a relatively new practice. Finance, for example, is recruiting counters from outside the Board (generally former Board members). Deacons has used this as an opportunity to involve many more people from the congregation in serving hospitality and serving as greeters.
One concern that has been raised is the impact of shorter Board terms on “institutional knowledge,” and the impact that higher-turnover will have on handling on-going responsibilities.
Next Steps
We are very fresh in this experiment. New Boards members were only confirmed in late January; at this point, most Boards have only met 2-3 times. In the coming months, it will be important to hear more from the Boards about how things are working, as well as to receive feedback from the congregation as to the service they feel they are getting from the Boards.
In addition, I believe that we will need to give further consideration to the larger recommendations of the Volunteer Study Task Force. The question in my mind is not “have we gone too far?” but rather, “Have we gone far enough?” The changes adopted by the congregation, while important, seem to be a bit of tinkering around the margins. As noted above, many of the reductions to Board sizes were simply reflective of reality (eg, Boards had many more members on paper than they had members actually involved in the work of the Board).
The larger issue of “Strengthening Volunteerism” remains to be engaged. How do we reach out to all in the Congregation to encourage a broader sharing of ministry? Boards are currently seeking ways to “creatively move beyond our core volunteers to incorporate short-time volunteer opportunities. This helps spread workload and better fits into people’s availability.” Moving in this direction would then beg the question of whether Boards remain too large or too numerous. Could we have fewer Boards directing the efforts of many more volunteers who commit to take on smaller tasks?
– Ashley Martinage, Church Council President
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