Cause to Pause

This past Tuesday was our second month of going “paperless” for our monthly Elder meeting. Let’s put that in perspective: As a denominational church with history and structure, our normal “docket” included:

• Agenda
• Membership Report
• Minutes of the previous month’s meeting
• Minutes from all six leadership commissions (Education, Missions, Stewardship, etc.)
• Minutes from the Council meeting of all six chairs
• Minutes from the Deacon’s meeting
• Minutes from the Sanctuary Guild
• Minutes from a few smaller committees
• Various other correspondence
• Closing devotional and worship

Total packet would be between 20-30 pages – or basically one ream of paper each month, plus a lot of time spent organizing and stuffing folders.
For years we have been emailing the information out prior with limited success. There were still several volunteer leaders who “brought copies” of their minutes at the last minute. With everyone having full copies of the minutes in front of them, and their focus being the table directly in front of them, it became a type of “story time” with each person reading their report. Needless to say, this made for some long meetings.

Solution: Paperless

So here’s what we did:

1. Created a private channel on our website. Login is tied to their member login and participation in the Church Leadership>Session activity group set up in AccessACS. As soon as someone is added to this group, their current login allows them to see this channel: 
      
   We have been putting reports online for a while getting leadership used to looking here. Minutes are still available to the congregation at large by contacting the church office, just not online. ‘Cause when it comes to visitors, nothing says “”love of Jesus” like committee meeting minutes.
2. Put minutes submission templates on this page (see right side of image). Submission is accepted via two formats. An MS Word template for download and an online form.
3. When minutes are submitted to Staff, they are added to one content block or “page” for each month. (see above)
4. Run the meeting completely from a projector.

Meeting result

1. Minutes submitted more timely. If the office doesn’t get them in time to be online, there is no backup plan.
2. No more “story time”. When it came time for each department’s report, it was either “My report is up there, that pretty much says it all.” or “My minutes are up there, I just want to highlight a couple items.”
3. Speed. Only the items that need to be addressed are given air time and not because of a mandate by the Moderator.
4. Efficiency. Those items that are discussed get sufficient attention and brains aren’t already fogged over.
5. Each month’s agenda is built as the month progresses. Instead of springing all the info at once, leaders can view the page (or RSS it) and have access to meeting minutes as they take place. They can view and comment directly from their browser.

For the last two months, it has made these meetings remarkably smooth. Next stop: Annual Budget process via wiki.

Got an email from one of the attendees of the #flcitrt yesterday morning that his position was being eliminated. Another victim of the budget.
Jeff McNeil, lives in the FL. Lauderdale area. Bachelors in Engineering, Masters in Marriage and Family therapy.
He was (and will be until Feb.) the Facility Manager at Christ Church, United Methodist in Ft. Lauderdale.
He could use some prayers and job leads. If you know of anything his email is:
jmcneil at echristchurch dot org
twitter him at jeffreymcneil.
I give the guy credit, this didn’t rattle his faith. Talking to him about it was a pleasure.