We will have a list of members of Synod Council here shortly.  The list will have contact phone and email as well as the parish connection.

Synod Council Sub-Committee Meets on Communications Issues

On March the 8^th at 2pm a small group of people from Synod Council got together to discuss how we, as a church could improve how we communicate with each other.  

At our last Synod Bishop George charged us with seriously looking at how we will continue to provide ministry in this diocese into the future.  Communications was one of several issues prioritized by several meeting held across the diocese after our Synod meeting, to discuss the Bishop's initiative.  The sub-committee worked hard with some of the ides and concerns that were put forward at those meetings, to try to find concrete and usable suggestions .

But the members didn’t get in their car and drive for hours to get together.  Instead they sat down in front of their computers, and used Skype to talk together.  For some of them it was the first time they had used Skype, and some were old hands at it.   But they all agreed, that it was a great way to do this kind of work.  Instead of wasting time, and fuel, driving from places like Belleville, Gananoque and Bath to some central location they just sat down in their homes and talked.  One member who wasn’t equipped to meet at home, drove into her parish church for the meeting.

The discussions were wide ranging.  There was lots of energy around finding ways to make more people aware of the many, many good things that are going on in our churches.  Finding more ways to help people in our churches with common interests get together and share with each other would really improve things we thought.  We also talked about how we could make sure that we let each other know when important things were happening in the wider church.  And we talked about how we could let people, not in our churches, know about things that were going on too.  

Some of the idea's, were very concrete and easy to implement, and others were much more long term.    Watch for some results soon.  Our committee hopes to present several ideas to Synod council at their next meeting for implementation.

But we also recognized that there was lots of good ideas that we don’t have yet! Do you have a great idea about how we could improve in this area?  We would be glad to hear from you!

Our sub-committee is made up of  Eleanor Rogers, Don Matthews, Jim Hopkins, Karen Freake, Kate Ann Follwell  and Steve Timpson.   Please talk to, or email one of us and let us know of your thoughts.