Wapping Community Church
ONA Working Group
Meeting Notes of July 7, 2015
The ONA planning committee meeting was called to order by Chairperson Charlene Swietek at 7:15pm. Attending were Rev. Mark Abernethy, Charlene Swietek, Ann Drake, Jason St. Denis, Matt Desy and Donna Williams. Rev. Abernethy led an opening prayer.
We welcomed Jason St. Denis to the group. Charlene will follow up with those members we haven’t heard from recently. We should all feel comfortable to invite others to our meetings.
Getting the word out:
Charlene and Chris are still working on getting something on our WCC website. Charlene reported that she was unable to make the deadline for the summer Parish Post. We will get something in for September. We’d like to have a regular section in the Parish Post for ONA updates and information.
Rev. Chris Davies provided materials for the group. Charlene will send out the link with assignments for each of us to read and report back on to the group so that we don’t all have to review the entire document.
Charlene reported that we haven’t seen any questions come in through our ONA box. We need to make some additional boxes and place them in prominent places throughout the church.
Providing Information to Congregation:
Matt suggested that over the summer months we put a message in the Sunday bulletin to begin to share information. The group expressed some concern that we don’t seem to be getting any reaction from the congregation. We aren’t certain if this is because people are already comfortable with this topic , they think we are already ONA, or if people don’t understand what ONA is and what this work group is looking into for WCC.
The group agreed that we should begin our soft rollout this summer with a Q&A in the bulletin. The first 3-4 basic questions will appear as inserts on red paper in the bulletins from July 12 - August 2. We will create a second set of Q&A for August 7 - September 6.
Matt agreed to draft the Q&A and get it to Christine in time for July 12th. This will be titled “God is Still Speaking”. Initial 3-4 questions will be basic to start. Donna will provide the suggested questions to Matt.
Additional Communications:
We also discussed other ways of communicating in addition to the Parish Post, Bulletins, Website. A bulletin board for information, updates, contacts (committee members) and a timeline that incorporates legislative history, UCC history, and WCC history on this topic. We will need to reach out to some of the people involved at the time of Civil Unions to gather some of our WCC history.
Our email is up and running. The address is [email protected]. No emails received to date.
Additional Working Group Needs:
We should consider drafting a Mission Statement for the ONA Working Group that will help us stay focused on the ONA path so that we avoid “scope creep”. It will also help us to make sure we aren’t going too fast leaving people behind in their understanding of ONA.
The meeting ended with Jason asking what brought each of us to be part of this group. This gave all of us the opportunity once again to share our own stories and commitment to this process.
We closed the meeting at 9:10pm.
Next meeting is on Monday, August 10th at 7pm.
Notes respectfully submitted by Donna Williams.
ONA Working Group
Meeting Notes of July 7, 2015
The ONA planning committee meeting was called to order by Chairperson Charlene Swietek at 7:15pm. Attending were Rev. Mark Abernethy, Charlene Swietek, Ann Drake, Jason St. Denis, Matt Desy and Donna Williams. Rev. Abernethy led an opening prayer.
We welcomed Jason St. Denis to the group. Charlene will follow up with those members we haven’t heard from recently. We should all feel comfortable to invite others to our meetings.
Getting the word out:
Charlene and Chris are still working on getting something on our WCC website. Charlene reported that she was unable to make the deadline for the summer Parish Post. We will get something in for September. We’d like to have a regular section in the Parish Post for ONA updates and information.
Rev. Chris Davies provided materials for the group. Charlene will send out the link with assignments for each of us to read and report back on to the group so that we don’t all have to review the entire document.
Charlene reported that we haven’t seen any questions come in through our ONA box. We need to make some additional boxes and place them in prominent places throughout the church.
Providing Information to Congregation:
Matt suggested that over the summer months we put a message in the Sunday bulletin to begin to share information. The group expressed some concern that we don’t seem to be getting any reaction from the congregation. We aren’t certain if this is because people are already comfortable with this topic , they think we are already ONA, or if people don’t understand what ONA is and what this work group is looking into for WCC.
The group agreed that we should begin our soft rollout this summer with a Q&A in the bulletin. The first 3-4 basic questions will appear as inserts on red paper in the bulletins from July 12 - August 2. We will create a second set of Q&A for August 7 - September 6.
Matt agreed to draft the Q&A and get it to Christine in time for July 12th. This will be titled “God is Still Speaking”. Initial 3-4 questions will be basic to start. Donna will provide the suggested questions to Matt.
Additional Communications:
We also discussed other ways of communicating in addition to the Parish Post, Bulletins, Website. A bulletin board for information, updates, contacts (committee members) and a timeline that incorporates legislative history, UCC history, and WCC history on this topic. We will need to reach out to some of the people involved at the time of Civil Unions to gather some of our WCC history.
Our email is up and running. The address is [email protected]. No emails received to date.
Additional Working Group Needs:
We should consider drafting a Mission Statement for the ONA Working Group that will help us stay focused on the ONA path so that we avoid “scope creep”. It will also help us to make sure we aren’t going too fast leaving people behind in their understanding of ONA.
The meeting ended with Jason asking what brought each of us to be part of this group. This gave all of us the opportunity once again to share our own stories and commitment to this process.
We closed the meeting at 9:10pm.
Next meeting is on Monday, August 10th at 7pm.
Notes respectfully submitted by Donna Williams.