REPORT FOR ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Lay Ministries – Rosters for 2004 

The voluntary ministry of its parishioners contributes significantly to the routine functioning of the Church.  This work is necessary to keep the Church clean and decorated and to provide hospitality to people visiting the Church and to its congregation and to contribute to the liturgy of the services.  Every parishioner should consider giving of their time and skills to these jobs as a contribution towards maintaining and improving the fabric of the church, to the ministry of the Parish and to share the workload among many. The rostered activities are brass cleaning, church cleaning and flower arranging which are usually done on Saturday mornings and lesson reading, intercession, greeting, side serving and tea serving for the 9:30am service on Sunday. The Saturday rosters may be carried out at a time convenient to you, within flexible guidelines.  The frequency of an individual’s service on any roster depends on how many volunteers we have for that duty but the average time between turns is one to two months. Each roster cycle runs for four months: January to April, May to August and September to December. I usually circulate a form in the Fold calling for roster volunteers in the last month of the cycle and would welcome your participation in 2005. 

During 2004 the number of people serving the Parish on duty rosters was about 35 with a number of people leaving and new people joining during the year. The numbers have increased by about 20% over 2003 numbers and the pressure on some of the rosters has been alleviated. Thank you to the new helpers. The current numbers on each roster duty are: Brass cleaning – 4 individuals or pairs, Church cleaning – 6 pairs (a few more men this year), Flower arranging – 6 individual and one pair (we now have our first man), Intercessors – 9 (3 women, 6 men), Readers – 30 (good mixture), Sidespeople - 7 pairs and Tea servers – 6 pairs.  The duties that need more volunteers are intercession (a few more women), brass and church cleaning (particularly men); it would be nice if some more people volunteered for these. The other rosters that could benefit from a few more helpers are sidespeople and tea serving, at the 9:30 Sunday service. These two duties require little preparation or special skills and could be done by most people. We would also welcome some more flower arrangers. Parishioners who would like to serve on one or more of the rosters or who have other ideas or skills that they wish to contribute should contact Alice Murray or Elaine Jones in the office.  Thanks are due to Marg Minnis, Anne Carpenter and Pam Kelly who keep an eye on the readers and intercessors to make sure they are present and prepared and collar replacements if required. 

Alice Murray,
1 February 2005.