The Taunton Group met on 11th October and five administrators attended.
We discussed several topics including copyright reporting and Qualifying Connection requirements for weddings. It was clear that we are all very busy at the moment with a succession of special services for Harvest, All Soulstide, Remembrance Sunday and then on to Advent and Christmas.
It is good to meet up and share experiences and also to discover different areas of expertise among the group and I personally, came away feeling very much supported and encouraged.
Ruth Cook, Taunton Group
Woking Group
The Woking group gathering was very ably hosted by Jess McNutt at Trinity Methodist and we ate our lunch and treated ourselves to doughnuts and cookies whilst chatting about various hot topics including next year’s General Data Protection Regulation and Church Management systems. It was so good to benefit from other people’s expertise and experience, and I, for one, have returned to my office very motivated to organise some local training from Church Suite. Watch this space Woking! Our next local group meeting will be on Monday 29 January at 12noon at St Andrew’s Church, Goldsworth Park.
Caroline Bowen, Woking Group
Bucks/ Herts Border
The Bucks/Herts Border local group was only established officially a few months ago, although administrators in our area had met more or less once per year prior to this.
We are about to meet again in November, with around 40 folk now on our mailing list. We aim to meet over lunchtime and get to know one another over a buffet lunch. We usually also have a short message of encouragement brought by one of the group leaders, and then opportunity to ask questions of each other to conclude.
A list of contact details for attendees is circulated to enable those discussions to continue. Judging by the speed with which administrators respond to the invitation, this is increasingly viewed as a valuable use of time. Title for our next meet is –‘Hooray for Administrators’!
Joyce Gledhill, Bucks/Herts Border Group
Farnborough Area
Five members of the UCAN local group for the Farnborough Area met in Fleet Parish Community Centre on Wednesday 20th September.
We talked about life in general rather than any specific items this time and propose the next time we meet to look at the John Truscott article on Christian Administration https://www.john-truscott.co.uk/content/download/607/10936/file/A15%20-%20Christian%20administration.pdf – so if you’re able to come to the next meeting (and new members are always welcome) please bring a Bible so that we can spend some of the time looking at this together.
We closed the meeting in prayer, and will look to meet again in January.
Chantelle Gardner, Farnborough Group