Varieties of Volunteers

Barbara Hastings, Parish Administrator

Parish administrative staff would not be successful without the assistance of our volunteers. We are greatly blessed by their work, their smiles, and their willingness to do almost anything.

Chances are, if you've visited or called the parish office during the week, you've been helped by them. They are our office guild volunteers, and their collective service to the office staff and to the entire parish is invaluable.

Office guild volunteers answer our busy phones, greet parishioners and visitors, and provide information when possible. They offer the staffing assistance needed to keep parish operations running smoothly. They help with almost all mailings, excepting Cross Roads. They stuff the bulletins, or insert the weekly Crossings into Sunday bulletins for parishioners. They are the frontline of parish hospitality and welcoming for visitors and droppers-by.

One of our office guild volunteers has been serving five days a week for about 10 years now. Euva Meyer, a parishioner at Chapel of the Cross since 1956, staffs the front desk in the parish office every afternoon. She sorts the parish mail, sends service reminder postcards to our acolytes, and manages our memorials correspondence. When I began working at Chapel of the Cross, everybody told me if I had a question to see Mrs. Meyer. Three years later, she's often still the person I go to first for parish information.

Your office guild volunteers are: Gladys Dalby and Shirley Swift on Monday mornings; Mary Brenda Joyner on Tuesday mornings; Alice Ellington and Mary Brenda Joyner on Wednesday mornings; Pat Gross and Sidna Rizzo on Thursday mornings; Lulu Mae Chase on Friday mornings; Euva Meyer in the afternoons, Monday - Friday; and Archie Copeland, whenever we need a substitute.

The newest volunteer group at the Chapel of the Cross, our kitchen linen launderers, came together in the winter of 2002. Their formation was a direct result of the annual time and talent surveys sent to parishioners each autumn. When the need for such service was realized, we turned to the completed time and talent surveys to find those people who had indicated a willingness to offer their time and to serve the parish by doing laundry. In a relatively short time, we had the fully formed corps of volunteers now known as the kitchen linen launderers.

Each volunteer serves for one month at a time, laundering once a week, or more often as needed, depending on special services, parish meetings, and receptions. Theirs is an invisible and too-often thankless service; they come to the parish hall each week to haul away tablecloths and kitchen towels and bring them back again, fresh and clean, in time for Sunday services and the coffee hour.

Thank you to our kitchen linen launderers: Amy Burnett, June Clendenin, Jewell Cornell, Gladys Dalby, Laurie Gosnell, Molly McConnell, Susan Meyer, and Jeffrey Underwood.

Among our faithful volunteers are the tellers or money counters. They come once a week to count and deposit money received during the previous week by dividing into three teams: Sunday offering, weekday collections, and Church of the Advocate deposits. As the receipts are counted, tellers write the amounts on record sheets that are given to the parish accountant for posting in the ledger. The money is then taken to the bank for deposit. This team has been led over the years by Marty Ensign who recruits counters each week, answers questions and generally supervises the team's work. They work about three hours each week for a total of 21 hours of volunteer time. Our tellers include Marty Ensign, Edith Welch, Carolyn Van Sant, Mary Frances Branch, Jacquie Scarborough, Lucy Smith, Bob Chase, Mary Chase, and Ted Pratt.

One group of volunteers is small and works behind the scenes. They are our proofreaders. Some - Larry Hart, Sidna Rizzo, and Joyce Jones - come in each Thursday morning to read and correct bulletins and Crossings. They read and mark up these publications for correction before final proofing by the rector and organist-choirmaster. These three donate about two hours each for a total of six hours each week. During Holy Week and Advent, they proofread larger, additional service materials. In addition to Larry and Joyce, another reader, Sallie West, puts in about four hours each month reading and correcting Cross Roads and other periodic publications. All of these folks graciously correct our spelling week after week, double check readings, verify hymn numbers, and rectify our punctuation. With the help of these able proofreaders, we are able to produce documents with as few errors as humanly possible.

Another lively group is our bulk mail volunteers who prepare bulk mailings. Once a month (or more often when needed), this group gathers to spend a morning putting on labels and sorting Cross Roads. This requires putting labels on straight (not an easy task when doing 1500 labels) while keeping them sorted by zip code. There's always lively conversation and lots of laughter while they work. Our labelers provide about ten hours of service each month. Mail volunteers include Kristin Bergsten, Mary Kate Cunningham, Emilie de Luca, Alice Ellington, Catherine Fogle, Betsy Frazier, Marion Highriter, Joyce Jones, Ann Ramsey, Peg Rees, Phil Rees, Gloria Ripperton, Lauren Tappen, Jay Tappen, and Edith Welch.

Dan Poirier serves as our Web-sexton, with assistance from Barbara Tolin Rowan and Don Shaffer, who designed the Web site in 1999. Barbara served as web-sexton until this year. They keep our Web site current with important information including weekly Crossings, sermons, and announcements. They also upload Cross Roads and vestry minutes on a monthly basis. Don uploads sermons to the web-site when they are available. Barbara and Dan are responsible for the web connection many of you used to make your annual giving pledges. In addition to parish news and events, our web site also has links to other sites that might be of interest to parishioners and to others interested in our parish. Our Web site is among the best church Web sites in the diocese and the state for all denominations. We can all be grateful for the work that Barbara, and more recently Dan, have done to create and maintain this wonderful addition to our parish outreach. Barbara and Dan work about 10 hours each week on the Web site.

Two other volunteers fill key roles on the administrative team. Vivian Varner is communications coordinator and editor of Cross Roads. Her role is to publish the story of what is happening in the parish. She coordinates publicity through newspapers and other media, communicates with the Web-sextons, publishes the Directory of Parish Ministries, and serves as a valuable link to parish events for the administrative staff. Barney Varner assists in our accounting office to provide information to staff members and parishioners. As senior associate treasurer Barney works with the treasurer to create and produce financial reports. He often is called on to supply data to committees and serves as a substitute for the parish accountant in her absence. Barney also is treasurer for UNC Habitat for Humanities. In addition to his financial skills, he provides some in-house technical support for our computer network. Each volunteers over 20 hours per week.

When added together, our administrative volunteers provide an average of 140 hours of service each week. That is the equivalent of three and a half full-time employees on our staff. Thank you to each of you for your service and dedication.