Next Step Committee
Chapel of the Cross
Nov. 21, 2004
Attending: Committee members Jay Bryan, Terry Eason, Barbara Schutz, Rob Sullivan, Ted Vaden, Robert Wright. Ex officio: Stephen Elkins-Williams, John McGee, Dick Taylor. Absent: Paul Carew, Martha Dill.
Program Review Committee. Steve and Dick updated the committee on the Program Review Committee. Rob has agreed to chair the committee, and the Vestry approved an amended charge that includes three elements: 1. Program assessment as described in the original charge to the committee; 2) Program coordination, serving as the hub for coordination of parish programs; 3) Look out as far as 20 years to envision the parish program so as to inform our work on facilities.
Rob elaborated on his plans for the committee. Members are Nancy Tunneson, Vicky Jamieson-Drake, Gretchen Jordan, Tammy Lee, Lisa Eveleigh, Neil Pedersen and Ramsey Terhune. He said the committee would meet at least monthly, to finish its work by the May Vestry retreat. He will keep the Next Step Committee informed at each meeting. The committee agreed that the program review’s committee purview explicitly should include youth ministry and the Johnson Intern Program.
Robert Wright noted the importance of having a 15-20 year time frame for capital planning, and he suggested it would be a good idea to use the parish annual meeting in 2005 to focus on this.
Ted suggested that it might be useful for the Program Review Committee to consult with the facilities architects, to help inform their work. Jay said it would be better to keep the program committee’s work “pure,” free of space-constraint influences, and the committee concurred.
Steve also updated the committee on the Special Giving Committee of the Stewardship Formation Committee, and said Syd Alexander had agreed to chair the special giving effort. A new focus will be on encouraging parishioners to include Chapel of the Cross in estate planning and he suggested a name for a new society of givers – “Standing by the Cross.”
Facilities planning: Terry reported on steps to secure an architectural consultant for facilities planning. He presented a draft “Request for Information” letter to architects, along with three suggested firms to contact. He hoped to add two or three more firms. The committee reviewed and approved the letter, with some changes. He will send the letter immediately, seeking responses by Dec. 14, in order to present those to the Next Step Committee meeting on Dec. 19. The process would be to narrow the list to 2-3, bring them in for interviews in January. They would be asked to make proposals for a master plan, which would be conceptual in nature. The church may incur some travel expense in bringing in architects for interviews. Cost of the master planning work, he estimated, would be in the $40,000 to $50,000 range, and would take four to six months. Jay suggested Terry try to get more North Carolina firms in the solicitation process. Rob suggested that a picture of the two worship buildings be included with the letter.
Ultimate cost of new parish hall, Terry said, could run $9 million to $12 million, figured at $200/square foot. That probably would call for a multi-phase project over an extended period. Ted suggested we may need to get help to analyze our financial capacity as a parish, but the consensus was that we should shape the vision first, then worry about capacity. Jay suggested we need to touch base with the parish as we develop the vision.
Worship Committee: Steve reported that the Rector’s Liturgical Advisory Committee had been focusing on developing a series of parish meetings to focus on the issue of same-sex unions. He said discussion of adding or changing services would begin after David Frazelle, new associate priest for parish ministry, arrives in December.
Next meeting of the Next Step Committee will be Sunday, Dec. 19, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. Note that the time has been changed from 1:15 p.m. for this meeting only.
Last updated: February 18, 2005
