Communications Committee

Minutes

Monday, 11 February 2013, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, Room 2

1. Attendance and apologies

Attendance: JohnSnare, JanClear, JitTan, KenCoutts, GregFry, LesleyArmstrong

Apologies: JohnHurst, VidaFoo

2. Confirmation of the agenda

Minutes of the previous meeting are at CommunicationsMinutes20121210

3. Matters arising from the minutes of the last meeting

Positive responses have been received concerning the new front sign of the Church. It was agreed to adopt the following policy concerning temporary content. The communications committee, through the chair, will authorise material for the new front Church sign. HeatherHon will send requests or suggestions to John Snare re any notices to go up on the new front Church sign – when it is to go up and come down – wording etc. John will approve or otherwise and refer back to Heather for implementation.

Lesley to email Heather re notice on doors and the front noticeboard for 10.00am service on 17th February. (done 12-02-13)

Lesley to email JohnHurst and ask can he do an automatic email reminder for Heather when there is a 10.00am service the following week. The email to be sent on the Friday for the notice to go up on the Monday for the following Sunday. (done 12-02-13)

Email received from DavidMorgan

'We have approval for a fete advertising sign on the corner of Springvale Road and Waverley road from Sept 30 to October 14. Communications people; we should remember this for other occasions, eg next year's book fair. But whose photo will be on the sign?

David Morgan (letter attached to email)'

Lesley to email David - This email sent as a reply –

4. The future of the GWUC Facebook site

Very little activity – one report from Kenya.

We remain concerned that not only is the GWUC failing to achieve the objectives we set, but it could be a liability.

Unless something can be done to stimulate more use, the sentiment of the meeting was that the GWUC Facebook site should be closed. For example, it was originally envisaged that Facebook could be used in the Lenten studies to either allow supplementary discussions between meetings, or to be a forum for an additional virtual group. However, neither of these have happened.

John Snare to contact AlaneeHearnshaw to discuss our concerns and in particular see if she can help find someone – or a few people – with a passion for using social media to champion and stimulate use. Perhaps an option is to have different people representing different aspects of Church life; e.g JitTan for Faith development, someone for youth (maybe Alanee), etc.

To go on the agenda for next meeting.

5. Easter Cards and Outside Notice

Alanee has ordered cards for Easter and outside Noticeboard with service times – John Snare had a conversation with Alanee about the font and size etc on the Christmas Noticeboard – mixed views on this. JohnSnare to follow up on this (done).

6. Unmet Communication Needs

What is needed from groups from the Communication Committee

7. The GWUC Web Site

We have input from the Hub. They would like the home page, at the bottom to list the Community Hub in the "About Us" column, with the "Groups" column having Cooee, Leisure Time and The Hub listed, and in the "Children's and Families" Column having Playgroups and Story Hub listed. The Community Hub page would list the groups in the Community Hub, and then each of these groups would have a page. These pages would link from the Community Hub page and also from the separate groups listed in the "Groups" column and the "Children's & Families" column. The Communications Committee is happy to accept this proposal although further changes may be required later if the web site is redesigned. John Snare to follow up implementation of this change.

On the broader matter of the web site design, we are not convinced that the current blog style web site is the best approach. Perhaps a portal style web site would be better.

We need to reconsider the objectives of the web site - what do we want to achieve from the web site. The recorded purpose of the web site in the strategic plan is:

In addition to the objective/purpose we need to consider:

Next steps:

8. Next meeting

Monday 8 April at 7.30pm – Lesley to book room 2. (booked 13-02-13)

9. Other Business

The policy of limiting the weekly bulletin to four A5 pages was confirmed. Other communications options should be explored as an alternative to using inserts because experience has found that inserts, if allowed, result in significant expansion of the weekly bulletin with the outcome that people don’t read it all and communication is worse, not better. The weekly bulletins in February can be a problem because of the need for groups to advertise resumption of their activities. To help resolve this, John Snare to suggest to Heather that she make a diary note to contact group leaders (perhaps through the groupleaders email group) in December to remind them that information concerning resumption of activities in the new year be given to Heather by mid-January in time to be included in the February Monthly Bulletin.

The Hub missional group advised that it would be changing the way it reports on its activities. It plans to include comprehensive reports for the monthly bulletin every two months, not monthly. The Communications Committee has no problems with this.

10. Closure

Meeting closed no later than 9:10pm

CommunicationsMinutes20130211 (last edited 2013-04-08 10:35:24 by JohnHurst)