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= Communications Committee =
== Minutes ==
Monday, 11 February 2013, 7:30pm – 9:30pm, Room 2

=== Attendance and apologies ===
Attendance: JohnSnare, JanClear, JitTan, KenCoutts, GregFry, LesleyArmstrong

Apologies: JohnHurst, VidaFoo

=== Confirmation of the agenda ===
Minutes of the previous meeting are at CommunicationsMinutes20121210

=== 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 –

 . "At the Communications Committee Meeting on Monday night I was asked to email you if we (CC) could have more information about how you obtained permission for the advertising sign on the corner of Springvale Road and Waverley Road. We would like this to go on the Communication Committee wiki as a process to go through for further enquiries."

=== 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.

=== 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).

=== Unmet Communication Needs ===
What is needed from groups from the Communication Committee
 * Church Council – Greg Fry suggested that John Snare talk to the Church Council Executive and ask what they require from Communications Committee. Missional Groups – Greg Fry suggested that John Snare to go to group meetings – perhaps one per month – to talk about communications and discuss their needs. '''''John Snare''''' to follow up.

=== 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:
 * “The Glen Waverley Uniting Church website lets the wider community know about our church. The predominant purpose is outreach. It is like an electronic brochure with content that is of interest to people beyond the congregation. It contains a link to the congregational wiki.”

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

 * graphic/visual design;
 * how to implement changes;
 * how to maintain the site (structure and content) and associated training of people to make these changes – it is highly desirable for Heather to be able to do simple tasks such as putting up the weekly and monthly bulletins, entering news items, and changing content on pages.

Next steps:

 * collect ideas and to be considered e.g. links to various groups to what they are doing (see above proposal concerning the hub), worship service times, links to podcasts/vodcasts, links to weekly and monthly bulletins, latest news (e.g. public fundraising events, special seasonal worship)
 * ask people within the church for ideas
 * look at what other churches are doing with their web sites
 * '''''Ken Coutts''''' to follow up by looking for three churches with great web sites asking them for suggestions to help us with our web site
 * identify people who may be able to help with web design, implementation and maintenance.
   * '''''John Snare''''' to check with Aaron Blakemore who has in the past indicated an interest in working with Russell Greenwood on this review. We don’t want to waste this passion, knowledge from both Aaron and Russell.
   * '''''Jan Clear''''' to ask Belinda about people she may know in 9.15am and 4.30pm services that may be interested in computer/IT – we need someone understanding of the church culture as well as design, in creative part not the technical side.
   * Greg Fry identified Glenda Farmer as someone who might be prepared to talk to the Communications Committee about the Web Site.

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

=== 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.

=== Closure ===
Meeting closed no later than 9:10pm