Rector
During the last week of August, the main office in the church building and the Godly Play room in the trailer annex building will switch spaces.
This change will make the annex building the center for all office operations at St. John’s, creating more collaboration and community amongst a staff that is currently disconnected from one another by physical location. Having the Godly Play Sunday School room in the church building instead of across the parking lot will be more convenient and safer for parents and children on Sunday mornings.
The tentative plan is:
- Move furniture Monday, Aug. 28 (Can you help?)
- Deal with all IT issues on Tuesday, Aug. 29 (computer hook ups, printer set up, networking, etc)
Whose idea was this? Why is this happening?
The idea to switch the spaces emerged from conversations I had with some office staff and Sunday School teachers. I then consulted with the rest of St. John’s employees, the regular office volunteers, the Sunday School teachers, and the vestry liaisons for Children and Youth and Building and Grounds, keeping the entire vestry informed about the process along the way. I received a lot of positive feedback from the majority of the people consulted about how this space use change would be beneficial to both the office staff and the Sunday School, so I made the decision last week that we would go ahead with the move.
So if you’re reading between the lines here, yes, I was ultimately the one to make the decision to move, but it was a decision made in consultation with those it would affect most and after an overall consensus emerged that this would be a positive change.
Why now?
The timing of the move allows Sunday School volunteers to set up the new space with plenty of time before Sunday School resumes on Sept. 10.
What all will be moved?
Chrys’s desk and the office volunteer desk will move to the largest room in the Annex, the room that is currently the Godly Play room.
The office copier and printers and the Riso duplicator machine used to copy the bulletins (now in the hall closet) will also move to the annex, along with other needed equipment and furniture.
Godly Play will move into the present office space.
The large mailbox center across from the bathroom near the current office will stay where it is, since that mailbox serves more than just the staff (it includes mailboxes for all vestry members, supporting clergy of the parish, and other key volunteers).
Adult library books will move to upper shelves in the current office (soon to be the new Godly Play Room), making room for Sunday School supplies on lower shelves, and the possibility of a collection of children’s books near those lower shelves. There will also be the possibility of using the Godly Play Room during the week for small meetings.
How will this change benefit the office staff and volunteers?
Currently, the staff is spread out between the trailer annex and the main building. Chrys and the office volunteers are in the main building while the bookkeeper and I are in the trailer annex. What this means for the daily operation of the parish office is a lot of running back and forth between the annex and the building and a lack of connection between the staff and volunteers. There is also no permanent, reliable office space for our other employees, organist Nico Canzano and Helpful Shop Manager Jil Anderson, to use. Though they are both part-time and need minimal office use, if they ever come in and need access to a computer, there is no guarantee they will have a place to sit and work.
Wilma Staver, our office volunteer extraordinaire who prints the bulletins for us each week, has to pull the Riso machine out from one of the storage areas into the hallway near the nursery every time she wants to use it. And since the Riso machine is very loud, there can be nothing else going on in the sanctuary or café space while she’s printing because of the noise it generates.
In the new configuration, the plan is to create several work stations and make sure there is always one available for Nico or Jil to use when they have need of it. Everyone will be in the same space and able to collaborate more closely. Wilma will not have to plan her schedule of printing bulletins around when groups are using the sanctuary and café space.
Won’t we lose the sense of community we have in the office now if we take it outside of the church building?
We have a sense of community created in the office by people dropping by when they’re at church for other things and we don’t want to lose that. The hope is that people will continue to “drop in” to the office as they always have, with a need for copies, to talk to Chrys, drop off donations to the Helpful Shop and library, since all those things will now be in the trailer. We'll leave the door to the trailer propped open when the office is open (as it usually is on Tuesdays already). (Ed Note: Chrys and volunteers are in office Tues-Thurs 9-2, Fri, 10-12:30).
Remember: This is all temporary!
Is this an ideal situation? No. It means the office will be more disconnected from the church building, even as the people working in the office are more connected to each other. But remember that the trailer annex is not a permanent location for the church office. The office’s final home will be in the office wing of the church when it is built. Moving all the offices into the trailer begins to create an “office wing” feel that is what the designers of the church were aiming for when they planned for an office wing in the building. Think of the office trailer as a placeholder for what is to come, and let it remind you of the vision of the completed building that we’re working towards.
