The meeting was called to order at 12:00PM by Moderator Larry Lopp. In attendance were the new and returning members of all the church committees – Trustees, Deacons, Religious Education, Music and Arts, Missions, Endowment and Memorial, the Women’s Group and the Church Council officers; moderator, vice moderator, pastor, clerk, auditor, treasurer and assistant treasurer.

Larry opened the meeting by explaining his idea of establishing a shared vision for Skyland in terms of operating more efficiently within our groups and committees. The end goal of improved operations is the duality of better communication, and a more widespread understanding of who we are and how we do things. As well as being useful to longtime members this information is extremely useful to new members who have zero idea as to how we operate and what it means to sit on a committee.

Larry asked attendees to consider the new vision ideas with a goal of implementing suggested operational process improvements within each committee. A set of presentation notes outlining the new vision was provided for each attendee. The presentation can be viewed at http://skylandchurch.com/moderator/ChurchTrainingFeb06.pdf

Emerging from this meeting were the following:

1) Church meetings tend to last too long and discussion wanders off track. This needs to be improved for more efficient operation and for the respect of each individual’s volunteer time.

2) Everyone needs to have easy and timely access to agendas and minutes.

3) The committees create the yearly church plan and the budget provides the financial details of that plan, not vice-versa.

4) Each committee should consider assigning a mentor to work with new committee members as they enter into their roles

5) The concept of this educational introduction for new committee members was well received by new members.

No decisions were made with regard to the discussion areas as solutions sit in the hands of each of the committees. Larry emphasized that it is not the role of the Church Council officers to tell committees what to do, but to suggest ways in which our overall improvement goals of day to day operational efficiency and clearer communication can occur via the committees.

Larry then introduced the newly formed Skyland Church Communication Council comprised of newsletter editor John Wetherill, Gina Wetherill, Moderator Larry Lopp, Nancy Jo Lopp and church Clerk, Terry Clark. The SCCC has already begun work to improve church communications by making the Skyland website the center of our church data for reporting, accuracy, timeliness and low cost word-spreading. Larry asked that all committee minutes be posted as soon as possible following committee meetings.

John Wetherill presented an overview discussion of the proposed and current changes to the website, and how SCCC would continue to provide improvements in church communication. SCCC is considering what areas of the website to password protect for privacy reasons as the website is available to the general public. Feedback to any SCCC member is welcomed as this decision is reviewed.

An action item for each committee was to select a chairperson and communicate that to

Terry Clark - taclark@cablerocket.com and Larry Lopp - larry@lopp.com

An action item from the Moderator was the request that each committee assign a person to interface with the SCCC for website posting purposes. That person will receive tools training. Special access passwords will be provided for easy site posting of minutes and committee communications.

An action item request to post the church by-laws was made by Wes Smith. John Wetherill agreed to post the by-laws. Larry Cooke agreed to send the most current version of the by-laws to Terry Clark.

The meeting closed with Larry Lopp reminding attending committees to select a person from their group to be this year’s chairperson, and to select the SCCC communication link person. Larry also reminded committees to most importantly approach their tasks and duties with great care and joy.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:20 PM.

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