Useful Notes for Committee Chairs 

Planning for Group Communications  Many communications that are intended primarily for a well-defined group are best communicated through mail to members of the group (if they do not meet regularly -- for example parents of Sunday school children) handouts (if they do meet regularly -- for example, members of a Bible Study group). phone calls (for example, to announce a meeting schedule change to committee members) Use of these targeted contact methods for small groups avoids using the extra paper and time of sending such notices to the entire congregation through the Landmark or the limited audience of Reflections from the Creek

Characteristics of Various Modes of Communication

The Sunday Bulletin  This is edited by the office staff and is distributed at the church services. The outer sheet contains the services of worship and the insert contains visitor information, daily scripture readings, staff contact information, church group announcements, and a calendar of events for the next two weeks. Deadline: Material must be submitted at the office before noon on Monday. Be sure to include your name and phone number so that the editor can contact you to clear up any questions. The Landmark  This is edited by Lisa Nichols and Fran Peterson and is mailed to all members of the church. It contains messages from the pastors, contact information, church group announcements, and a calendar of events for the coming month. Deadline: Material must be submitted by the evening of the 14th (or the last workday before this) of the month prior to the publication month (that is, Oct 15th for the November Landmark). If you know that you will be requesting inclusion of a last-minute item, please let the editors know ahead of time so that they can leave space to accomodate it. In order to ensure coordination of communications, please submit the material to Millie Royster at the church office. You may send a CC of the material to the editors, but do not send it only to the editors. To make it easer to incorporate your material without reformatting please use 11-point Arial Narrow font for the text.       DO NOT SUBMIT MATERIAL THAT IS ALL CAPITALIZED! Be sure to include your name and phone number so that the editor can contact you to clear up any questions. Posting Notices in the Church [PROPOSED POLICY]  Posting on Walls and Doors: You may not tape or tack items to walls or doors unless authorized to do so by the Session for a specific event. You may not hang picture frames (etc.) or bulletin boards on the walls unless authorized to do so by the Session. Bulletin Boards: Several bulletin boards are available for posting material to supplement other forms of notification. Examples are reference material (such as contact information for the committee members, or lists of projects for the committee), large notices of upcoming events, captioned photos of recent events, etc. Each bulleting board is under the stewardship of (the chair of) a specified committee (whose name and phone number should be posted on the board). If you wish to post something on a board, please call the chair and ask for permission. To let people know whom to contact about the material and to facilitate removal when the material is no longer needed all posted material should include the following two lines (which may be hand-written or on a Post-it(TM)). Posted by : _________________ Remove after: _______________ For a group of related items (such as photos) you may post a single note, such as This group of: ____________________ was posted by : _________________ Remove after: _______________ Material not in compliance with the above guidelines may be removed immediately and without notice.

Finding the Right Person for a task:   We use the ServantKeeper program to help committees locate members who have specific talents and interests.

Church Facility Safety Checklist:   Committees with oversight of facilities or programs may wish to review the extensive Self-inspection Safety Checklist posted by the Church Mutual Insurance Co. Community Disaster Risk Assessment and Response: Will others do it all or should we be prepared to help? How? See the Guide to Disaster Ministry [PCUSA]

The Red Clay Web Site  Managing Editor: Ralph Nelson at webmaster@rccpc.org. Material provided by the staff and committees is put on the Web by the Managing Editor, aided by the church staff and several backup editors. Because the site may be read by anyone in the world who can access the World-Wide-Web, we post only very limited contact information. The purpose of this Web site is to provide reference material for members (calendar, information on committees and programs, connections to the presbytery, synod, and PCUSA) prospective members (mission, programs, activities, history) the surrounding community (activities, rooms) The posted calendar is maintained by the church staff and posted roughly weekly Committee chairs should remember that the calendar is not updated daily and thus does not reflect recent changes that you phoned in to the office. Furthermore, members do not check the calendar before each meeting. So if you make changes in a meeting time and/or place please inform your committee members by phone or Email in addition to informing the office staff. Website Resource: Web Guidelines posted by the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ

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