Appendix D: Meetings, Teams, Groups and Committees

Appendix D: Meetings, Teams, Groups and Committees

These are the meetings, teams, groups and committees scheduled for 2010:

Deanery Synod: Representatives of all parishes, churches and clergy in the deanery meet three times a year to pray, share information, dis-cuss ideas and make decisions about strategy and policy.

Deanery Mission and Pastoral Committee: Representatives of the parishes and clergy in the deanery meet three times a year to make decisions about deployment and other operational issues.

Deanery Chapter: Regular meeting of clergy for mutual support, sharing and prayer. Some meetings take place in the evening and are open to non-stipendiary, authorised and licensed ministers.

Deanery Leadership Team: Office holders meet six times a year to plan agendas and implement the policies and actions required by the diocese and the deanery.

Deanery Finance Committee: This group meets as required to discuss the allocation of parish share and other financial issues.

Deanery Strategy Group: This will be an open group which will meet three times a year to review the progress of our deanery plan and suggest further action.

In addition the deanery has an active involvement in:

Mission Partnership Assembly: The assembly acts as the deanery synod when it meets and is empowered to act as such.

Ecumenical Pastoral and Sponsoring Committee: This acts as the “sponsoring body” and has formal responsibility for the oversight and review of LEPs in north bucks.

Ecumenical Oversight Group: This is a meeting of local denominational leaders which meets to share news and discuss joint activity.

There are many other meetings, teams, groups and committees on which the deanery is represented directly or indirectly but these are the ones through which deanery business takes place.

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Deanery Calendar

From CafeChurch to CafeSynod?

Had a great Deanery Synod this evening. Arranged the room with tables of five so that people could talk in small groups. We handled initial business in twenty minutes and then were able to give over an hour to the main item of the evening - Deanery Strategy.

People spent ten minutes reviewing the past before switching groups to talk about the Diocesan strategy. We then switched groups again to talk about the future...

It actually worked very well and there were some really good conversations. No-one dominated and a lot of listening took place.

One person said that meetings should have more prayer in them - which was good since we finished the meeting by 9:30pm in time for compline - with five minutes of open prayer.

As I said, it was a good meeting - requiring a fair bit of discipline and preparation. I don't think we could do it this way every time but it did work well. Perhaps we need to vary the format - meeting in a circle, around coffee tables, around one table for a meal, perhaps even like a trade fair? - but never again in rows with a table at the front - that's just asking for trouble!