Restructuring Newsletter - Issue #6

December 15, 2008

With the holidays approaching rapidly it is time for an update on the Restructuring Project before the year ends. Enjoy your reading but, much more importantly, have a wonderful, safe and peaceful Christmas.

Assets and Funding

The Assets and Funding Task Group completed its work at the end of October. The group dedicated significant effort to this complex yet interesting task and was able to provide the Steering Group with a final report in time to allow some reflection on the possible options and discussion with the Conference Executive. The Steering Group, while acknowledging the excellent work carried out by the AFTG, affirmed some of the recommendations in the final report but not all, choosing instead to put forward motions leading to a different outcome.

The AFTG report and the SG motions can be found on the website.

At a special meeting of the Conference Executive, held on December 3, several of the motions put forward by the Steering Group were passed and others were not. The minutes of this meeting are on the website and can be viewed using the previous link.

A second special meeting of the Conference Executive is scheduled for January 21, 2009. Decisions need to be made regarding the assets within the Conference as part of the Restructuring project. It is hoped that these decisions can be reached in that meeting. In the meantime, Carol Paniccia will continue to move the work forward by consulting with the Presbyteries and Conference Corporations regarding the five year funding of current commitments. The task group has been disbanded with thanks.

Commission on the Role of the Executive

The Commission has been working on a handbook containing all of the Conference policies. This handbook will be a useful resource for the new Conference Executive. The commission has also developed an information document for potential Executive members. Highlights of this document include:

Meetings of the Toronto Conference Executive

The Toronto Conference Executive will operate within a policy governance model, which is a different method of doing the work of Christ in this Conference. Each agenda will include time to…

• worship and listen to God

• build community, including listening to a variety of voices within the Conference, e.g. youth, retirees, aboriginal groups, Ministry Personnel

• learn about governance initially and to develop, monitor and regularly review all policies

• evaluate what we did well, what we accomplished, what we could have done better

In 2009-2010 meetings will start at 4:00 p.m., concluding by 9:00 p.m. on the second Wednesdays in September, November, February, April and June, rotating through the Conference and Presbytery offices. Meetings will not take place in Advent and Lent. If additional meetings are required, these will normally be held by conference call.

Presbytery representatives

The Presbytery representatives on the Executive will be elected from their Presbyteries, but will have the responsibility to focus on and act in the best interests of the whole of Toronto Conference.

Each Presbytery representative will come with particular skills and interests. The Executive will require a mix of people with the following skills and interest:

• openness to change and new ways of doing the work of Christ in the Conference;

• openness to the movement of the Spirit

• an ability to think about the big picture and be future oriented

• openness to a different understanding of the role of the Executive

• an ability to develop policies and monitor compliance with those policies

• an ability to differentiate between staff and governance roles

• an ability to work in a collaborative style

• be good communicators and listeners with the ability to report back to their electing Presbyteries

• be insightful thinkers

• have relative comfort with uncertainty and not having all the answers

• commitment to full and active participation in the Conference Executive.

• commitment to speaking with one voice regarding the policies and Decisions made by the Executive. Diverse points of view are important in discussion at the Executive, but when a decision has been made, everyone will speak with one voice.

Communications Task Group

The Communications has completed its Conference communications strategy and has given its report to the Steering Group. The SG will review the strategy, and the recommendations contained within it and bring it to the Conference Executive in the new year. The CTG and the SG recognize that communications within the Conference need improvement and look forward to the implementation of an accepted strategy.

Presbytery Offices

The Toronto Conference Property Committee received proposals from three Pastoral Charges in the Northwest Presbytery to house the new Presbytery office. All three were attractive proposals. Representatives of the Property Committee made site visits to each of these locations and a final location will be selected early in the new year. Rose Cambourne, the Conference Finance and Property Administrator will ask the selected Pastoral Charge for recommendations on reliable contractors to carry out the renovations to the new office. Renovations to the Guthrie (Northeast Presbytery) and Wilmer Heights (Southeast Presbytery) offices will be carried out in the spring as well. The Southwest Presbytery will share the Toronto Conference office which is already equipped to support the new staff.

Toronto Conference Technology

A commitment made in the project Scope Document, which was signed off by the Steering Group, was that “All offices in which Conference staff are working will be equipped with the same level of technology”. The intent was that the staff in each of the Presbytery offices would have the necessary laptops and printers, but also the software needed to do their jobs. To achieve this, the TC had to put in place technology infrastructure that would put all staff on the same platform, allowing the sharing of all Conference data and applications.

The Staffing Commission and the Conference made a decision not to hire an IT Specialist. Without this technical support, the HW and SW would have to be supported by an outside service provider. The solution ultimately decided upon was to utilize the services of the General Council office.

In November, the current Conference staff changed their email addresses to: NAME@united-church.ca. They are now on the GC’s Exchange server, supported by the GC’s IT department. The Conference also purchased a server that is located at and supported by GC. This server will allow all of the future Presbyter-deployed Conference staff to store and share electronic files and to use the new member database. The member database is an application developed by ACS Technologies and designed specifically for churches. In addition to storing all of the information regarding ministry personnel, lay members of Conference and Presbyteries and Pastoral Charges, the application has significant functionality for reporting, tracking volunteers and the roles they hold, producing name tags and labels and printing directories. Each Presbytery can enter and update its own data.

The application will be fully functional in January and the new Conference staff will be trained on this application as part of their orientation. In the meantime, the existing Conference staff will be maintaining the database and “working the kinks out”.

A Message from the Conference President

Dear Colleagues and Friends of Toronto Conference,

I am very happy to take this opportunity to be in touch with you, especially at this time of year.

Right now, we are all so conscious of gifts, especially those we are hoping to give to loved ones and others who are important to us. The Advent season and Christmas invite us to fill our hearts with thankfulness and love. We prepare to receive, again, the Christ child who brings the vulnerable love of a child to us as the incarnation of God’s great love and mercy for us all.

From such thoughts of overwhelming love, I wish to give each of you sincere thanks for all that you do for the well-being of the United Church of Canada within Toronto Conference. Your many hours of dedicated service are seen and appreciated. The volunteers of Toronto Conference are an amazing group in terms of commitment, in terms of sharing personal talents which are so generously given, and in terms of stewardship of time and resources. As well as our appreciation to the volunteers, I also send sincere thanks to all the staff of the conference office who support the work of all of us and who we cannot do without.

I don’t always find good opportunities to thank each of you as we come across each other, however, for those of you who are committee members, Conference executive members, Presbytery commission members, task group and commission members, sincere thanks for your creative and wonderful work.

My wishes go to you for a blessed Advent as we prepare for the joyous season of Christmas and the revelation of our God during Epiphany.

With sincere thanks,

Rev. Dr. Carol Gierak,
Conference President