KANATA ALPHA INITIATIVE PUBLICITY COMMITTEE MEETING
7:30 pm, Oct 12, 1999, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Kanata

MINUTES and ACTIONS ARISING 

Attenders:				Apologies:
========				========
Bob Horsey    KAIPC Chairman  	Jennifer Bulman      	    		
Tony Copple   KAIPC Secretary 	Henry Troup	            		 
Father Bob Poole, JGHP	      	Rev.Archie Hunter, Reg. Advisor 
Pat Horsey		      	Peter Runia		    
Graham Raynes       	      	John & Helene Rummell	    		
Lorraine Raynes      	      	Cindy Detombe

Membership of KAIPC:
All Alpha Course leaders and helpers in the Ottawa Region are invited to consider themselves honorary KAIPC members (see decision below).
Additional distribution of these minutes:
We distribute these minutes in dos-txt format to all KAIPC members for whom we have e-mail addresses. The minutes can be seen in their fully formatted glory via the Alpha Ottawa West web page http://www.ncf.ca/alpha

  1. Opening prayer
    Tony Copple read Isaiah 61 vs 1 - 3, and Pat Horsey added prayer for our meeting to be Spirit-lead. It was!

  2. The vision for Alpha in the Region
    Bob Horsey invited all present to describe their entry to the Alpha movement and current activity. Pat Horsey's experience included a recent prayer walk around Trinity Presbyterian. Vandalism there a few days later involved a car on fire and damage to a portacabin, both being outside the perimeter of the prayer walk she had done. Father Bob Poole told us of the current course run by Jesus Gathers His People at His Mercy Ministries, a Vanier soup kitchen, where 30 hungry disciples are enthusiastically listening to Nicky Gumbel's weekly messages. Bob and Pat told us of the course at Bishop Hamilton school they are running for 15 school teachers, in addition to their regular course at Trinity.

  3. Financial report
    We have around $300 in our bank account. This money has been donated by local churches supporting Alpha courses, and is available for initiatives that involve multiple churches.
    We would like to see additional donations as churches see fit and feel that KAIPC can be beneficial to their efforts to evangelize through Alpha.

  4. Review of minutes/actions from May. 11, 1999 meeting
    Central registry for Ottawa area
    Graham Raynes reported on heavy Alpha activity via a supplier of Alpha Materials in the Perth area. We can gather in needed information on courses running via such sources, and we encourage you to do so and feed us back the information. Graham agreed to contact the Perth bookstore
        Action:         Graham Raynes

    Alpha Canada article
    We saw a great article referencing local courses in the current edition of Alpha Canada, thanks to Dave Atkins' initiative.

    Canada Day
    We ran a booth on Canada Day in Kanata. Thanks are due to Christine Ritchie and Meagan Kidd for volunteering to person* the booth with the Copples (Tony & Laurie Ann). There is a page of photos from the event on the web site.

    Welcome Wagon (update on notice in May 11 minutes)
    Welcome Wagon in the Kanata area will shortly begin distributing (free) a sheet which will list all local places of worship, including non-Christian, and mentioning Alpha. (Welcome wagon will not permit the distribution of literature representing just one religion).

    We have a list of all the Welcome Wagon contacts in Stittsville, Ottawa, Nepean, Kemptville, Manotick, Gloucester, Kanata. We can ask some of our members to start making contact with them with the suggestion of distributing similar It would be best if these people were contacted by someone who knows them. To avoid multiple contacts, if readers in these areas (other than Kanata which is spoken for) would like to be our Welcome Wagon contact, please let KAIPC secretary Tony Copple know and he will give you the name and number of the Welcome Wagon representative.


  5. Christmas in the City event
    Following our successful appearance last year in the Kanata Christmas in the City event (see photo on the web site), we have again been asked by the City of Kanata to take part. The event is on Friday November 19, from 6:30 to 10:00 pm. We need about 10 volunteers, for half the time, or five for the whole time. Last year we gave out City hot chocolate. This is a fun event. Please will volunteers contact Tony by e-mail or phone (591-3903). Please will people respond; if we have no volunteers, we cannot do it.
        Action:         All

    Talking about Christmas, we have a couple of copies of the Nicky Gumbel video "Why Christmas". This is like "boring, untrue and irrelevant" but with a Yuletide flavour. Any course running a Celebration supper in December might make good use of it.
        Action:         Course leaders

  6. Web Site: www.ncf.ca/alpha/ and e-mail report
    With the growth of KAIPC membership, the Internet has become the mainstay of our communications, because we are busy people and telephoning is no longer an option to more than a few. We suggest all course leaders maintain e-mail lists of all attenders on the net, and forward KAIPC messages to them. In a year or so we will be able to broadcast to significant numbers of Alpha graduates. If you don't currently have e-mail, you might like to visit your local library and set up a free Hotmail account, and let us have your address.

    We urge readers to check out the Alpha Ottawa West Web Site regularly, and particularly to see the Noticeboard. Please inform web master Tony Copple of the dates (even approximate) of future courses. This is an outreach tool and occasionally draws searching souls to a course.

    A recent Alpha Cooking Page has been launched and your tested Alpha recipes are invited for posting.

  7. Alpha materials held
    We have bulk copies of Alpha News and Alpha News Canada. They can be picked up from the secretary's home, 61 Highmont Crt, off Castlefrank, behind the Centrum. We also have materials for decorating booths, though somewhat substandard.

  8. Proposal: Taking ALPHA to Nursing Homes for Seniors

    The following four e-mails were received prior to our meeting, all referring to the same initiative!

    From: Graham & Lorraine Raynes
     What is feasibility of doing a modified ALPHA for seniors in nursing homes, and try to determine if it is possible to present the ALPHA message in a way that would be within the capacity/attention span of the residents? The hoped for audience would be the Seniors themselves, and any family members that would be interested in participating. Maybe some of the Committee members have experience at modifying ALPHA for such an audience?

    From: Jennifer Bulman
     I wonder (I have a powerful suspicion) that the Spirit IS moving on the retirement homes issue, because the idea has occurred to several people at once. Henry, Lorrie and myself became quite interested in this idea while talking to Graham and Lorraine Raynes, who attended an Alpha meeting last year. It is one of the reasons we decided to take the Pastoral Care course this fall (not that it's a prerequisite, just that it seemed like a step in the right direction).

    From: Peter Runia
     My wife works is the administrator for 220 Viewmount Seniors' Home (Nepean), and is investigating running Alpha there.

    From: Helene Rummell
     I'm interested in hearing more on the subject of having Alpha for the elderly in retirement homes...the idea of this is an awesome one.

    Our KAIPC discussion rapidly embraced the idea of a pilot course. We prefered this pilot to be in a retirement home rather than a nursing home. One option is clearly 222 Viewmount, and there are two homes in Kanata and one in Bells Corners. We felt that a course could run immediately following the regular evening meal to an almost captive audience. There would be old fav hymns instead of praise songs. It may be good to include graduates from recent youth Alphas as helpers, to whom we felt the seniors would relate well. There was discussion about whether to use the videos or a live speaker, and videos was preferred, at least for the pilot, in view of the large amount of work and dedication by a very talented individual if we could find one to be a speaker. Furthermore, KAIPC promotes the spread of the standardized duplicable course as much as possible.

    A committee will be formed, which we suggest includes those members mentioned above, to do early planning. Graham and Lorraine agreed to head up this committee, with the goal of a course in Lent, 2000.


  9. How wide do we go across Ottawa?
    It was decided that there is no reason to restrict the coverage of KAIPC in the Ottawa region, particularly since we are not aware of other groups here with similar goals (if there are, we would like to hear from them). All course leaders and helpers may attend KAIPC meetings and respond to calls to action. We need you, and we believe the Alpha Canada organization, which is well aware of KAIPC, is happy to have a collective voice here.

  10. What is better: fewer larger, or many smaller, Alphas?
    Whatever happens, through the spread of courses from one to others, is to the good, small and large - we decided.

  11. Alpha's crucial role as a bastion against liberalizing of Christianity
    Many denominations are seeing the forces of liberalization at work, resisted by renewal groups who hold firm on traditional beliefs (eg the Trinity). KAIPC aligns itself with the renewal groups, and believes we have a significant role to play against liberalization. Indeed, as the renewal groups (such as the Anglican Renewal Movement (Anglican), and the Community of Concern (United, - President Dr. Allen Churchill, organizer of Billy Grahams Ottawa 98 Mission) work together, we would like to take up opportunities to (net)work directly with them.

  12. Do we need to be more intentional about intercession?
    Just as an intercessionary prayer group meets weekly at Holy Trinity Brompton to pray over their Alpha, we decided that we need similar groups here in the Ottawa area. Rather than bring everyone to a central point, we suggest that Alpha folk in different parts of the Region select local churches or homes where they can meet to pray on a weekly basis. In the Kanata area, we decided on 7:00 pm every Monday evening for a period of 20 - 30 minutes, or as long or short as people can stay, at Glen Cairn United Church, 140 Abbeyhill Drive, in the sanctuary. In fact, at least two people will be there this Monday October 18. Come and join us! Other church groups are welcome to contact the secretary and the intercessionary group venues will be listed on the web site.
        Action:         All current course leaders

  13. How about a Holy Spirit refresher day!?
    To help us all organize even better Holy Spirit "weekends," we agreed that a one day "train the trainer" Spirit Teach-in should be organized. We could think of no better date than Pentecost 2000. This would be a Region wide event, and initial planning will be done by KAIPC. We would ask that someone volunteer to take the organization of this on as a project. (We do have someone in mind to lead it. )
        Action:         Secretary, initially

  14. Closing prayer
    Bob closed the meeting with prayer.

    *note the inclusive language standard use in this document.

    Minutes written by Tony Copple, Secretary
    October 16, 1999

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