Alpha - "An in-depth overview of the Christian faith"
MINUTES and ACTIONS ARISING
Attenders:
Eric Angel, Conference Chair Nick Lee, Chair of Organizing Committee Atha Kelly, Prayer Team Head Peg O'Connor, Stewarding Team Head Capt Bob Stewart Prison Alpha Jill Allan Dominion Chalmers Alpha Administrator Dave Atkins Alpha Advisor Bob and Pat Horsey OAPC John Wright Tony Liuzzo Jackie Barney Harry and Nancy Baker Shirley Smith Prim Paruboczy Jennifer Payne Tony Copple, Networking Committee, and recording secretary (591-3903, tonyc@ncf.ca).Distribution of Minutes: All Ottawa area Alpha leaders, plus:
Nick Lee asked that the date of the next meeting be adjusted to enable our Registrar Jenny Moore to be able to attend, and suggested that the bulk mailing to the 700 churches should not go out before the end of April (end of the tax season). The next meeting will now be May 15 at 7:00 pm.
Nick said that the selection of a venue for the main dinner was a challenge. Dominion Chalmers does not have a large enough room. There are few hotels within easy walking distance. For the last conference we used the Crowne Plaza hotel. Further discussion included the need to accommodate walk ins, and how much of the basic registration fee ($95) would be allocated towards dinner expenses. Discussion of how the lunches would be arranged and paid for followed with the general consensus that we need a source of "bag lunches" to be paid for by individuls, and that we would also need some advance indication of how many bag lunches should be provided. The suggestion was that a question on this be included in the initial package sent out to applicants.
Nick asked about funds held by Alpha Ottawa some of which originated at the last conference. Dave Atkins, Alpha Advisor, answered that he would shortly have signing authority for this money, and that request for cash could be sent to him. Nick asked what happened to any money remaining after the conference if income exceeds expenses and Dave confirmed that this will go to Alpha Canada (to subsidize conferences which lose money).
Tony Copple introduced Tony Liuzzo, from St Maurice's Roman Catholic Alpha course in Ottawa, and mentioned that Vernon Robertson, Alpha Canada Roman Catholic Representative had been in touch with Tony with a view to engaging him in assisting with promoting the conference in the Catholic community. Tony said that Vernon is orchestrating the contacting of Catholic churches via the Archdiocese. Since Catholic churches are currently under-represented in local Alpha Courses, Tony reminded us that those we do have are very valuable to us for the purposes of attracting other to this conference.
Eric Angel said that at the previous meeting he had suggested that volunteer should pay the group rate for admittance of $75, and asked that the wider group present tonight endorse that recommendation, which they did.
Eric also mentioned that we would be receiving 1000 Alpha posters form Alpha Canada.
Eric said that there would now be three from Ottawa going to the Toronto Conference, May 1,2, as volunteers: Capt. Bob Stewart (prison Alpha at OCDC), Nick Lee and Tony Copple, to learn, assist and report back. (Tony will be on the Ministry Team in Toronto.) Ottawa Alpha Conference will fund the $50 admittances asked by Toronto. Tony thanked Ray Scanlan, Toronto Conference Chair, for his kindness and warm welcome to their conference.
Chris Allen, treasurer, undertook to do budget analysis on the costs of lunches and the dinner, given some costings. Nick agreed to arrange that prices of meals would be investigated and passed to Chris. We have confirmation from Alpha Canada that we neither charge nor remit GST.
John Wright asked about invitations to the Pastor and Lay Leaders Lunch. This led to a discussion the result of which was the realization that the proposed date, May 15, was too soon, since an invitation to it would be included in the mail-out to the 700 churches. We decided to switch it to Tuesday May 29. We also moved it from breakfast to lunch, opening up the possibility for our Catholic friends to attend, if invitations could be done in time (via the Archdiocese). Tony Liuzzo undertook to see what could be done in terms of Catholic invitations to the Pastors lunch.
Subsequent to the meeting we have heard (with great joy) from Tony Liuzzo that a letter should be going out to all the Catholic churches from the Archdiocese, inviting them to attend the Pastors and Lay Leaders Luncheon.
John also asked if the cost of the Pastors and Lay Leaders luncheon had been factored in anywhere. Subsequent discussion tended towards funding this from our overall budget rather than charging attenders. It will however be important to gauge numbers, particularly if we are not charging.
Stewarding: Peg O'Connor
The Stewarding team has most functions covered, assuming a number of spots could be undertaken by Dominion Chalmers folk if available in addition to the names below.
Greeters: Alice Berghuis, Corrie Barkley, Arnette Dales, Jennifer Payne, Peg O'Connor Welcome desk: Debbie Pindur, Karen Marshall, Marion Perry, Shirley Smith, Peggy Hall, Ruth Soucy Ushers: Harry Baker, Paul Lamontagne, David Sisley Virginia Steel, Irene Walker, Prim Paruboczy Susan Lomas, Alice Thompson, Jan MacBeth Joan Fleming, Nancy Baker Security: Jim Wilson, Brian Beverage, Jim Baker Welcome Desk: Shirley Smith Emergency: St John Ambulance Parking: Bob Delassio, Greg SoucyPeg said that there were questions to be resolved on parking, and undertook to investigate what is available. (She has since done so and provided a partial list of parking lots and park'n'rides to Nick Lee and Tony Copple.) Parking will be more of a problem on Friday than Saturday. Peg will liaise with Jenny Moore for handing out delegate kits when people arrive.
Treasurer
Chris Allen reported that we have $650 in the bank including a float from Alpha Ottawa funds and a supporting church donation.
All Team Heads are asked to submit budgets to Chris, based on 450 people, and all volunteers are asked to present (batches of) receipts for reimbursement.
Chris can supply copies of Alpha Canada's sample budget.
Tony Copple suggested that all those present send in their ticket applications now rather than leaving it to the last minute.
Prayer Team: Atha Kelly
The prayer team now numbers 156 intercessors, including 10 conference attenders. The intercessors are spread across numbers of Christian groups.
Organizing Committee: Nick Lee
Nick has recuited eight from Morrisburg (members of two Cursillo group re-unions) to take care of all Task Force responsibilites. Hospitality is not yet catered for
but Nick will be liaising with Dominion Chalmers. ........ ACTION: Nick Lee
We have received a list of requirements from Cook Ministries for their resourses tables at the conference. They have asked for a cash register, 3 volunteers, TV, etc. Chris will discuss this in more detail to discern our responsibilities with Elaine Young. ........ ACTION: Chris Allen
Jill Allen (Alpha administrator, Dominion Chalmers) and Nick had a short discussion about break-out rooms. (After the meeting, they and Peg had a rather longer discussion on many other matters).
It was agreed that the acknowledgments of registration to be sent out by Jenny should include parking information as well as hotel lists and a simplified city core map.
Networking: Tony Copple, Committee member
Our number one priority remains the final selection from our Council of Reference of the names to be listed on our main invitation letter.
Pastors and organizations who have so far agreed to join the Council of Reference are:
If anyone notices any glaring omisions from this list please contact Tony asap. Please also note that we will not necessarily use all the names of the Council of Reference on the letter, if only for lack of space. Our objective is to give a good cross section across denominational lines, and targeting under-represented denominations.
Our second priority (since completed) was the e-mailing of a letter from our chairperson Eric to 53 churches which have run Alpha to enlist them as "Supporting Churches," who would
Our next hurdle is the finalization and despatch of the main letter of invitation. Our plan is to do this in time for interested recipients to come to the Pastors and Lay Leaders lunch. There is not much of it (time!)
Dominion Chalmers has announced a "Millennium Fund" for which applications for grants must be submitted by May 15. We are finalizing our application. Should we be selected, we would use the money for (a) professional advertizing of the Conference and (b) advertizing collateral primarily for new Alpha courses started subsequent to the conference. This advertizing might include Alpha banners, newspapers, radio, community TV, buses.
Alpha Canada supplied us with 5250 Canadian Conference Brochures some months ago. 700 will go out with the invitation letters. Others are available to supporting churches and individuals to spread the word. Each one includes an application. If you need some in Ottawa, contact Tony Copple; in Morrisburg, Nick Lee, and in Perth, Eric Angel. These three will share some responsibility for distribution to churches, Christian bookstores, etc. Note that all the information in the brochure including the application is also available on the conference web page. ........ ACTION: Nick, Eric, Tony
The networking committee has increased its group of "networkers" to carry out networking tasks. Networkers recruited so far include: Tony Copple and Dave Atkins (Alpha Advisors), Fthr Bob Poole, Chris Slojewski, Rev. Brian Wilkie, Michel Savard (French Alpha), Tony Liuzzo, Hugh O'Donnell, T.Harry Baker.
Media coverage will be important, and we hope to see a Bob Harvey article in the Citizen. In face, Bob has already been approached informally by Dave Atkins, and has suggested we talk to him mid September. Tony also talked about CHRI.
Subsequent to the meeting we were approached by Christian News Ottawa in regard to their May edition that will go out with 85,000 copies of the Ottawa Citzen, in an attempt to reach believers who are non-churchgoers. We received three days notice, and decided to place an advertisement which will draw readers to our web page. The costs of including a large display ad were too high to make a snap decision on.
Seminars
Although the detailed selection of the selection of optional seminars at 4:00 - 5:00 pm on day 1 does not need to be made for some time, we inferred from discussion that subjects that might be appropriate included:
It is also a fact that the number of seminars is related to the capacity of the break out rooms to hold them.
Music
We had a brief discussion on music. The music team work in close co-operation with the ministry team.
Eric asked Dave Atkins to see if he knew a suitable worship leader who might be the co-ordinator of a team, to which we could graft in other (non-Anglican) musicians, who could be from other churches. Alpha Canada have provided a play list.
Nick expressed concerns if the music were (entirely) pre-selected, rather than allowing the worship leader flexibility to be led by the Spirit.
Registration
Nick outlined the selection of information that Jenny Moore would send out on receipt of an applicant's cheque. This would need to provide them with parking and food information,
and to result in us receiving back data to enable us to budget for bag lunches etc. Detailed discussion was held over to the May 15 meeting when Jenny will be with us.
Tony mentioned that we have received specific instructions from Alpha Canada (over and above the information in the on-line handbooks) on automatic answer facilities on the registration line, and we also have a copy of the e-mail response documentation sent out to all applicants with e-mail, developed by the Toronto conference, that we may be able to adapt for our own purposes.
In the minutes of the previous meeting, it was suggested that after September 26 there would be a ticket price rise. In fact the brochure states that pre-registration will close two weeks prior to the conference date, and that after that date, the increase would be $20 per delegate. Clearly we should stick to the printed statement. (This item was not discussed at the meeting, and has been inserted here by the recording secretary under the excuse of expediency and common sense.)
Media
Nick asked who would be handling media enquiries and the issue of any press releases. This is a networking responsibility. Tony Copple will share some of it.
Bilingual presentation
It was agreed that we would investigate costs, starting with Nick Brotherhood of Alpha in Montreal, and Allen Churchill from his Billy Graham mission experience. ........ ACTION: Tony Copple
John Wright said that some Government money could be available to subsidize bilingual cost.
Please set your calendars for the next two Ottawa Alpha Conference Planning Meetings:
Speaker(s) for Pastors and Lay Leaders luncheon
Announcement of the conference key speakers
Bilingual aspects
Parking
Venue for the Friday night dinner
Budgeting
Advertising, including possible Ottawa Citizen coverage, and
Promotion, including via local education authorities and universities
Please check the Ottawa Alpha web site to see if the details of your next Alpha course are
correctly displayed. We always need the dates for your next course.
I have a candidate for a course in the West part of Ottawa starting within the next tree weeks.