I want to take this opportunity to express how honored and excited I am about taking the role as your Senior Warden this coming Church year. I give you my commitment to work diligently with our Rector, Junior Warden, and the Vestry to provide the leadership and discipline needed to build on our strong heritage to insure the long term viability of our Parish. Despite the white water we encountered this past year, significant progress was made by the Vestry in developing a workable Strategic Plan for the future that will provide the resources to grow and prosper. It will take hard work by everyone in the Parish, but working together we will be successful.

As background, last spring the Vestry formed a Strategic Planning Committee comprised of Margie Hildebrandt, Leslie Anne Bird, Riley Parke, Tom Giffels and this writer. We met about twice a month in the evenings for about 6 -7 months to develop a Five Year Strategic Plan for the Church reporting our findings to the Vestry and gaining their concurrence as we went along. The final Five Year plan was outlined to everyone at the annual Stewardship meeting this past October.

Itemized below are their key or top line findings and accomplishments:

• We are blessed with a wonderful base of folks who love the Church and Church family

• We also found an inherent resistance to change-- A “You can’t do that attitude” that we recognized needed to change if we were to be successful. What is needed is a “can do” attitude recognizing that anything is possible, even though it may be unfeasible. This is the first tenant of both progressive and change management.

• The Church is at a critical cross road -- not unlike situations found in business turnarounds.

• We are not in immediate financial danger, but the Church was and is eating its reserves and in time they could run out leaving us with a very serious problem.

• The most critical issue facing the Church was the need for new members to survive long term. Over 90% of our revenues come from members and if we are eating reserves currently the only solution is growth.

• The Church had cut spending fat, but also muscle in the process. We cannot build if we cannot adequately support our programs or develop new programs needed to retain and attract new members

• Change will be a necessary part of growth if we are to attract new members. We must understand societal changes and meet the needs of current and prospective parishioners.

• We all must be proactive in soliciting new members

• The Church must have strong leadership to grow.

• The Church must exercise discipline to grow and prosper. We must have measurable goals and objectives if we are to succeed.

• Fund raisers need to be more community focused to attract new members and to generate outside revenues -- which is a win win for us

• We need to break down the silos in the Church -- it is mine and you cannot have it attitude.

• We need better and faster communication -- eliminate gossip that can be a cancer in any group.

• We need to insure that we are technologically of age

• We need to come together and bury old hurts and grievances. We need to let go of our personal feelings and move forward together. My Warden partner, Tom Clark exemplifies what is needed as he was deeply hurt by events in the Church. Tom could have quit, but he was big enough and strong enough to “let it go” and forgive. He took it as his mission to work within the Church family to change and improve what it is that so deeply distressed him. That takes real courage and strength and is an example that we should all try and emulate when discouraged or angered by events.

• The current state of the Church was reviewed and the desired state of the Church was developed and agreed to by the Vestry.

• A mission and vision statement was develop and agreed by the Vestry

• A five year financial plan that is realistic and doable was developed and is the basis for this 2008 budget. This five year plan was reviewed in detail at the Stewardship meeting in October.

• The tools to execute and measurements to monitor the plan have been developed.

• The necessary structural changes have been put in place to execute the plan

• A personnel committee to support the Rector and the Vestry is in place

• Personal objectives that correlate with the Strategic Plan have been developed and agree to with the Rector.

• Vestry guidelines have been developed

• A Public Relations Committee is in place and working

• A New Members Committee is being revitalized under Lee’s direction

• The Stewardship Committee was placed under the Finance Committee in order to monitor revenues as well as expense. By so doing, becoming a true finance committee enabled to keep the Vestry and the Parish apprised of our complete financial position in a timely manner.

As this Committee’s work has been past to the Vestry with the submission of 2008 Budget, this Committee ceased to exist. Importantly, I want you to join me in thanking Margie, Leslie Anne, Riley, Tom for their tireless efforts on this critical project. We would also like to thank all the people to many to name that helped us collect data, provide background and generally facilitated our work.

As we look forward to the challenges facing us 2008, I want you to know that Tom and I pledge to be available to all parishioners in a pro active way. To accomplish this, we plan to:

1.) Alternately write this Warden’s column in the Spire’s and on the web site monthly

2.) Make ourselves available at a Warden’s coffee on the first Sunday of the month for both services (specifics to follow)

3.) Meet monthly or more in person with Father Lee to support his ministry

4.) Reach out to parishioners who are not able to attend Church

and 5.) Insure that communications are always open to all.

To the last point, we want to listen to any and all concerns and believe that all need to be addressed and answered. However, the answer being sought may not be the one given as we have to put any response in the context of what is best for all. We must all remind ourselves of the old proverb that to please everyone is to guarantee failure.

Finally, as we undertake this journey together, I want to invite you to stop me in Church or feel free to call me anytime at 216 227 9570 with any issue, idea, suggestion or questions that you might have. This is my home office and I will do my best to respond to you as quickly as possible if I am not there when you call.

Again, I thank you for the trust you are placing in me and will do everything humanly possible to continually earn and warrant that trust.

Fred