NB. This is archived material from Assembly 2004

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Appendix 5 – Service Team Report

As determined by the Council of Assembly the Service Team serves the church through:

a Mission Resource Team and Asian Liaison Officer

a School of Ministry

a Global Mission Secretary and Ecumenical Relations Secretary (with links to an International Affairs Desk under Christian World Service)

a Communications Team

a Financial Services Team

an Administration Team

an Archives Team.

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<typohead type="3">1. Team departures </typohead>

1.1 Since the last Assembly there have been changes in personnel in the Service Team:

Graeme Nicholas resigned as Co-Director Northern South Island

Mary Macpherson resigned as Communications Manager

Kirsten Dale resigned as Communications Coordinator

Richard Davis resigned as Communications Adviser & Webmaster

Ram Ayyar resigned as Accountant, Financial Services

Geoff Bell resigned as Manager Financial Services.

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<typohead type="3">2. Team appointments </typohead>

2.1 The following appointments have been made:

Kevin Ward as Lecturer in Church and Society at the School of Ministry

John Daniel as Co-Director Southern South Island

Jo Reader, formerly senior communications adviser at Corrections, as the Communications Manager

Andrew Jackson as Manager Financial Services on a fixed-term basis for 12 months.

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<typohead type="3">3. Reports not covered by policy group reports </typohead>

3.1 Mission Resource Team

The Mission Resource Team is currently under review. A proposal for future resourcing is being brought to this Assembly, after consultation with all staff, for an Assembly decision.

3.2 Global Mission

When the Assembly meets, the Global Mission Office will have been in existence for just over two years. It has been a tumultuous period in the history of our world providing countless challenges but little solidity upon which to establish a new venture. A world at war in so many regions is incredibly difficult to fathom. Thus I was grateful for the familial warmth of our ?primary mission relationship´ with Vanuatu which provided a safe place in which to develop new operational models. The subsequent progress and the efforts of our Project Officer, Rev Roy Pearson has been most satisfying.

The countless services and presentations that I have been invited to take have given me a good sense of the Church that the GMO represents. The huge response to the Global Mission Gazette is an indicator of the breadth of interest in 'what is happening' through our Church around the globe and the continual stream of cheques, large and small, a gratifying response. The financial support by the APW National Executive towards staffing enabled significant growth at a critical time.

New ventures like placing young Andrew Johnston in Lusaka, Zambia to work in an AIDS orphanage has been complemented by the rich heritage of faithful service by Kathryn McDaniel to prisoners in Thailand. The residents of Ramallah, Palestine have heard of New Zealand because Rev Glenn Barclay spent five months in their midst. Our friends at Jagadhri, India know we still care largely through the tireless efforts of Rev Doreen Riddell.

But we have only just begun. ?It´s all go´ at the GMO.

3.3 Presbyterian Archives

Our role in the Archives is to assist the members of the Presbyterian Church and other researchers to unravel the ?truths´ of the Church in Aotearoa New Zealand from pakeha settlement in 1840. By ensuring a safe environment and preserving our past papers in a professional way we help people use the documents in a way that may enlarge their understanding of the Church and its members, its relationship to society and its input to our cultural development.

Highlights since the last Assembly:

We assisted 1390 researchers who visited or requested information from our collections. We continue to advertise the collections to researchers through seminar presentations, conferences, parish and presbytery visits and workshops, special displays, the website, and assistance to researchers.

We redesigned and expanded our website. This past year saw a record number of hits with an average of 680 per month. We are also developing online parish and presbytery guidelines on records management.

We acquired 301 new or additional collections including several exciting finds such as the final draft copy of Clive Sage´s then controversial history of the Young Men´s Bible Class Union. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the acquisitions is the number of requests from parishes north of the Synod bounds to deposit their collections in Dunedin.

We have a constant flow of orders for photographs from parish historians, researchers, museums and publishers that highlights the significance of the Presbyterian Church collection. This project continues to require funding. It was initially funded by the Synod of Otago and Southland, and they currently support half a salary for the preservation work.

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3.4 Ecumenical Relations

Over the last two years the Ecumenical Relations desk has focused on three specific areas of work. These comprise:

Cultivating an increased ecumenical ethos within the Presbyterian Church through:

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– working with ecumenical partners to identify more effective expressions of ecumenism both within and beyond our present cooperation. One significant outcome has been the reworking of the ecumenical vision presently expressed through the Conference of Churches in Aotearoa New Zealand (CCANZ)

– active support of the programme associated with the Decade to Overcome Violence (DOVe)

– supporting active participation in Council for World Mission (CWM) activities, especially through the Global Mission office and Youth Ministry.

Continuing to cultivate stronger relationships with partner churches in the Pacific through:

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– active involvement in and support for the life and mission of the CWM Pacific Region network

– continuing to encourage closer working relationships with the Cook Islands Christian Church and Ekalesia Niue in New Zealand.

Reviewing the effectiveness of our ecumenical participation with other churches in New Zealand and in our wider ecumenical networks including:

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– re-visioning the ecumenical commitment presently expressed through CCANZ´s ongoing participation in the work of the Standing Committee of Uniting Congregations in Aotearoa New Zealand

– active participation in establishing and exercising a new and more effective governance structure for CWM

– developing possibilities for more effective partnership with churches in Korea.

<typohead type="3">3.5 Communications </typohead>

The focus of the Communications team has been to continue to build more planned and responsive internal communications. Publications are being reviewed; in the meantime sPanz has been reduced to a quarterly issue as a cost saving measure.

Other important projects include the Easter campaign, a joint programme run in Wellington between Assembly Office and Wellington parishes. Billboards and bus shelter posters were the communication medium, designed by students at Massey´s School of Design. Overall the project was successful, and an evaluation highlighted areas for improvement should another be run.

The growth in the use and content of the website – www.presbyterian.org.nz – has continued to be a highlight. In August 2004, we had 17,971 visitors, 15,300 of whom were visiting for the first time. In our report to the last General Assembly, we had been averaging 3,000 visitors in a month. This is indicative of how the internet increasingly is becoming a key communications tool. As we have had so many positive comments about the site, we have entered it in the NetGuide web awards. We are continuing also to work towards hosting church websites on the Presbyterian site.

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

Appendix 5 – Service Team Report