Replacing an Altar Guild

[Geoffrey Brown]

Somehow the Altar Guild in our little parish has gone from five members to one in the course of a little over a week.  Age and illness are most of the problem, and not solvable by me.  I'm assuming we are not the only parish that has found itself without a functional altar guild on short notice, and I wonder what kinds of solutions might be out there.  Aside from a vigorous recruiting campaign, I've considered the following: (1)  requiring the lead Minister of Communion each Sunday to do her/his own set up and "dishes" -- likely to be very unpopular with the MOCs.   (2) Adding altar setup and cleanup to my customary, which is already 23 pages long and has recently grown to include coordinating the Sunday School -- I'm thinking I am almost out of bullets, frankly, and at present I vest as verger for Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter only because I have too much else to do.  (3) Asking the Celebrants to set up their own altars -- which somehow feels wrong to me.  I am open to ANY suggestions and thanks in advance!!

[Katherine Pendzuk]

Good Evening,

Well,  while I am the Verger at my Church, which includes overseeing the Acolytes, I am also the Altar Guild and Treasurer.  

I am fortunate enough to only have one service on Sundays now.  But my first bit of advice would be to hand off Sunday School coordinating to someone else.  When I was serving in two services, I would have a 7:30am and when done cleanup to setup for the 10am.  I work very hard at not doing finances before any service.  But by choice and home schedule I am at Church early and at times printing things out for the liturgy. 

When I had more acolytes, I would get them involved in the setup to be familiar with items in case we needed something from the sacristy.

I would be happy to talk on the phone more if you would like.  Feel free to contact me at 914-523-8464 anytime.

Best Regards,

Kate Pendzuk, Verger 

Trinity Episcopal Church - Ossining, NY

 

On Sunday, June 9, 2019, 10:37:56 PM EDT, Geoffrey Brown <between...@gmail.com> wrote:

Somehow the Altar Guild in our little parish has gone from five members to one in the course of a little over a week.  Age and illness are most of the problem, and not solvable by me.  I'm assuming we are not the only parish that has found itself without a functional altar guild on short notice, and I wonder what kinds of solutions might be out there.  Aside from a vigorous recruiting campaign, I've considered the following: (1)  requiring the lead Minister of Communion each Sunday to do her/his own set up and "dishes" -- likely to be very unpopular with the MOCs.   (2) Adding altar setup and cleanup to my customary, which is already 23 pages long and has recently grown to include coordinating the Sunday School -- I'm thinking I am almost out of bullets, frankly, and at present I vest as verger for Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter only because I have too much else to do.  (3) Asking the Celebrants to set up their own altars -- which somehow feels wrong to me.  I am open to ANY suggestions and thanks in advance!!

--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "V-List" group.
 
The Vergers Voice blog has the latest news about the VGEC. Join us at news.vergers.org.
 
Follow the VGEC on:
 
http://vergers.org
http://news.vergers.org
http://facebook.com/vergerguild
http://youtube.com/vergertv
 
To post to this group, send email to vl...@googlegroups.com
 
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
vlist+un...@googlegroups.com
 
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/vlist?hl=en?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Vergers Guild of the Episcopal Church V-List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vlist+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to vl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/vlist.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vlist/b862d765-939c-44eb-97b8-3c8b83ed3e4a%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Darin Herndon]

If your church has any members in aspirancy for Holy Orders, or considering aspirancy, encourage them to spend some time on altar guild learning the care of items they will handle at the altar as a deacon or priest.

Respectfully,

Darin K. Herndon

On Jun 9, 2019, at 9:37 PM, Geoffrey Brown <between...@gmail.com> wrote:

Somehow the Altar Guild in our little parish has gone from five members to one in the course of a little over a week.  Age and illness are most of the problem, and not solvable by me.  I'm assuming we are not the only parish that has found itself without a functional altar guild on short notice, and I wonder what kinds of solutions might be out there.  Aside from a vigorous recruiting campaign, I've considered the following: (1)  requiring the lead Minister of Communion each Sunday to do her/his own set up and "dishes" -- likely to be very unpopular with the MOCs.   (2) Adding altar setup and cleanup to my customary, which is already 23 pages long and has recently grown to include coordinating the Sunday School -- I'm thinking I am almost out of bullets, frankly, and at present I vest as verger for Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter only because I have too much else to do.  (3) Asking the Celebrants to set up their own altars -- which somehow feels wrong to me.  I am open to ANY suggestions and thanks in advance!!

--

[Bid Drake]

Have you considered a Junior Altar Guild? 

--

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "V-List" group.
 
The Vergers Voice blog has the latest news about the VGEC. Join us at news.vergers.org.
 
Follow the VGEC on:
 
http://vergers.org
http://news.vergers.org
http://facebook.com/vergerguild
http://youtube.com/vergertv
 
To post to this group, send email to vl...@googlegroups.com
 
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
vlist+un...@googlegroups.com
 
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/vlist?hl=en?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Vergers Guild of the Episcopal Church V-List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vlist+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to vl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/vlist.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vlist/b862d765-939c-44eb-97b8-3c8b83ed3e4a%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Virus-free. www.avast.com