Our Vestry met on Wednesday, May 17th for its monthly meeting. The minutes for the meeting will be filed and will be available for your review.
As I was looking at the note I wrote last year for the June Genesis. I started by saying welcome to our new Assistant Rector, Rachel. Wow- what a difference a year makes as this month I’ll say good luck to Rachel as she takes the reigns for few months with Rob leaving for a his three month sabbatical. I hope you all agree with my thinking that we are in good hands! Yes, we’ll miss Rob... a lot and yes, we have an awesome back up Priest in Jim, but I’m still very happy that God sent Rachel to us. She’s done a fantastic job with our family ministries and don’t forget Vacation Bible School is almost here.
A few notes from the Vestry meeting:
We received a very good financial report. We have positive variance from budget in our pledge income which, while perhaps temporary, is always a good thing. The rest of the report is positive too and we remain in a good position with cash.
Worship committee gave a thorough report having come through a very successful Easter season and our confirmation visit from Bishop Gulick.
B+G reported that the electrical repairs in the Cox Hall kitchen were almost completed- I think they are done now. While not a highly visible project, the added safety is critical. B+G is continuing to improve our internet and intranet capabilities across the campus.
We also continued our discussion about God’s call to mission and how we can translate that into ideas and actions at Trinity.
All in all, a very good and productive meeting.
Another thing that I did at this time last year was to ask you all to join the Stable Tour volunteer list because I was writing this note before Memorial Day weekend. However, this time, the 2017 Hunt Country Stable Tour is done... and what a fantastic weekend it was! Thank you, and thank you to ALL of the many volunteers, Trinity staff and our friends who contributed innumerable hours. I had the pleasure of working at Peace and Plenty on Saturday and Sunday with two different teams and I made new bonds of friendship that I’m sure will continue to grow.
If you were at the outstanding finale dinner on Sunday evening, you heard our HCST chair tell us about how many people we touched during the build up to the weekend, during the weekend and that we intend to continue to reach through the coming year. Kat had a lot of numbers that matter- especially in today’s digital age and considering the changes that our social interactions continue to undergo. I want to list just a few for your information, awareness and consideration as we begin thinking about next year’s tour and how we can reach even more people:
The Hunt Country Stable Tour Facebook page was viewed over 35,000 times
At least 12,500 of those viewers like, shared or commented on the site
In the last couple of weeks before the event, over 6,000 people viewed the HCST site and 3,000 (three thousand!!) of those viewers bounced from the HCST site to Trinity’s home page to view information about our church
Very good numbers by any person’s yardstick, and a great way to make initial contact with people who may not have found us by happening to drive by Trinity one weekend, like a lot of us did. The views of the live feeds from the tour, like the horse swimming event at Trappe Hill Farm, are still getting new views as I write this note.
So- Bravo to the Stable Tour team, Godspeed to Rob for a productiive sabbatical and a safe return, and on to summer for us. Don’t forget the June picnic and the Vestry sponsored picnic in July!