Meeting of Sidespeople and Wardens

Paul has sent me this for the blog:

Planned, but unprepared. The Sidespeople’s meeting.

When I was sitting in the relative safety of my study thinking about my expectations for a meeting I planned to chair this Wednesday evening, nothing of the real drama that followed was on my mind. Anita and I both felt that we would benefit from a better understanding of the role played by St. Paul’s sidespeople. So we invited the team for a glass of something and nibbles.

We felt that high on the agenda would be congratulations to the team for their excellent support and the understated way they manage their service for the Lord and the various congregations with which they are dealing. So with the innocence of youth on our side! We entered.... (without realising it) The dragon’s den.

"Hi Paul, I hope you realise that 'Who do you think you are?' is on TV at 9 o’clock", was the opening line. On the back foot, I braced myself for an unexpected onslaught of facts, figures and clearly thought out reasoning for things that happen in our services. I felt that the learning curve was turning into a spiral when we discussed the minutiae of sides persons duties. At 9.o’clock we ended and Anita drew breathe; it took me another five minutes to do the same.

As we packed away we knew that we had been dealing with a team which is on the ball and gives a lot of consideration to how our services are marshalled. It is going to take a while for us to get our heads around all the things that came out of this discussion but It has done us good to gain an insight into the work that our sides persons do. I hope that the new members of the team were encouraged by the wealth of detail and the expertise displayed during the evening.

Thanks to our Sides people and thank the Lord for the work they do.

Paul and Anita