Diocesan President's Page - Kӓren Hayden
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - December 2023
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - September 2023
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - June 2023
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - March 2023
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - September 2023
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - June 2023
MU Diocese of Melbourne Newsletter - March 2023
Diocesan President's Report 2023
It certainly has been a whirlwind year.
It feels like yesterday when I was asked to consider the appointment as Melbourne Diocesan President!
Visiting branches and going to fundraisers/events has been important to me. I wanted to meet as many members/branches as possible, to introduce myself and enable members to “put a face to the name”. I have attended several branch birthdays/fundraisers and have been warmly welcomed. Thank you.
At the chairing of my first Executive meeting last February, the lease on the MU shop had fallen due, and I asked whether the shop located at St Pauls’ Frankston, which required patronage of the shop, especially where it was now situated, what it would look like without a physical
shop presence, and how MU could/would work without it – taking into consideration that Helen, our Admin manager, also worked out of the shop premises.
At our Council meeting last February, Executive brought the consideration forward to the members, for opinions in relation to the closing of the MU shop. A motion was accepted, and the shop was closed as of 30 April 2023. Helen agreed to, and now does, operate MU business from home. MU files are accessed remotely, “online” via a computer program.
Executive attended a Visioning/strategic day in August, kindly held By Joy Freier at Bishopscourt, and facilitated by our Australian President, Robin Ray. This day enabled Exec to reflect on MU, and celebrate all that is valued. We then held a “brainstorming” session to help us identify what wasn’t working so well, and how we could address the issues raised.
From our visioning day, among other things, we identified the need to streamline our communication to branches, hence the emails that were recently sent out, asking for individual members’ emails, rather than just the branch contact person email. This is in light of the discussion we held about both new, and existing members, not always, and sometimes never, able to get to a meeting. Once this system is “up and running”, emails will be sent by me to Helen, then directly to individual members, rather than the email passing via up to 3 people, before information is received.
We also discussed more fully, and what I presented to Council last February, which was the idea of creating clusters (for want of a better name) of branches, with key people being a contact between executive and the branches. At this AGM, we will be able to present a map
of the Melbourne Diocese Area, and the placement of current branches within it, to suggest the possible locations of these clusters.
Since last year, there have been no Regional Coordinators appointed to Exec – Bev Cottell and Rosmary Hicks have kindly stayed on, for this year, in a “caretaker” role, to pass on information/emails to branches. The formation of clusters, with a Liaison person willing to
be a “conduit” between a cluster of branches, and Exec would replace the need for a Regional coordinator. The new email system we are implementing will take away the onus of forwarding emails, from the liaison person. The introduction of zoom meetings in conjunction with the face-to-face meetings means that the liaison person has the option to come into the city for meetings, if they wish.
A conversation I think all branches are having today is, how to attract new members/subscribers to MU. We definitely discussed this in our visioning/strategic day. I know that when I was working full time, had a life full of other interests, when my original branch closed, attending another branch, another meeting, was something I could not/did not want to, fit into my life.
Today, I think that, whilst we all know and experience, the value of being part of a branch, what we receive and share with that branch, we need to acknowledge that potential members may very well be unable/unwilling to commit to a branch environment. Full-time work, and full-time family commitments can make fitting in another commitment, into an already overflowing life, quite out of the question. This does not mean they cannot commit to MU’s aims. This is a conversation I would like to explore further next year.
How can we be more active in promoting the Projects and social issues/family issues that MU support? Would compiling a “kit” of MU information that is readily available and easy to distribute, for MU branches to distribute within their Parishes, be of benefit? I encourage you to think about how you would promote who we are and what we do, “MU in 30 seconds”. We need to be an active face in our Parishes, advertising events and projects.
What we want to do next year, is pick, and highlight a project that can be advertised and promoted in our Churches, with a retiring collection. This would also enable branches who are unable to do active fundraising themselves to be actively involved in supporting MU. I also intend to speak about MU at Synod next year, who we are and what we support – how our values/aims and objectives integrate with our Anglican faith.
When updating the Melbourne Diocese map, and MU Database, with current MU Branches, it was sad to see how many Branches do not exist anymore. I have mentioned to some of Exec that I would like to discuss how we could arrange a gathering/service sometime next year, to acknowledge those branches that have closed, and members that have gone into care, to uphold them in prayer.
I extend a huge thank you to all of Exec, for supporting me, and helping me understand more fully, the workings of MU. I would like to also thank Margaret Dunbar for her unending dedication and promotion of the “Traveling Suitcase”.
Kären Hayden AMUA President, Diocese of Melbourne
It certainly has been a whirlwind year.
It feels like yesterday when I was asked to consider the appointment as Melbourne Diocesan President!
Visiting branches and going to fundraisers/events has been important to me. I wanted to meet as many members/branches as possible, to introduce myself and enable members to “put a face to the name”. I have attended several branch birthdays/fundraisers and have been warmly welcomed. Thank you.
At the chairing of my first Executive meeting last February, the lease on the MU shop had fallen due, and I asked whether the shop located at St Pauls’ Frankston, which required patronage of the shop, especially where it was now situated, what it would look like without a physical
shop presence, and how MU could/would work without it – taking into consideration that Helen, our Admin manager, also worked out of the shop premises.
At our Council meeting last February, Executive brought the consideration forward to the members, for opinions in relation to the closing of the MU shop. A motion was accepted, and the shop was closed as of 30 April 2023. Helen agreed to, and now does, operate MU business from home. MU files are accessed remotely, “online” via a computer program.
Executive attended a Visioning/strategic day in August, kindly held By Joy Freier at Bishopscourt, and facilitated by our Australian President, Robin Ray. This day enabled Exec to reflect on MU, and celebrate all that is valued. We then held a “brainstorming” session to help us identify what wasn’t working so well, and how we could address the issues raised.
From our visioning day, among other things, we identified the need to streamline our communication to branches, hence the emails that were recently sent out, asking for individual members’ emails, rather than just the branch contact person email. This is in light of the discussion we held about both new, and existing members, not always, and sometimes never, able to get to a meeting. Once this system is “up and running”, emails will be sent by me to Helen, then directly to individual members, rather than the email passing via up to 3 people, before information is received.
We also discussed more fully, and what I presented to Council last February, which was the idea of creating clusters (for want of a better name) of branches, with key people being a contact between executive and the branches. At this AGM, we will be able to present a map
of the Melbourne Diocese Area, and the placement of current branches within it, to suggest the possible locations of these clusters.
Since last year, there have been no Regional Coordinators appointed to Exec – Bev Cottell and Rosmary Hicks have kindly stayed on, for this year, in a “caretaker” role, to pass on information/emails to branches. The formation of clusters, with a Liaison person willing to
be a “conduit” between a cluster of branches, and Exec would replace the need for a Regional coordinator. The new email system we are implementing will take away the onus of forwarding emails, from the liaison person. The introduction of zoom meetings in conjunction with the face-to-face meetings means that the liaison person has the option to come into the city for meetings, if they wish.
A conversation I think all branches are having today is, how to attract new members/subscribers to MU. We definitely discussed this in our visioning/strategic day. I know that when I was working full time, had a life full of other interests, when my original branch closed, attending another branch, another meeting, was something I could not/did not want to, fit into my life.
Today, I think that, whilst we all know and experience, the value of being part of a branch, what we receive and share with that branch, we need to acknowledge that potential members may very well be unable/unwilling to commit to a branch environment. Full-time work, and full-time family commitments can make fitting in another commitment, into an already overflowing life, quite out of the question. This does not mean they cannot commit to MU’s aims. This is a conversation I would like to explore further next year.
How can we be more active in promoting the Projects and social issues/family issues that MU support? Would compiling a “kit” of MU information that is readily available and easy to distribute, for MU branches to distribute within their Parishes, be of benefit? I encourage you to think about how you would promote who we are and what we do, “MU in 30 seconds”. We need to be an active face in our Parishes, advertising events and projects.
What we want to do next year, is pick, and highlight a project that can be advertised and promoted in our Churches, with a retiring collection. This would also enable branches who are unable to do active fundraising themselves to be actively involved in supporting MU. I also intend to speak about MU at Synod next year, who we are and what we support – how our values/aims and objectives integrate with our Anglican faith.
When updating the Melbourne Diocese map, and MU Database, with current MU Branches, it was sad to see how many Branches do not exist anymore. I have mentioned to some of Exec that I would like to discuss how we could arrange a gathering/service sometime next year, to acknowledge those branches that have closed, and members that have gone into care, to uphold them in prayer.
I extend a huge thank you to all of Exec, for supporting me, and helping me understand more fully, the workings of MU. I would like to also thank Margaret Dunbar for her unending dedication and promotion of the “Traveling Suitcase”.
Kären Hayden AMUA President, Diocese of Melbourne