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Hello and welcome to COVID Communiqué 16. It’s been a busy week, so there’s quite a bit to tell you about. 

First, we want to remind you to organize a debriefing meeting to take place immediately after your service (or services) on September 6. This is the 38th and last point in the Checklist for Parish Leaders, and it wouldn’t be surprising if you’ve been so preoccupied with the preceding 37 points that you haven’t taken steps yet to make this happen. But don’t miss it—we’ve tried to cover everything in our In this Together plan, but this meeting is the chance for you to talk about what happened when you took it from theory to practice. What worked? What didn’t? What can be smoothed out?  The debrief shouldn’t be about blame or complaints, but don’t gloss over the problems and awkward moments, either. What did you all learn? What should you change to make next week’s experience better? Make sure your pandemic team, clergy, staff, and volunteers get together immediately after church or by Zoom on Monday (or Tuesday, since Monday’s a holiday—but don’t leave it later than that). 

We were delighted to get a copy of St. Clare’s (Winchester) innovative approach for preparing parishioners to come back to church. Their short welcome back video takes just over three minutes, but shows as well as tells parishioners what church will look like on September 6. It’s on You Tube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocTKsnpZ1gc&feature=youtu.be.  Check it out—maybe it’ll inspire you!

You may have noticed that In this Together talks about asking outside groups who use church facilities to sign forms undertaking to conduct their activities safely. Up to now we haven’t had a form available for you to use—but we will include it in next week’s COVID Communiqué. Keep an eye out for it. 

Lastly, we have changes to seven paragraphs in the plan. Four of them relate to the same issue; collecting people’s names and contact information when they come to the church for any reason. They are paragraphs 30, 35, 40 and 88. 

The other changes are:
Paragraph 43, on counting the collection safely.
Paragraph 121, correcting how long each day’s visitor log must be kept (30 days).
Paragraph 122, changes to the disclaimer churches must post about collecting contact data. 

That’s it for this week. As well, if you have a question you can’t find the answer to in the plan or on the website, send it to us at C19helpdesk@ottawa.anglican.ca. 

This is also the address to write to if you’d like to request your own copy of COVID Communiqué. 

COVID Communiqué is produced by the senior staff of the diocese: 
Shane Parker, Bishop
Linda Hill, Executive Archdeacon
Sanjay Grover, Director of Financial Ministry
Peter John Hobbs, Director of Community Ministries
Jane Scanlon, Director of Stewardship Development
Carol Sinclair, Director of Human Resources