The Big Church Picnic meeting 20th May, 2024
1. We now have 7 of the 10 gazebos that we need for the event –
· 2x from Sally and Harvie
· 2x from Julian
· 2x from Cath Hilton
· 1x from John Brennan
Yvonne feels that St Thomas’s might have one
It was also suggested that Janet may be able to source one from Cadets and/or Rosemary might be able to get one from Guides.
It would be helpful if people could clarify as soon as possible so we can remove that from our list of concerns!
2. Sally approached Jill Richardson-Brady to see if she could help us out with Asda’s community projects for bottled water and snacks. Jill requires a charity number to be able to do this. Simon has agreed for St Peter’s to approach Jill regarding this as they have a charity number and have been recipients in the past from Asda in the Community.
Simon – please could you check in with Jill regarding this? Thanks.
3. Advertising.
Barbara shared the poster, banner and Flyer templates she had prepared. There was a discussion around some of the wording. It was agreed to simply use the words ‘The Big Picnic’ in order to avoid confusion and for people to think the picnic is only for those attending church. ‘Decathlon’ has been changed to ‘Octathlon’ as there are now only 8 churches taking part.
Barbara will approach two companies about pricings. It was agreed to have two banners – one to be displayed on the park fence along Walmersley Road, the other to be placed at The Parish Church, on The Rock side. This will be removed on the day and used at the Band Stand. (Julian, I hope you are happy for us to use the Parish Church in this way?)
Sally will write a press release and send it to The Bury Times
The flyers will be sent electronically to all churches which they can then use within their magazines, display boards etc, and upload onto social media.
It was decided that social media would be the more effective way to advertise rather than with hundreds of flyers, so 100 A4 posters/flyers will be ordered and shared amongst member churches, cafes and local shops. It was suggested that schools could include the flyer in their electronic communications with parents. Could anyone involved in school governing or with other school connections please get this information out there?
It was suggested that Sandra, the out-going Mayor, might be able to use her connections to also get word out about the event. Harvie to follow up with this.
Barbara felt that a QR code would be a useful thing to have on the flyers/posters but at present it is not clear where the code would most effectively direct people. This is something that could be looked at in the long term but not likely to be helpful for this event.
4. Clarification of activities
St John’s, Bircle needed help sourcing a football net for their Penalty shoot part of the Octathlon. An offer was made to help them at the meeting (Linda – did you manage to find out if you had a goal? If not, please could you let me know asap so that we can approach elsewhere? Thank you.)
St James are hoping to borrow some ‘chickens’ from All Saints for their ‘Chuck a chicken’. (Sue, would you be able to help with this? Thank you).
All other activities seem to be proceeding well.
5. Information leaflets (themed)
David Robinson has kindly agreed to compile these for us. Please send any information to him that you want included in the themed leaflets. I have already received some information which I will send on to David. In addition to the regular activities such as craft groups etc, it would be useful to know of any planned Seeker/Alpha type groups and a leaflet could be put together about these too. It would also possibly prevent them all taking place at the same time then nothing for the rest of the year if we share this sort of information.
Barbara has done some templates for the information leaflets so they will continue with the same look as the posters and flyers. Sally will forward these to David.
6. Sally asked the group if there were any helpful lessons to be learnt from ‘Prayer in the Park’, which took place last week.
It was suggested that having music playing rather than silence would create a better atmosphere.
At Prayer in the Park a request was made for people to help with litter picking at the end of the event, but most people just wandered off, leaving the work to a few. This confirmed the need for us to have designated stewards to do this at the end of our event.
Chairs will be needed at each gazebo, plus a table and ‘Accident book’ for the St John Ambulance gazebo.
7. Sally sent out some suggested prayers to be used in the intercessions at church services until the event takes place. These have been used and hopefully word is spreading through the regular congregations. Hopefully, there won’t be anybody saying they knew nothing about the event when 29th June comes along!
8. Ann asked where the money would be paid in to for the church contributions to St John Ambulance, advertising etc. Barbara suggested we use the Deanery Account for this this so we can have clear transparency. This was agreed by the meeting.
9. The meeting ended with a time of prayer for the event.
Next meeting – 10th June, 7pm at St John with St Mark’s.
· Flyers/posters to be ready for distribution (Barbara)
· Themed leaflets to be ready and shared with the group (David)
· Certificates and stamp cards to be ready (Sally and Harvie)
· Stewards to be recruited (Can churches see if they can recruit from their congregations and collect names for the meeting. Janet to lead the Steward side of things – Hi-Viz jackets obtained by Churches Together for the Paryer in the Park event – could we arrange to borrow these? At the meeting we will discuss the tasks for the Stewards and Janet can arrange a meeting with them before the event.)
· Please come to the meeting with the names of somebody within each church that would be happy to follow up with any connections made with people at the event. Simon will then put something together to help us to follow through with this. Simon, please could you explain this to the group at the meeting on 10th? Thank you.)
· We will discuss the Prayer Tent some more and the options of a Prayer Tree of some sort and what we will do with those prayers at the end of the event (Harvie/Simon)