Week Roundup
This week’s roundup comes a little early – I’m taking Good Friday off from work.
Sunday – After worship I went to the Adult Forum on the capital campaign which included a manse tour. The manse tour included lunch. This solved a problem for me – Carolyn was in North Jersey at a wake for a cousin-in-law of hers. Later in the evening I went to Sr. High youth group where we prepared further for Youth Sunday. I have an assignment – I need to find Old Testament scripture(s) to match up with the Prodigal Son. (Feel free to suggest some in comments or e-mail)
Work this week has been quiet. My boss passed her Project Management Professional exam on Monday (on the first try!) and we celebrated with donuts and bagels on Tuesday. The entire group is taking her out for lunch next week. Other than that I’m doing design work for a project.
Planning for the moderator candidate event is progressing. I’m finding a huge disparity in how presbyteries handle the list of commissioners. Some are treating it like I’m some kind of identity thief and insisting on forwarding the event information to their commissioners. One stated clerk said that he’d look at the invitation and determine whether or not it was “appropriate” for the commissioners. Other presbyteries are being very forthcoming and giving me all of the information that I ask for in minutes. I have to wonder who abused the list of commissioners at some point and how that caused the very prickly reaction in some places.
Monday evening at church Project Open Door met (well, actually at the manse – it solved a child care issue for the pastor). Most of the meeting went very well. Then we got to the subject of whether or not racism is an issue in our church (which is 90+% white) and whether or not we’ve introduced bias into our visitor survey. I’m amazed at how passionate people were about their positions (given that it was a room full of white people) and at how much disagreement there was. After this painful experience we’re going to revisit it again later – probably with the help of an expert. Ironically, Barack Obama covered all of the issues that we discussed in his speech the next day.
Tuesday evening I ended up serving as the pick-up Net Control Station for a ham radio weekly drill. This was the weekly Mercer County SKYWARN/RACES/ARES net – to test radios and procedures in case our services are needed due to a disaster or severe weather. It went relatively well given that most of our members were attending a club meeting at the time and were unavailable.
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Tonight I plan to go to our church’s Tenebrae (Maundy Thursday) communion service. It will reportedly be very powerful. They gradually dim the lights throughout the service and end in darkness and silence. With the strong winds that we’re going to get it should be interesting.
Friday evening we’re off to see the Trenton Devils play the Dayton Bombers with my sister Laura.
Saturday evening we go to the Philadelphia Wings vs. New York Titans lacrosse game at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton. My friend Jill has a crowd coming. My sister bought two tickets and after a friend dropped out Dad is coming with her – they’re riding with Carolyn and I to the game.
Sunday morning’s Easter service will probably be Catholic this year – we did Presbyterian last year. Sunday afternoon we’re hosting Easter dinner with the Smiths and Brennans at our house (anywhere from 9 to 13 people depending on who comes).
Happy Easter!
End of Week roundup
Here’s what’s going on.
- I managed to decompress from the congregational meeting last weekend. There are still some hard feelings among the young adults who work with youth, but we’ll get over it. I did express my feelings to my pastor.
- Last night my committee co-chair and the pastor and I had a conference call. We’d had to cancel the committee meeting because so many members were unavailable for the meeting (including a disturbing number who chose to drop out and prioritize something else higher – after they’d agreed to be there). We have a strategy for moving forward (but I can’t discuss it here until we’ve announced it to the team). How do you staff church committees when the really involved people are also really busy?
- I passed my ham radio Emergency Communications course, with 100% on the test and 100% of my assignments accepted on the first try. Next month or in a few months I’ll take the Level II course.
- Tonight Carolyn and I are headed to the Trenton Devils game. We’re skipping Saturday because 3 games a weekend is too much.
- Sunday the church is doing a service project in lieu of (or technically during) the worship service. We’ll start in the sanctuary, but then break early to spread out around the building making School and Baby kits for Church World Service, and hygiene kits for the Crisis Ministry of Trenton and Princeton, and sandwiches and wrapped utensils for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. Then we’ll gather for lunch and close worship. It’s Levi Sunday (named for the Levites – get it? We’re supposed to wear jeans).
- Sunday afternoon the Sr. High (and some Jr. High) youth group will go to see the Trenton Devils hockey team (ECHL). My season ticket plan includes one free luxury suite a year, and I’m treating the youth. It should be fun!
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I have been tagged in the book meme, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it today. Maybe later.
So what’s up?
So what’s going on, Mark?
I’m glad you asked.
This week has been eventful.
Earlier in the week, we got the news that the company is looking into some form of ownership change for all or part of the company. I’ve already written about that.
Today we actually got good news. IT has gotten permission to give an allowance to IT employees who are required to be on-call for support issues. The department will pay up to $75 of our home broadband Internet and cell phone charges. For me that means $40 for Internet access. My cell phone usage for work is minimal and always within my plan.
At church I got the Project Open Door meeting scheduled for next week – we’ll be going over inactive members and how to interview them gently. I had a good Sr. High youth evening last Sunday and a great Youth and Young Adult council meeting on Tuesday. The YAYA council actually reduced the amount of logistical stuff that we go over to focus on the substance and theology of our program. We’re going to be more intentional about linking our activities to our theology in the future.
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Hockey – there are 3 games this weekend. I’m going to tonight’s game with Carolyn, and tomorrow night’s game with Carolyn, my sister and a friend of hers. Sunday’s game will get skipped – 3 in a weekend is too much.
Ham Radio – I got voted in as a member of the Delaware Valley Radio Association last week. Last weekend I went to their radio “shack” and got an orientation on the building, antennas, and radios. I’m also nearly finished with the ARRL EC-001 Level 1 Amateur Radio Emergency Communication online class. That class will teach me how to be useful in an emergency (like a flood, hurricane, or other disaster). The class is going really well – my mentor told me that I’m the first student out of the 100 or so that he’s worked with who managed to format all 4 sample emergency messages correctly on the first try.
In the Presbyterian world, things have been busy. We’ve had a presbytery approve a lesbian candidate as ready to receive a call to ministry, we got a young adult candidate for General Assembly Moderator (for the non-presby’s, that means roughly “head Presbyterian”). These actions (particularly the first one) have prompted the expected reaction from the conservative wing of the church. Our General Assembly this June will also be considering a complete re-write of the Rules portion of our constitution.
At my own church we have a congregational meeting this Sunday that will consider a change to the bylaws to loosen up the rules on the number of Elders and their term length. This is intended to allow the church to ordain it’s first Elder under age 18 for a term shorter than 3 years (because the youth probably couldn’t serve a full 3 years).
Life is a roller coaster, but in retrospect it’s been more up than down this week.
KC2SMS
For those of you who don’t recognize it, KC2SMS is a United States amateur radio call sign. It’s used to identify the station and operator of a “ham” radio station in the US.
It also means me.
I’ve been interested in radio for many years. During college I was a member of the Rutgers Amateur Radio Club (WA2NPP), but I never got my license. I just didn’t want to go to the effort to learn Morse Code.
Earlier this year, the FCC (and ITU – the international body governing radio) eliminated the Morse Code requirement for all amateur radio licenses.
When I decided to stop flying, I looked for a less expensive hobby that could be done on my schedule (flying is clearly neither). I tried some online version of the ham radio tests after doing 20 minutes of looking at a study guide and to my surprise I passed both the entry level (Technician) and middle level (General) tests. I seem to have learned a lot of the information over the years from one source or another. I decided to do some studying and take the tests. It only costs $14 for a testing session and you can take as many levels as you pass for the same fee.
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Yesterday the paperwork went all the way through and I was issued my call sign and license. I have a Yaesu VX-6R handheld VHF/UHF radio on order that should arrive later this week. In the future I’ll look into a mobile (car) radio that handles all bands and can be used at home as well. I don’t think I plan to install a major antenna farm or tower at home – I’ll probably get field antennas and put them up when I want to use them.
I have already contacted the ARES/RACES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) folks in my area. I’ll start working with them soon, though there is a pause in activity for those groups in December every year. I also may get involved in traffic nets – the passing of short messages via radio from members of the public to other members of the public with the intent to train for the need to pass important messages in an emergency.
Besides, being an IT person by day, being heavily involved in church, and flying airplanes wasn’t nearly geeky enough.
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