Lots of socks.
From Noro's Silk Garden Sock yarn, it's amazing stuff, and I've made Jet a pair and myself two pairs, and it's all because I got sucked into One Last Thing.
The Governance retreat went really well, though, so I'm glad of that, and it was so positive, and we made huge headway into making things more workable, simpler, and more powerful on all sides of the table. I'm so glad of Kimberley Sherwood at Third Sector Group. They specialize in helping nonprofits with fundraising and governance, and she really understands the difference between regular non-profits and churches.
There are significant differences, too.
Most non-profits separate their clients from their volunteers and their staffs are very different from either and donors may have nothing to do with any of those groups. The distinctions between those groups can be pretty clear in most non-profits.
With a church it's really unclear, because the same person that's a 'client' of the church is also going to be serving on the boards or council at any given time. Volunteers do some of the ministry, but it's under the auspicious of the Minister or Pastors, depending on the titles. The same client and volunteer may well feel that since they're giving the money, too, that they have the authority to have The Say about how the whole organization works and what everyone in it does.
So it can get really confused.
Suffice it to say that our model was really confused. Kimberley was very good about teaching us what a good model for a new governance structure would be, with clear boundaries and authorities, and then let us do the job of filling it in with what we thought of as very specific items we were worried about and knew needed addressing.
It was amazingly constructive for everyone concerned.
I would highly recommend Kimberley if anyone is thinking of doing work on their church's governance structure or any of the things that she does so well.
One of the funny things was that I gave her one of the little origami balls at the beginning of the session and she used it as the 'talking piece' for one of the exercises, and it fell apart. I put it back together during the exercise, and someone else took it and put it on our altar that Sunday as a symbol of coming together again.
I rescued it from the altar, and I'll be sending it back to Kimberley when I can find suitable packing material. *laughs*
I'm also playing a lot of Regrowth, one of the Feed The Beast's Third party quest mods. It's been a lot of fun, though the new version of it basically destroyed the world that I'd spent a few hundred hours on. I was sad about that, but I think there's more potential for amazing things with the new mod and book. Watching Direwolf20 and Soren play the mod has been educational, too, and seeing them completely bypass entire quest lines has been pretty funny.
I tried out the writers' group at the Longmont Library tonight, and found a lot of people taking delight in writing, in creating art of their own making and sharing it amid the small group.
That was cool and delightful to know that it's there; but I realized it's really not for me, as I'm really trying to just take the next steps into publishing a book again. And it's great encouragement for those that just want to write, but not be critiqued or hammered. And I kind of miss being able to write like that with nothing but support?
... but...
I also don't? I now know what I can do when I get good critique. Torie at Slate was an amazing editor to work with, and it's hard to go back. And John was very frank about telling me that it's okay if it's not for me, I don't have to justify it. I can just keep trying to find what it is that I need to do better with my writing.
So I guess I'll keep looking...
From Noro's Silk Garden Sock yarn, it's amazing stuff, and I've made Jet a pair and myself two pairs, and it's all because I got sucked into One Last Thing.
The Governance retreat went really well, though, so I'm glad of that, and it was so positive, and we made huge headway into making things more workable, simpler, and more powerful on all sides of the table. I'm so glad of Kimberley Sherwood at Third Sector Group. They specialize in helping nonprofits with fundraising and governance, and she really understands the difference between regular non-profits and churches.
There are significant differences, too.
Most non-profits separate their clients from their volunteers and their staffs are very different from either and donors may have nothing to do with any of those groups. The distinctions between those groups can be pretty clear in most non-profits.
With a church it's really unclear, because the same person that's a 'client' of the church is also going to be serving on the boards or council at any given time. Volunteers do some of the ministry, but it's under the auspicious of the Minister or Pastors, depending on the titles. The same client and volunteer may well feel that since they're giving the money, too, that they have the authority to have The Say about how the whole organization works and what everyone in it does.
So it can get really confused.
Suffice it to say that our model was really confused. Kimberley was very good about teaching us what a good model for a new governance structure would be, with clear boundaries and authorities, and then let us do the job of filling it in with what we thought of as very specific items we were worried about and knew needed addressing.
It was amazingly constructive for everyone concerned.
I would highly recommend Kimberley if anyone is thinking of doing work on their church's governance structure or any of the things that she does so well.
One of the funny things was that I gave her one of the little origami balls at the beginning of the session and she used it as the 'talking piece' for one of the exercises, and it fell apart. I put it back together during the exercise, and someone else took it and put it on our altar that Sunday as a symbol of coming together again.
I rescued it from the altar, and I'll be sending it back to Kimberley when I can find suitable packing material. *laughs*
I'm also playing a lot of Regrowth, one of the Feed The Beast's Third party quest mods. It's been a lot of fun, though the new version of it basically destroyed the world that I'd spent a few hundred hours on. I was sad about that, but I think there's more potential for amazing things with the new mod and book. Watching Direwolf20 and Soren play the mod has been educational, too, and seeing them completely bypass entire quest lines has been pretty funny.
I tried out the writers' group at the Longmont Library tonight, and found a lot of people taking delight in writing, in creating art of their own making and sharing it amid the small group.
That was cool and delightful to know that it's there; but I realized it's really not for me, as I'm really trying to just take the next steps into publishing a book again. And it's great encouragement for those that just want to write, but not be critiqued or hammered. And I kind of miss being able to write like that with nothing but support?
... but...
I also don't? I now know what I can do when I get good critique. Torie at Slate was an amazing editor to work with, and it's hard to go back. And John was very frank about telling me that it's okay if it's not for me, I don't have to justify it. I can just keep trying to find what it is that I need to do better with my writing.
So I guess I'll keep looking...
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