Following a trial we have decided to move to an online Church Management suite of software called Churchsuite. Part of this entails transferring our Parish Directory online. This will provide us with several benefits, particularly:

· Alleviating the need for the large printer in the office giving us a nett saving of @£1200.

· Improving our zero carbon footprint by reducing the amount of printer consumables.

· Improving our efficiency in church administration

How will this affect you? – From 8 April church members will be able to have their own login to access the Parish Directory online through a portal called MYChurchSuite. Totally GDPR compliant and with good security, users can access this either through the ChurchSuite website or through a mobile app on their phone. Members have total control of what information they wish to be visible. And this information will only be accessible for St Johns Church members, none outside of our church family will have visibility or be able to access. Church members who wish to have a paper copy can still have that facility although we do encourage all church members to sign up to the online facility as this will then allow us to provide automated rota management for all volunteers and also collate data such as giving, attendance and other information that the Diocese regularly asks us to provide.

Throughout March we aim to provide a number of session to show people how to login and access the MyChurchSuite portal and we will also identify several “Champions” who will be able to provide on to one support if required. The Standing Committee are confident this will be a huge benefit to our Administration/volunteer management/Youth and Childrens work and Service planning. If you have any immediate concerns or hesitations, please do come and speak to Keith Ovenden or David Matthew who can help to put your mind as ease.