TLDR: After seven years of faithful employment as Communications Director, Katie has decided to start graduate school. We will miss her greatly and will never forget her contributions to our church.
When Katie Lamb started working at Saint Dunstan’s seven years ago, life was very different around here. For starters, our website was in desperate need of development, communications with the parish membership still relied on paper communiques, and we had no electronic newsletters, no livestreaming, no blogs, and our social media presence was in its infancy. Not only did Katie develop a phenomenal website, but she brought us well into the 21st century in terms of communications and marketing. Along the way, she learned to master Episcopal liturgy and modernized our Sunday service bulletins. She worked with David Horn and BEMA (our IT consultants) to study, purchase, and install all of our livestreaming equipment at the start of the pandemic. She has overseen livestream transmissions since the beginning, with the great help of Dough Barber and Rob Penco.
Personally, Katie has been a great help to my office. She was fundamental to my transition as rector, and she introduced me to the practical side of terms I had only heard in conferences: Cyber-Evangelism, Geo-Marketing, Data-analytics, etc. A consummate professional, Katie has been eager to learn new skills and develop new contacts, and she has brought all of this knowledge to the parish. As a result, we have been at the forefront of Church communications within our Diocese. Both Mother Beth Anne and Father Alvaro can attest to the positive reception we get when attending Clergy Conferences and Council. We are telling a unified, branded, and cohesive story through our website and social media, and people around the Diocese are paying attention.
As I announced in Church this last Sunday, Katie has resigned from her position, as she now is enrolled fulltime in graduate school. We celebrated her ministry and devotion among us at lunch with the staff this last Monday. The staff took the time to express our gratitude to Katie for her innovation and dedication, not only in the field of communications, but also in children’s programs and Vacation Bible School. I now invite all of you to express your own gratitude to Katie when you see her next. We will miss her greatly, but we are excited for career development plans. We can’t wait to see what God has in store for her and her family next. I am convinced that she will have a brilliant future!
Some of you have been worried about a future without Katie. I share your concerns, but I want you to know that we have a strategy to take care of the core functions of the communications job. We have created an interim set of responsibilities that Kyra Helmick will perform until we hire a new Communications Professional. These are: The maintenance of the website (front end), including the loading of blogs and sermons. She will produce all service bulletins, which now include special services as well (She has been doing Sunday bulletins for a while.) She will send out via email all clergy messages (blogs) on Wednesdays and all Constant Contact Newsletters (Bits and Bytes) every Friday. We have also doubled Doug Barber’s hours and have asked him to oversee the livestream services on Sunday, with the assistance of Rob Penco as a volunteer. This is an area where we need to recruit 3 to 4 volunteers to assist Doug and Rob at all Sunday services. If you are technologically inclined and are willing to be trained, please let Doug or Fr. Roman know. Additionally, we are in the process of discussing with our IT consultants (BAMA) an arrangement for them to oversee the development (back end) of our website during the transition. Finally, Laurie Riggs and Fr. Roman will oversee our agreements with our marketing providers for special advertisements for high feasts and other events.
We need you support and your patience during this transition. Our greatest hope is a seamless transition, but this may be a tall ask at this point. A more realistic goal is the maintenance of key functions until the position has been filled. If you are not getting our communications, or if you feel that something has fallen between the cracks, please let us know and be patient while we correct the problem. Our staff is united in ensuring the highest quality services for our members. Please pray for us and for our church as we start the search process for a new Communications Professional.
May God continue to bless Katie and her family, and may God guide our church during this transition. In his holy name we pray, Amen!
Blessings to all,
Fr. Roman+
