Diocesan Press Release

Managing Employees - help for churches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 1 July 1999

You’ve never employed anyone before - how do you recruit someone whom you can be sure has the right skills and experience to do the job? - how do you shortlist and interview fairly, and in line with employment legislation?

You’ve never managed a worker - how will they be accountable to you? - how do you ensure they get the support they need?

"Read, copy and work through the Purple Pack Part III, and you’ll find out!" says Jill McKinnon, one of its authors.

The Purple Pack for Planning Projects Part 3, Setting Up Your Project, is designed to help churches set up projects to meet local needs. The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Rev Tom Butler, will launch this new pack published by his Board for Church in Society on Tuesday 6 July.

Part III follows from Parts I and II, which help churches test out and formulate their bright idea to the point of developing a project proposal. Part IV, Running and Managing Your Project, will be published next year. Jill McKinnon, Caring in Community Adviser in the Diocese of Southwark, says, "Part III shows how to set up the management of your project, and employ workers who will do what you want them to, in meeting the local needs you have identified.

"Churches have particular contributions to make - people, buildings, local belonging. They are also part of the voluntary sector, with common concerns for caring, justice and provision. This pack tackles both, taking into account the particular motivations, structures and starting points of churches, and integrating these within good practice ways of managing and employment expected within the voluntary sector."

Part III of the Purple Pack gives the tools to set up projects from setting up the management body, through setting up the worker recruitment to setting up the employment. It shows the whole process, and divides it up into manageable sections by giving checklists for the user to fill in, ‘ingredients’ sheets which simplify the task, and examples of how it has been done by a range of church-related projects in the Diocese.

The Purple Pack is the result of work done by Ann Stricklen, Community Development Adviser in Southwark Diocese, and Jill McKinnon, as consultants to church-related project planning groups and management committees. Ann died unexpectedly in March 1999, after the pack was written but before publication. The pack is dedicated to her memory . She encouraged participation and empowerment of people and their local communities, and was an inspiring and challenging Adviser. The lasting fruits of her work can be seen not just in these packs, but in the projects which she helped to set up.

Much of the pack is in a DIY format, which will enable a group to do most of the work on their own, drawing on a consultant when they need one. "The variety of well set up, relevant and funded working projects in this Diocese is an indication of the hard work done by committed local churches, and of the usefulness of the pack’s contents," concludes Jill McKinnon.

The Purple Pack for Planning Projects Part 3, Setting Up Your Project, £5.00 + £1 p&p from BCS Publications, Trinity House, 4 Chapel Court, London SE1 1HW

Ends.