With East Shore’s tech support staff person and sexton, Joseph Newman, having left for a job at Microsoft, and Dianne Upton reducing her hours from July, staff are needing more volunteers to step up and help out in various ways. There are many ways to help depending on your skills and time availability. Maybe you can help on Sunday mornings with greeting, ushering or making coffee, maybe you can help with childcare, room set-up or flower arrangements, or help in the office or with the grounds.
One way to let the staff know your availability and skills is to log onto the church’s Realm system. You can do this either from the Member Portal on the church’s website, or by downloading the free Realm Connect app to your tablet or phone. You will need to log in using the email address and password you usually use to register for events etc.
Once you’re into Realm, you can look at the “Serving” option. There you can update your “Serving Profile” to show your regular availability, skills, and preferences. You can also look through the “Opportunities” to learn more about the different roles available. Clicking on a specific role will enable you to express interest to the appropriate leader, who will no doubt get in touch with you.
We would love for more members to get comfortable with using Realm. It is a system with a lot of capability, and it is already an invaluable database of members’ contact information. By keeping your profile up to date, (including adding a photo, if there isn’t already one there for you), sharing your skills and availability, and proactively offering to help with roles that interest you, it will help take pressure off the staff, and enable them to put their skills and talents to best possible use.
Let me know if you have any technical difficulties with getting into Realm and using it. I’m happy to provide support. You can call 425-351-6171 or email me at [email protected].
by Amanda Strombom, Volunteer Coordination Assistant