Chris Tompkins
- Welcome
- Welcome to Rachel Hisey!! Great to have you – welcome to the Guest Relations team and to MW.
- Introduction of Sunder our speaker – Sunder grew up in India, his studies brought him to North America. Journey led him to pastoral work at Rexdale Alliance. Retired in 2016. Enjoying his retirement with walks and photography. His talk on Sabbath really helped me plan my sabbatical. Sunder is somewhat famous to us because he is Vijay's dad.
- Sunder will journey with us as we learn to appreciate God's word – guide us through where we are focussing this year: Psalm 119 and the richness of God's word. He will speak to us once a month. Alot of the teaching that has come through MW has actually come through Sunder shaping how we approach the word of God.
Sunder Krishnan:
Reminder: We will not be taking comprehensive devo notes. If you want a recording of the devo by Sunder….please email Colin.
- The plan is to walk you through the 7 acts of a huge drama. The next 2 weeks are the prologue…setting the story.
- There are 2 metaphors that I'm going to use with Scripture
- Metaphor #1 – We must “eat” the word
- The bible isn't just words strung together – it is stories told through metaphors. Ezekiel sees a vision – he's told to eat the scroll – it will be sweet in his mouth but bitter in his soul. He sat for days contemplating that vision. John was told the same thing in Revelation. They both had angelic encounters and were told by God to preach. Not to just read the scroll, but to eat it.
- Matthew 4: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
- John 6: Jesus talks about being the bread of life.
- Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living and active
- We are not just to read the scripture…but to “eat” it. Consume it. Immerse ourselves in it…for transformation.
- Metaphor #2 – The word is a voice
- Very first chapter of the bible is words that brings things out of nothing. At the end of creation, is you and me.
- Psalm 19 – heavens declare the glory of God – all about speech
- God declares, then His voice transforms.
- It's a voice that takes people over:
- Jeremiah 20:9 “his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.
- How do you want to see scripture? Eat the book, hear the voice, be transformed.
- You are part of the story…you're not just watching/reading the story happen…but you are a part of it.
Paul Cade:
Summer Update
- We have had a really busy week.
- We are filmed a fair bit of our summer content – even if we can't have big groups together, we can have the videos ready to go. Was really inspiring. Forced us to be better than ever. Having alumni – Austin Pomeroy & Antoinette.
- We held a family meeting for seasonal staff – had over 80 people show up to listen and ask questions. We don't have all the answers. I was encouraged – they care, we need staff who care.
- We started CEO interviews – had 58 accepted CEOs from 2020. More competitive this year. Peter Gibson is helping Gillian with the interviews. Our young people have what it takes!!! CEO calls young people forward.
- Alumni podcast with John McAuley – new one this week – Jorden Tually. He's known all over the world through his travel instagram
- We have secured almost all of our summer director team.
Chris Tompkins:
- Service Excellence ROCK/Goal – drive SDSD into all our guest experiences
- With detailed COVID-19 protocols in place for a safe reopen, we continue to hit our NPS targets (2019 score in SC and 75% in S&G/LS) and transactional scores (8.5/10 for both SC + S&G)
- We will have mapped the guest journey, focusing on defining and training on “power of moments”
- Covid – 19 – OCA has delayed when we will get the re-open plans. Anticipate that in March.
- There has been some news about international travel. Hasn't really moved the needle on concern at this point.
- A bit of a slow down on registration. Families are focussed on what is going to happen with schools.
- Government is making an annoumcemtcement about that today. We expect schools will go back in February. This directly relates to summer camp. If school goes well, then that is a positive sign for summer camp. Not many more updates that affect our decisions moving forward.
- having some fun content for guests
- Paul Cade will do some “Back Better Than Ever” content
- Full time staff layoffs – spring business – almost all of our large school boards have cancelled. There are a few small groups still on our calendar, we expect they will cancel. We will not have any guests from a student standpoint this spring. We could have some adult guests.
- Summer Camp – we have been aiming to be 92% full. Having no spring, there will be a loss in the organization. We've been budgeting for 50 – 75% full for the summer. Too many factors that create uncertainty. We are hopeful and optimistic. We cannot make decisions because there is too much unknown.
- Everyone on lay off has been contacted – we still don't have a concrete return to work date. The earliest it would be would be April 5, 2021. There are a few positions that may come back based on need. We are hoping that people will come back April 5.
- We will have our Arboretum on April 7 & 8 – ideally, people will come back in time for our Arboretum.
- We will post Spring Crew positions for May 3 – June 23 with a focus on getting ready for the summer.
- Vacant full time positions – some people left on their own accord in 2020. We will post some of these positions with an April 5 start date.
- Reminder – full time staff survey – thank you to those who filled it out. If you haven't done it, please do it right after this meeting so you don't forget. Due date is Friday. Helps us as leaders to hear from you specifically. We want to make sure we focus on the IACT principle.
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