Rivers Baptist Church - Christ alone - and Him crucified

Welcome to a new month in the life of Rivers Baptist Church. There seems to be a constant state of change happening here at Rivers over the past months. There have also been changes made to the office staff. The Board has appointed Jim Gailer to the position of Church Administrator, responsible for the administrative function of Rivers Baptist Church, including staff management. He will report direct to the Board/Church Leadership Team. Initially he will be working two days per week as a volunteer, progressing to four or five days per week as the need arises. This will free our pastors to concentrate on pastoral care and teaching.

As part of the strategy to enhance the relationships within the church, the office staff are committed to helping those members and regular Rivers attendees to be engaged in fruit bearing, effective ministries. We would welcome a visit from any member who would like to see how all the “behind the scenes” administrative work is undertaken to keep the public ministries of Rivers functioning. If you would like a “tour” of our facilities, please ask one of us.

To help you know who is the best person to contact for your queries on church issues or ministries, we’ve written some brief descriptions of our roles below.

Jim Gailer
Jim will be the link between the pastors and office support staff, managing the staff and the processes involved in administration of the church. Jim will progressively take responsibility for operational financial issues affecting the church with the treasurer dealing with policy and oversight issues.
Contact Jim on jimg@riversbaptist.com

Keryn Hilton
At present, I am assisting Tim Miller (as Finance Manager) with all of the weekly and monthly MYOB entries that are needed to run the church, so if I can assist you with a finance enquiry, phone me and I’ll try and help you with your enquiry.

I also assist in the preparation and management of the church’s budget in particular, the objective area of Co-ordination.

I assist in the research and organise the purchase of equipment on behalf of the church, whether large or small, resources, and stationery items and also any other items, for example the air conditioners around the church complex.
I manage the major event planning that Rivers holds (e.g. Vision Dinner and Big Sundays). If I can help with any event planning that you may like to be involved with, please don’t hesitate to contact me, or Robyn Pollock who will be jointly helping me to organise these events going forward.

If you need a key for accessing rooms to carry out ministry or events, please let me know and I can arrange this for you.

If you have any queries regarding facility maintenance, I can pass these onto our facility maintenance co-coordinator (Bruce McKay).

I am also the liaison point for the Board, so can pass anything that you might have onto them.

You can contact me at the office by phoning 3285 2507 or email keryn@riversbaptist.com.

Robyn Pollock
If you phone or come into the office during the week, I will usually be the one at the reception to greet you. If you have an enquiry that I can’t personally help with, then I will find someone who can. I manage the church diary and calendar, so if you need to book an event, either a ministry event or a private function, please first share your idea with one of the pastors and then contact me to book the date, equipment etc.

The Help Desk in the church foyer falls under my responsibility and I greatly appreciate my team of willing helpers who staff this desk every Sunday.

Remember that each Sunday you can come to the Help Desk to give offerings using the EFTPOS facility or make payments for any church event (cash/cheque/EFTPOS). If you have an enquiry for any of the pastors or office staff, these can be recorded at the Help Desk for follow up action. One of my roles is to recruit, train and supervise volunteer office staff, so let me know if you are interested any time.

If you need to come into the office to do some ministry work, give a call in advance so that I can check that a desk or computer or photocopier will be free for you.

Other tasks of mine include processing all baptisms and membership applications and arranging the dates, interviews, rehearsals etc leading up to them.

Thinking of having a dedication service for your baby/infant? Ring the office. Thinking of choosing our church for your wedding? Again phone me to make bookings, arrange pre-marriage counselling courses, official government documentation and arrangements such as rehearsals, etc. leading up to your wedding day.

A passion of mine is the Small Group ministry area and I will be helping Mick Wilson in this area. Otherwise my four days a week in the office are filled with typing, filing, postage, deliveries, calligraphy, maintaining the assets register, mid-week payments for events, emergency food for those who walk in off the street, and loads of incidental pastoral care along the way.

Our office hours are 9 am to 3 pm Monday to Thursday. You can phone on 3285 2507 or email me directly at robyn@riversbaptist.com.

Margaret McKay
I am the point of contact for Children, Youth and Young Adults ministries in the office.
I administer and assist ministry leaders with programs, events, finance or questions like ‘Just how do I do this???’.

I also administer the church database. I enter all relevant information from the response slips and process the necessary letters pray requests and comments noted on the response slips. I keep the membership details up to date. I can produce statistical reports from the database. Blue Cards is another area I am responsible for. I process applications and keep records up to date.
Helping the pastors in lots of general things on a day-to-day basis is another part of my role.

Shortly I will be learning how to process the financial entries through MYOB as the office staff proceeds to a multi-skill processing approach.

Contact Margaret on margaret@riversbaptist.com

Tim Miller
I am the Finance Manager for the church. I work in the office 2-4 days a month and several days from home. I process all the accrual accounting and reporting transactions and produce the reports for the board, leadership and members.

I am also responsible for all the legal, tax, compliance and other statutory obligations of the church. This includes GST, FBT and any other requirements. I supervise the bank accounts, cash counting and banking, event receipting and debtor management.

I supervise Keryn in her role as the accounts clerk, and assist the directors and staff with any financial questions for events or other activities.

I am also responsible for developing and maintaining financial and accounting procedures.

I also compile the church wide budgets with the assistance of the directors and other staff.

Contact Tim on rivers@riversbaptist.com