Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
First of all, I want to say that it's good to be back with all of you. Holly, Eva, and I had a refreshing and relaxing vacation spending time with family in NJ. It was good to get away for a little while and get recharged for the Fall.
Secondly, on behalf of the Vestry and myself, let me say thank you to all of you who participated in the Parish Survey that was recently sent out via the Survey Monkey link. It is very helpful to have your feedback as we make plans for our parish for the Fall. With that said, I'd like to share the results of that survey with you and add some concluding comments.
Overall, we received 67 surveys in electronic and paper form. Here are the results:
1. How many of you would be interested in outdoor services in the Fall, knowing that you would be required to wear masks, sit socially distanced, that there would be no singing and no Communion, along with no handshaking or hugging?
46% said yes; 54% said no
2. How many of you would be interested in indoor services once they become an option following all of the above directives?
35% said yes; 65% said no
3. How many of you would prefer to continue streaming services until it is safe to return?
55% said yes; 45% said no
4. How many of you have health issues that make you particularly susceptible to COVID-19?
55% said yes; 45% said no
5. Age ranges of those who answered.
62% were 65 years old or older; 38% were between 26 and 64 years old
6. How many of you have been watching the online services?
81% said yes; 19% said no
7. How many of you have computer access?
97% said yes; 3% said no
8. How many of you would like to call in to hear the service over the telephone?
7% said yes; 93% said no
As you can see from the results, the bulk of the respondents were over age 65; susceptibility was pretty evenly split but leaning toward more folks having health conditions that put them at risk; interest in outdoor worship was pretty evenly split, but leaning more toward interest; indoor worship was largely no; and most people are watching our services regularly online.
One thing I was able to identify is that 4 people would like to participate in worship via the telephone; currently, we have one person doing this. To that end, if you are interested in listening to the service via telephone, please contact me and I will get you connected with the conference call number for this coming Sunday.
Where do we go from here? The Vestry will take these results and discuss them at our August meeting, and use them to help us make decisions regarding our plans for the Fall. For now, we will continue streaming our services during the month of August and the beginning of September. As before, please note that our offices remain closed, and the staff and I are all working from home.
For clarification's sake, please note that we are still in Phase I of the Diocesan Phased Regathering plan. That means that we have not yet arrived at a 14-day rolling average of decrease in both new cases and deaths according the data from the Virginia Department of Health tracker, which is what we are following, so we are not in a position to have any plans approved by the Diocese for us to start meeting together for indoor worship. As of Monday, our 7-day average of new cases for our health district (Rappahannock) was 31.4 and our 7-day average of new deaths was 0.4, both of which were up from one week ago (25.4 new cases and 0.1 new deaths).
I hope that all of this is informative to all of you. As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to be in touch with me. I'm always happy to try to clarify things for you.
Please continue to hang in there and stay safe. Also, please continue to pray for an end to this pandemic and to pray that a vaccine comes along soon. By God's grace, we will make it through this. You can trust Him.
Yours in Christ,
Kyle+