Changing Things Up

 

This week marked a major change for the Presbytery of Yukon.  April 30 was Jan Burger’s last day as administrative assistant, and May 2 marked the first day for Melissa O’Malley to be the new voice and the face that greets you from the presbytery office.  To be sure, Melissa actually began on April 12, and Jan has been training her since.  Still, April 30 felt like the true boundary moment—a true changing of the guard. 

The Personnel Committee and office staff held a retirement party for Jan on her last day.  Thirty people gathered in the Fellowship Hall at First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage to celebrate Jan’s nine years of service in the presbytery office.  There was lunch and prayer and symbolic gifts and stories, as we celebrated Jan’s graceful presence in the office, and her faithful work that helped the ministry in so many ways.

One turn of events added an ironic twist to the whole event.  The Personnel Committee arranged for a piece of walrus ivory artwork to come from the village of Gambell as a gift for Jan.  The gift did not make it by party day!  Somehow, this seemed rather humorous, given how many times Jan has made arrangements for many of us, or for our supplies, to travel only to discover that the weather preempted her best scheduling.  Such is life and travel in the Presbytery of Yukon.

Melissa comes to us from Eagle River.  She is Southern Baptist, so she is scrambling to learn what Presbyterians mean when they talk about Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders, and other such jargon.  However, Melissa wanted a part-time job that would allow her to serve God through God’s church and to be home with her kindergarten-age child for a good part of the day.  The Presbytery of Yukon administrative assistant position makes a good fit.

However, Melissa was not hired to do exactly the same job Jan has been doing.  The Presbytery voted in October to change the job from a 20 hour per week job to 12 hours per week.  With this in mind, Melissa’s main roll in the presbytery office will be to facilitate communication through appropriate technologies, and to serve as travel hound dog for the presbytery—that’s my term, not the personnel committee’s J.

Cutting the Administrative Assistant’s hours will mean a number of changes.  Probably what will be most noticeable at first will be that Melissa only works three days per week: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  For those who travel to presbytery, you will also notice that Melissa will not normally be present at face-to-face meetings of presbytery. 

All of this will require some adjustment from all of us. For instance, you can still call the presbytery office on Mondays and Wednesdays and leave a message.  Sharon or Mary or I will check for messages regularly, so that we can reply to your needs as promptly as we can.  However, we ask that you bear with us as we all begin to learn new patterns for working together.

If you get a chance, please send Melissa a call or email to welcome her into this work through the Presbytery office.   Her email address is the same one Jan has been using: office@pbyukon.org.

Peace,

Curt Karns