📅 Rota

 whitkirkchurch.org.uk/rota

---

St Mary’s has an enormous number of volunteers filling a wide and varied set of roles within the Church. Whilst many of these are on a ‘permanent’ basis, a large number of other roles are filled by a group of people who operate on a rota. These roles are usually arranged on a per-service basis.

The latest rota, and copies of past rotas, can be found at whitkirkchurch.org.uk/rota. Rotas will be prepared and emailed out quarterly, but you can always view the latest updates in My ChurchSuite. If you want, you can add your serving to your calendar.

Rota reminders

Where a rota has been copied into ChurchSuite it’s possible to send automated reminders to people by text and email. These are set up on a team-by-team basis, so not all roles will receive them.

Process

Compilation

The process for compiling the rota isn’t covered in the Handbook yet.

Finalising and distribution

There are several moving parts to our finalisation and distribution process, which make sure everything is kept in agreement with each other.

ChurchSuite

1. Make sure all services in the compiled rota are properly reflected in ChurchSuite.
   • If a service isn’t in ChurchSuite it will not appear on the generated rota, the parish calendar, or any list of upcoming services online or in the weekly notices email.

Streaming Utilities

1. Either wait for synchronisation tasks to automatically run overnight, or run them manually:
   1. Import services to Services Airtable from ChurchSuite

Services Airtable

1. Go through all services in the Services Airtable and make sure they have correct metadata:
   • Short names and liturgical names
   • Accessibility flags for incense, low light and high attendance
   • Location, if it differs from the church

Codename Laurence

1. Either wait for synchronisation tasks to automatically run overnight, or run them manually:
   1. Import services from ChurchSuite
   2. Import services from Airtable
   3. Sync services to Rota Airtable

Rota Airtable

1. Create a new rota in draft mode covering the relevant dates.
2. Make sure all relevant services are selected as being on rota, either using the data view or the Service Selector interface.
3. Swap into the Rota Builder interface, and update each service with details from the compiled rota.

Herald

1. View the draft rota on Herald.
2. Double check the rota for completeness and correctness. Make any necessary corrections in Airtable.
3. Once you’re happy, remove draft status from the rota in Airtable.
4. Download the rota PDF.

Google Drive

1. Add the newly downloaded rota to the Rotas folder in Google Drive and make sure it’s named consistently.
   • If you need to make a revision, check our guide to versioning.

Website

1. Update the rota page with the new version.

ChurchSuite

1. Use the Address Book to distribute the rota to everyone in the appropriate tag.