Pebble Hill Community Town Hall Meeting – October 2019

by | Oct 27, 2019 | Announcements

Pebble Hill Community Town Hall Meeting – 10/20/19

32 participants

Led by Deva Troy and Dave DiPasquale

The focus of this town hall was to update Pebble Hill members about the progress being made in looking toward Pebble Hill’s future. David began the update by presenting the facilities refresh that both Council and the Visioning Committee are proposing to implement.  The incentive is both for current members, to fulfill needs and to bring facilities up to date to attract new members.  The intention is to preserve the best of the past, embrace the best of the future.”

Phase 1 of the Refresh Project includes:

  • Painting the upper Red Barn interior
  • Possible changes to paneling surrounding the fireplace (discussion later)
  • Upgrading the gravel pathway to stone or concrete steps – for safety and enhanced front entrance appearance
  • Refreshing the Red Barn bathroom – toilets, partitions, modernizing
  • Outside covering on walkway to Yellow Barn bathroom
  • Replace URB floor and create a larger labyrinth
  • Outside labyrinth

Phase 2 of the Refresh Project includes:

  • New bathroom upstairs
  • Other changes
  • Will necessitate capital campaign
    • We need everyone on board – opportunities to volunteer, for example, doing outreach, helping with fundraising, participating in Tenders pastoral care, etc.
  • Banners for entryway (Chris E.)

The next portion of the session focused on talking about the “4 Questions” that several groups have experience, including Council, the Visioning Committee and the Celebration team. Deva read a few of the responses to the four questions by Council members.

  1. How would you describe Pebble to someone new?
  2. Why do you come to Pebble?
  3. What do you see as Pebble’s value to the community?
  4. What does our credo mean to you?

The challenge to Pebble Hill members is to create your best elevator speech – 30 sec . to describe Pebble Hill to a friend – for our $100 contest. In this session, participants were given index cards to start the process of answering question 1. These were collected at the end of the session.  More information will come later about the deadline for contest submissions.

A few examples follow:

  • Pebble Hill Church is an interfaith church that is a unique model …
  • A place you can come alone and you can leave your social mask behind.
  • A joyful place with a hot piano player and dogs can roam around.
  • And many, many more expressions of everyone’s thoughts

David Cook will take the responses and add them to the PH website in one location.  Deva condensed this topic into “describing who we are and how we want to share it with people.”

The next discussion point was the possibility / prospect of removing “church” from Pebble Hill’s name.  Part of the consideration is that the concept of ”church” is a disconnect with millennials.  Although there has been some concern with our tax exempt status, an example was given about how Circle of Miracles (and other groups) handle a name change by stating that they are “doing business as … new name” without changing their legal status.

Deva shared two possible names with the group:

  • Pebble Hill Spiritual community (Rosalind’s idea)
  • Pebble Hill Interfaith Sanctuary (Deva – both inclusive and receptive feeling)

A vote was held taken on how many participants were open to changing Pebble’s name? This was to check the pulse of the community from this representation.  25 of 32 people were open to a name change.  Council will explore this possibility and check the bylaws to see if we would be in compliance with our bylaws.

Larry H. commented that he has recently changed the program to state: Pebble Hill Interfaith Gathering and so far, there has been no reaction by membership.  David C. mentioned an article, which discussed the dramatic decline of membership across all churches.  Christian churches are down the most at 12%. )  He said we need to look at what people are looking for without changing who we are.

Alan D. stated that if we’re a true interfaith gathering then using the term “church” doesn’t represent who we are. Chloe I. asked “What is the terminology that people are attracted to?  David C. said that the growing interests are agnosticism, atheism and fundamentalism. The religions that did not change or decline are the Evangelicals. Sharon K. said that interfaith does presume religion and church. Then perhaps Pebble is not interfaith either? Nancy shared that she likes church, people gathering to celebrate God and our interfaithness.  She said that there is a sacredness to church and that though god is not dead, he/she is not “ in” anymore either.   Rosalind believes we– need interfaith in our name and asked if spiritual community would make people think Christian prayer? Chris is concerned about the legality and suggests we just use the new name in outreach/marketing – Pebble Hill or Pebble Hill Interfaith Community. Siobhan has researched Circle of Miracles’ website and a few clicks in it states they are a 501 3C Circle of Ministries Church.  Siobhan said in order to have the School of Sacred Ministries, Pebble needs to be a church.

Other comments:

Barbara A. talked about the important thing people seek is for community, she likes community.  Norm didn’t vote for pulling church from the name, for him church and God are synonymous. As a greeter, he uses interfaith and spiritual with new people.  Lutz, having been raised in a Communist country, talked about how Christian is valuable because of its values. He also defined agnosticism as the belief that God’s existence cannot be proven.  Pam said it’s important that Pebble doesn’t give up on who we are in order to attract new people.  Susan M. suggested doing market research into what millennials do.  She also talked about Wayne Teasdale changing interfaith to interspiritual and that she likes gathering.  Susan also mentioned that there are groups of atheists who gather to talk about what is life and humanism.

Gary talked about IRS regulations for a church: including the following plus more: having a creed, a council, a form of workshop, an informal code of doctrine or discipline, regular religious services, schools to educate ministers and how Pebble meets most of the criteria. Chris E. said we need to track millennials and have programs, plays, concerts and use publicity to reach out to them. Deva likes and uses  inner faith, not interfaith.

Current reality: Who do we attract?  40-50 year olds

Streaming services possibly

News shared:

  1. Pebble Hill space is being updated
  2. New renter – a Dance School – starting December 1st. Through negotiation with the school, the rental does not affect current PH programs and the rent was increased. Rental is from December through end of the school year, not the summer. Rental for 15 hrs./wk. as $1,200 mo.
  3. Little Branches will be ramping up their rental fees starting in December
  4. This funding will help with the updates to the PH facility
  5. Next we will need a capital campaign for our community to grow. The expanded rentals, as well as fundraisers will work bring in the funding. Dave D. brought up how the Buxmont U.U. had a vision for expanding their facility and as a result brought in the $330K needed to expand.

JoAnne discussed PH fundraisers:

  1. End of November –Black Friday weekend – we will have a craft show, holiday bazaar. 12 tables at $10/table and 20% of vendor sales. JoAnne is looking for crafters.
  2. End of February / March – host a  winter doldrums dance

Sharon thanks Deva and David D for their energy and creativity in their work toward the vision.

Discussion of the wood paneling:

  • Alan – it dates us
  • Lutz – epidemic of loneliness among younger people, real need is more opportunity to belong – address that need
  • Norm – Paneling blends in with the fireplace. It took time to adjust to Little Branches space but now likes it. Originally didn’t like more people in PH space, but without more people contributing to our funds, PH couldn’t do improvements.
  • Rosalind – loves the space, circle within a square with sources of light; loves the paneling; wants Xmas tree lights back
  • Bill M. – would love to see schematic of changes proposed; loves the existing space
  • Dave P. – not eager to change paneling; beams could be made lighter; believes it will be a great challenge to attract millennials h,ere; take a look at who has stuck, older group of people
  • Chris – find what millennials want; . When PH was built we were hippies , PH has evolved. We have  grown and evolved. Space needs to be bright, light, white. She prefers white beams. Take the paneling down and recycle or make it white and showcase fireplace that way. The space ;  feels heavy to her.
  • Siobhan – Artist, Elisa Maggio and Marguerite like the walnut paneling as it showcases artwork in a different way than white walls do;.
  • Ken – it’s real wood and a sacrilige to paint it. If we get rid of it, recycle the wood.
  • Alan – likes the paneling. As far as painting project – the paint needs to be refreshed in certain spots – over air conditioning, beams.  Greater need is to make PH building more energy efficient – for example by getting new energy efficient doors at back entrance.
  • Chloe – Gordon established church, as a center, coffee house for young people – we can do it again. She has an expert wood person for advice. What can we give to millennials so they won’t be lonely.
  • Joanne D. – paneling – dating gives us character; a history;. She would be upset to see it painted.
    • Jeff suggests doing something similar to what he did with his large dining room. He did a rag off technique on walls for variation and white ceiling. He thinks the rag off techniques oculd be done around the credo.  Use layers of lighting. The  Langhorne Players updated theirs lighting.
  • Rosanne – doesn’t think it’s time yet for millennials.
  • Judy – maintain the wood paneling.
  • Tina – need overall vision of what we want to be before we do anything.
  • Ann Marie – we talk about change, but when comes down to doing something, people want it to stay the same. She doesn’t see huge movement around change, but rather lots of pushback on changes. Members  need to support change.
  • Elise – thinks people will come, like it how it is
  • JoAnne W. – keep the paneling, lighten the beams. Interior design magazine current color is light grey with white trim. Use solid led lights, have white ceiling, paint skylight wood white. Make a contrast between the ceiling and walls. New floor.
  • David D. – Resanding wood paneling might lighten it; need a new speaker system; better lighting for art
  • Gary S. – 2008 Gus, 2014 another painting; doors to lessen noise of people coming upstairs; lighting; video – AV smart tv, projector
    • PJ – explore who did it last and cost
  • Celebration speaker, Estelle Toby Spike, suggested doing an art project of member’s love for PH on art tiles, Colorful tiles would brighten up the space.
  • Interfaith symbols – stained glass – in small portion of side windows

Deva suggests we connect with Rise Up Doylestown. Rise Up Doylestown has a space called the Rainbow Room, a LGBTQ space.  This connection would have the potential for PH to open space up to that community, offer programming.