Yesterday I attended the (more or less) weekly diary meeting in the Vicarage. This is where we sort the week out, both churchwise and familywise. Monday mornings is our slot for this.
Making sure the message is received can be tricky
It’s not just me and the Vicar at these meetings: Rocky the Ministry Trainee attends too, as does Beauty, who volunteers some time to help the Vicar out with some of his admin. The weeks when this meeting doesn’t happen can get quite stressful as important information like ‘I’m doing a funeral but don’t worry I’ll definitely be back with the car in time for swimming’ doesn’t get communicated. The last couple of weeks have suffered from this lack of diary liaison.
So you will understand that I like it when we have a diary meeting. I’m not sure whether this is normal for clergy wives, but it certainly helps us. Vicarage life suffers from a serious lack of routine, so knowing what is on this week helps me to keep my head above water. I also usually pop in to the less frequent meeting that the Vicar holds with his leadership team where they plan ahead for the coming months. This can be a great help for our plans as a family, especially as diary and admin aren’t really the Vicar’s strongest subjects.
Whilst we’re talking about Vicarage communications, I had a funny discussion on Facebook yesterday where a whole heap of Vicar’s wives (I think I decided ages ago that the collective noun is a hoot) agreed that the best way to communicate with our husbands is by email. And this was a group of wives who don’t work outside the home, who could just pop their heads around the study door! I also use Facebook and Twitter from time to time. Little post-it notes get lost in the chaos of the study and verbal communications are immediately forgotten. Best to put it in (electronic) writing every time. How do you communicate as a family and avoid double or triple bookings or just the stress of not quite knowing what is going on and where the car has got to?
The Vicar's Wife 
Yes, diary meetings (we call it ‘rubbing diaries’) is vital … and email wins every time! 😀
In order to save the hassle of the I told you – I don’t remember that conversation, I am slowly training my hubby to put everything on the computer diary, which I then set up to send to my computer, so I can see at a glance where he is, and judge whether it is a car event or a walking event.
It is cutting down on the 11pm conversation where he suddenly announces he needs the car, and I panic ‘cos I planned to do the shopping that day!
we have a diary meeting but have been using mobile me ( his iphone my ipod touch) so it’s not just an exchange of information at the meeting. I can put things into his diary that he needs to know about and he can see what I have planned in without having to ask me. Has really reduced the amount of time we need to spend liasing and also the number of wrong cars i the wrong place moments.
I love this system. We do a very similar thing (though, with my husband being a teacher, not a vicar, our week is probably a little more predictable). We have a family calendar where any different/ important events are (supposed) to go. Each Sunday night my husband and I have a quick glance over the calendar together.
Love the email idea. This would certainly avoid the “you didn’t tell me about…” conversations.
We use the online Cozi calendar ( http://www.cozi.com) partly because we are living in two different places during the week and so we can both access it and update it. I have it bookmarked on my toolbar and try to remember to look at it! The Curate is much better at remembering to fill it in. I always tell people he is in charge of the family diary so they ask him if we are available. Makes him use the diary. Quite useful to get the email reminders about meetings and important events.
Vital to our ‘Vicarage’ life was a large desk diary. This DID NOT go to meetings – not even PCCs. It did mean slightly more work as arrangements had to be confirmed ‘from the desk’, usually over the phone. However, it did mean that my wife knew where I was and what my committments were. She could (and did) arrange funeral with undertakers because if it was “In my Diary” it was done! The parishes (at one point 5 of them!!!) knew that if they did not make sure that it was in my Diary they could not rely on my presence.
Blessings on your ministry
Terry
At the moment, my husband is an ordinand. All his college emails are sent to his college email address, which he has kindly agreed to forward automatically to my email address. We each have a Google Calendar and we can both view and edit each others. When I see college dates for the diary, I put them in his calendar (if he’s not done so first), and thus reduce the number of admin-type conversations we have. Not sure quite how it will work when he’s no longer at college, but it suits us well for now.