{"id":6213,"date":"2014-02-06T11:57:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T19:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=6213"},"modified":"2014-02-06T14:31:37","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T22:31:37","slug":"the-district-service-center-is-open-for-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/the-district-service-center-is-open-for-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The District Service Center is open for business!"},"content":{"rendered":"<style><!--\np.padding {padding-left:.5cm;}\n--><\/style>\n<p><center><em>Jonathan Assink, Skylar Bihl, and Jan Hiatt the PNW&#8217;s District Service Center in Des Moines, Wash.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>The District Service Center is open for business!<\/h3>\n<p><em>By Brant Henshaw<\/em> |<em> Photo by Jesse N. Love<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In November 2013, the support for three districts and their superintendents consolidated with a smooth transition to a new model of working. In mid-December, the Vancouver District joined the Puget Sound, Seattle, and Seven Rivers Districts within the shared support system. The Tacoma and Inland Districts will join in March and July, respectively. <\/p>\n<p><!--more So how did we get to this new model of working? (Read more...)--><br \/>\nSo how did we get to this new model of working?<\/p>\n<p>As the recovery from recession took hold in 2010-11, several United Methodist Conferences around the country studied and then moved to consolidate multiple district offices into a central working area. Internally in 2012, the PNW Treasurer\u2019s office began to seriously look at this structure as a way to hold costs in check and continue to shrink the Conference budget as a way to relieve pressure off of the local churches\u2019 shared ministry (apportionment) costs. At the end of that year, the Appointive Cabinet considered a proposal to not have a physical office outside of their home.<\/p>\n<p>The move to this new model came with the recognition that most local church contact with their district office comes from:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 E-mail<br \/>\n\u2022 Phone calls<br \/>\n\u2022 USPS<br \/>\n\u2022 Face-to-face visits.<\/p>\n<p>With a reduction in infrastructure (offices, copiers, phone lines, etc.) which we had multiples of, it is projected to save $120,000 in the first year (2% of the Conference budget) with additional savings in the second year. Already, we had a pilot situation to learn from with the Puget Sound District working from home offices and we had the workspace of the Seattle District office in which to house your team of admins.<br \/>\nA talented, personable team of three has been brought together to:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Enable streamlined and consistent communication among all ministry settings<br \/>\n\u2022 Provide information and answer questions in a timely fashion<br \/>\n\u2022 Provide administrative support to the superintendents.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6162\" alt=\"Jonathan\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/NEWS_DSC_Jonathan.jpg?resize=149%2C200\" width=\"149\" height=\"200\" \/><strong>Jonathan Assink<\/strong><br \/>\nSeattle \u2022 seadist@pnwumc.org<br \/>\nVancouver \u2022 vancouver@pnwumc.org<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6162\" alt=\"Skylar\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/NEWS_DSC_Skyler.jpg?resize=149%2C200\" width=\"149\" height=\"200\" \/><strong>Skylar Bihl<\/strong><br \/>\nSeven Rivers \u2022 sevenrivers@pnwumc.org<br \/>\nTacoma (starting March\/April) \u2022 tacomadist@pnwumc.org<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6162\" alt=\"Jan\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/NEWS_DSC_Jan2.jpg?resize=149%2C200\" width=\"149\" height=\"200\" \/><strong>Jan Hiatt<\/strong><br \/>\nPuget Sound \u2022 Pugetsound@pnwumc.org<br \/>\nInland (starting 7\/1) \u2022 Inland@pnwumc.org<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The District Service Center provides for the administrative needs of the superintendents and resources local churches. The DS\u2019s have had to adjust to working from virtual offices even more than they had in the past and develop new patterns of workflow with documents, calendaring, etc. The Service Center brings a collaborative approach to providing service to the churches of each district. Each administrative assistant serves as a primary contact for two districts, but is able to answer general questions for all districts.<\/p>\n<p>Any of them can be reached via phone at 1-888-818-4288 and by fax at 206-870-6811<\/p>\n<p>A District Service Center team member will be at each District Training event this Spring and will be assisting with registration at Annual Conference. Please introduce yourself to them so they can get to know the churches and people doing ministry.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><center><em>Brant Henshaw serves as the Conference Treasurer for the PNWUMC<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan Assink, Skylar Bihl, and Jan Hiatt the PNW&#8217;s District Service Center in Des Moines, Wash. The District Service Center is open for business! By Brant Henshaw | Photo by Jesse N. Love In November 2013, the support for three districts and their superintendents consolidated with a smooth transition to a new model of working. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":6227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-news"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/NEWS_DSC.jpg?fit=700%2C357&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-1Cd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6213"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6231,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions\/6231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}