Verger Information at the 2015 General Convention in Salt Lake City

We can be very proud of our booth's informational banners that will be used at General Convention in Salt Lake City

By Ken Holloway, News Manager, VGEC

Our intrepid VGEC team is in final preparation to represent us at the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, June 25th - July 3rd in Salt Lake City. Prime VGEC booth space was procured very early in the process. Volunteers have been solicited. Registration, travel and lodging arrangements are just about complete. We want VGEC represented at the the largest gathering of the Episcopal church. This happens every 3 years and this year a new Presiding Bishop will be elected. This only happens every 9 years. The Exhibit Hall is the best place to touch many clergy and lay people about the verger ministry and VGEC. It's a very big deal.

If you will be at General Convention and you want to help, please contact Margaret McLarty, chair of the VGEC General Convention Committee at [email protected].

New signage for the VGEC booth has been professionally designed.  We want to establish our presence with everyone who enters the exhibit hall and we want them to engage us in conversation. Maybe that conversation will result in a new verger ministry or revival of a previous verger presence at a fortunate parish church.

We have four new 6' floor signs for General Convention and each sign has two sides for a total of eight topics. We are trying this year to keep these signs from getting dated - limiting dates and locations so we can use them again in three years. For specifics, we will be passing out the 2015 Annual Conference postcard, a 7-page sample of the VGEC Training Course, and other swag-like materials. Did we mention the ever popular color-changing verger cups???

As Scott Smith, our president, reminds us, "The floor signs are intended to spark conversation. With the thousands of visitors that take part in General Convention, hopefully the signs will easily serve as gentle reminders of our collective messages as a guild. And there is a lot to remember! The sign content really is an elevator-pitch that succinctly tells the VGEC's and the verger's story."

Each of us can use the sign content as a great verger/VGEC overview outline. See what you think:

What is a Verger?

• Layperson who serves the church in a ministry of organization, service, and welcome
• Works under the direction of rector, vicar, or priest-in-charge
• Source of organization for liturgy and planning
• Behind the scenes work
• Clergy are confident details are handled
• Job descriptions vary from parish to parish

About the Vergers Guild

• National organization for vergers, sacristans, masters/mistresses of ceremony and other liturgical volunteers in the church
• Thousands of active members in the US and around the world
• Ministry of organization, service, and welcome
• Training and mentoring
• Annual Conferences
• Founded in 1989

Starting a new Verger Ministry

• Training Course - self guided course for vergers
• Annual Conferences - Verger 101 for new vergers
• vergers.org - online materials to get started
• Starting a Diocesan chapter for vergers
• vergersvoice.org - weekly blog & facebook.com/vergerguild
• Contact [email protected] today to get started!

Annual Conference

• Annual gathering for worship, training, learning, fellowship, and fun
• Hundreds of members attend each year
• Workshops, sessions, excursions, and tours
• Verger 101: Topics for the new verger
• Verger 307: Advanced topics for all vergers
• Verging In Depth: Detailed session on one topic

The Guild Shop

• Processional Gear - items for new and long-time vergers
• The Basic Virge
• The Verger’s Chimere
• Clothing - shirts, baseball caps, etc.
• "got vergers?" items
• Let us know what merchandise you would like in the Guild Shop!
• shop.vergers.org

The Verger’s Voice Blog

• Active blog of the Vergers Guild
• vergersvoice.org
• Official news service for the Verger Guild
• In-depth articles
• Published weekly
• Free for everyone!

Verger Training Course

• Self guided course
• Totally re-written in 2015
• Clergy serves as course Mentor
• All course materials in PDF
• Certificate of Completion, suitable for framing
• Ability to purchase the "Fellow's Virge"
• 8-page sample course document available now

Verger Resources

• vergers.org - #1 online resources for vergers
• Verger online Document Library for sharing customaries, etc.
• facebook.com/vergerguild
• vergersvoice.org blog
• youtube.com/vergertv
• Annual conferences at different host parish every fall since 1989

There you have it, a complete outline for your "What is a verger and what do you do?" answers.

Wouldn't it be great if we all were able to answer that question in the same way? So step up to the plate and be ready to be conversational in an up-to-date informed "verger" frame of mind! And pray for our GC team-it's mentally and physically very hard work to be "on exhibit" all day for the entire time the Exhibit Hall is open and they need all the support we can give them.

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Click the big red button to register for the 2015 Annual Conference being held October 1-4, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri:

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Abstract: Communicating what we do as vergers, how one can become a verger, and why be interested in the verger ministry is a challenge, no matter how much experience you may have. Here are some concise words that we all can use from time to time to explain those concepts. These are the words that our General Convention team will use to tell the Episcopal world about vergers.