Connie Wiebe |
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TO: Church Office Secretary
FROM: Connie Wiebe/Mennonite Heritage Centre Archives
DATE: May 13, 2002
RE: Church Bulletins in Mennonite Church Canada Archives
Over the years many congregations from Mennonite Church Canada have regularly
sent their weekly church bulletins to the Winnipeg office. Some of you sent the
bulletins bi-weekly, monthly or annually. Phyllis Wiebe, the former administrative
assistant for the conference administers would then take these bulletins and glean
much information from them such as births, marriages, transitions, etc. Phyllis
became an invaluable resource for information on the congregational life of our
constituents. Phyllis would then send these bulletins to me for archival preservation.
With Phyllis' retirement (boo-hoo) this past March, no one has stepped forward
to take on this important role (Phyllis would often take the bulletins home and
work on them during her free time).
Therefore, I am asking that congregations keep a file of bulletins in their
church office designated for the Mennonite Church Canada archives, and send them
to me annually or bi-annually. If all congregations would keep them open and flat
in the order of production, with January on the top and December on the bottom,
much time would be saved annually. You may also wish to submit the annual congregational
report and directory and a set of council or congregational meetings minutes with
this annual mailing to us.
If your congregation has been sending bulletins or other congregations records
for safe-keeping in the archives, you may be interested in our recent project
to prepare an inventory of all of these records. We have posted these inventories
on our website as we have completed them. We expect to have them all up by April
2003. Take a look if your congregation is up at: www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings.
If your congregation has not been sending their bulletins or other records
to us please take this time to consider it.
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments.
-Connie Wiebe,
Mennonite Heritage Centre Archives
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