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Starting a ‘flu friends’ network?
WE CAN HELP YOUR CHURCH!
With the spread of swine flu, churches have been called on to set up a network of ‘flu friends’ to care for those who have no one to support them when ill. This is a great opportunity for churches to serve their communities and share Christ’s love through word and deed.
Time trouble
However, church life is busy. With teaching and ministry commitments, some churches will have little time to draw up ‘pandemic plans’ for their congregations and organise a network of ‘flu friends’ for their local community.
Flu friends
We have had a ‘flu friends’ scheme in place since May 2009 (web page); our website has recently been cited as an example of ‘good practice’ by The Diocese of Oxford, and the scheme has taken relatively little organisation to set up. We are happy to share our ideas and materials with other churches to save them time.
Members’ ministry
Basically our church members do most of the work. They sign up if they are willing to get medicines or food for someone with flu, and say how many people they can support. The office co-ordinates requests and allocation of ‘flu friends’; but the church members do the rest - get in touch with the people, send them their contact details and our information, and provide help.
Creative commons
We will email churches details of our scheme and our literature, including a ‘flu friends’ contact form, letter, congregation sign-up sheet and ideas for publicity. We will also release our ‘flu friends’ logo to churches for their use under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (what’s that?).
NEW: Our pack now includes a church Pandemic Plan for you to use.
Simple submission
All you need to do is write to us or fax us on your church’s headed paper requesting our ‘flu friends church pack’. Address your letter ‘Flu friends pack’, tell us which denomination you are from and include your church (not personal) email address and website, if you have one. We will then check your identity and email our pack to you.
Let us know about your church ‘flu friends’ network.
Post your comments or questions below.
Please note that this pack is only available to churches. We will not send out this information in response to email requests; we have limited administration cover and we may be unable to provide this information to churches if inundated with requests.
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