"A Course of Training for a Verger"

I completed the course in 2010. It took me about 7 months. I had a good head start as having been a Warden of the church and Vice Chair of a search committee, I had written an extensive history of the parish previously which saved a lot of time. My Rector, The Rev. Jonathan Folts was my mentor and we had a great time working on the project together. I was surprised to find out that although I thought I knew a great deal about our liturgy, I was missing a tremendous amount. The course made me delve into the Altar Book, Lesser Feasts and Fasts, The Book of Occasional Services, and of course the BCP. One of the best things to come out of it was the safety inspection of the church property where we came up with a punch list of some fifty items that needed attending to including, fire extinguishers which we had paid some $500.00 to have inspected and charged that were not. I agree with another reviewer that some material needs updating. Overall, it was great fun and a great help.

I completed the "Course of Training for a Verger" back in 2008. Bill Gleason (who got me into Verging in the first place) was my mentor for the course. He was great!

It took me about a year to complete. The course comes in a notebook that has 8 sections. It is designed to be a self-guided course that you take along with your mentor. Bill and I met initially with the course materials and talked about what we would be doing. We took each section one at a time. Some took longer than others, but Bill and I pretty much determined how we would proceed.

I knew a lot more about my parish history, how the parish worked, etc. The course is not "hard" - it's really as hard as you choose to make it. I guess it's like a lot of things, you get out of it what you put into it!

The only reason I did not give it five stars is I think the course material could be updated and made more complete, but I know the Guild is working on that.