NCLS have calmed fears raised by August’s Southern Cross, that a hold-up in releasing their Community Connection Packs may make it difficult for parishes to place accurate Bible resource orders by Connect09's mid-October deadline.
The unforeseen delay was the result of changes in approach by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) between the 2001 and 2006 Census.
SydneyAnglicans.net now understands the parish packs for Sydney Anglican churches are ready for final sign-off and the NCLS team will press their ‘go’ button in the next two weeks.
NCLS and Connect09 have just released a joint "Q and A' document to help address some of the questions parishes may have about the functions, scope and use of the Community Connection Packs for Connect09.
Dr Powell, Director of NCLS Research said the Southern Cross article may have given some people a false impression of the extent of the delay.
"This has been a long-term project for NCLS with our timeline set 12-to-18 months ago. We were aiming at mid-2008 and the packs will arrive in mid-August."
Dr Powell had been quoted in the Southern Cross article as saying "in a worse case' scenario, fixing the data anomalies may hold up the parish packs until mid-September.
Misunderstanding NCLS"Connect09 relationship
However Dr Powell did agree with SydneyAnglicans.net that some concerns may have arisen from a misunderstanding of the relationship between the NCLS project and the Connect09 campaign.
Both initiatives were conceived entirely independently, and it was only some time down the planning process that organisers realised they shared similar mission objectives
“All along I have been thankful to God that the independent timing of our Community Connection Packs and the Diocese’s Connect09 project meant that we could work together on our shared mission goals," said Dr Powell.
"Any suggestion that we have upset Connect09’s apple-cart is a complete exaggeration. The Connect09 campaign is not reliant on our packs, but we are glad that the packs can contribute to the process of helping churches understand their communities."
The Rev Andrew Nixon, executive director of Connect09 said the community data that NCLS has been able to present parish-by-parish will be a great help in planning for Connect09.
"The Social Profile makes the information accessible to everyone in our churches, and the workbook contains great ideas for involving all church members in understanding their local area better, praying and strategising for 2009," he said.
Dr Powell says NCLS is excited at the opportunity to assist the Connect09 campaign.
"We have been producing Community Social Profiles for churches for the past 20 years, but this is a quantum leap forward and we are thrilled with the outcome," she said.
Census data changes cause delay
As accurately reported in the print edition of this month's Southern Cross, the delay arose after researchers realised the 2006 census data provided by the ABS was not comparable to the 2001 data set previously provided by ABS.
"NCLS has a reputation for credible and accurate data. We apologise for the delay, but it's important we get this right," Dr Powell had told our sister publication Southern Cross.
In essence, the data ABS gave NCLS in 2001 was based on where the respondents were staying on the night of the census. In 2006, it was based on where they usually reside.
Tourist towns are the worst affected, with Dr Powell citing examples such as Thredbo and Surfers Paradise, where the information about changes over time was “just not reliable”.
