Monday 29th April
The complicated process by which we conduct three separate meetings under one umbrella was succinctly explained by Father Stephen. Elections were held in each one and no doubt the right people voted at the right time – not all that easy perhaps to know if you live within the parish boundaries, and as for living within the ‘ old parish’ “which is roughly equivalent to the North Camden Deanery…….!”
The Annual Meeting of Parishioners
has possibly the most relevant of items as it’s the meeting that appoints the churchwardens and this year, unusually, we were saying goodbye to both at once. Markus, elected last year, almost immediately found himself so busy at work he hasn’t been able to continue and Diana, who has served a five year term, was more than delighted to hand over. Rather than bring in two wardens completely new to the post Andrew Penny agreed to take it on again for a year or two, accompanying Angela Gardner as she learns the ropes. The ceremony of the keys was rather unceremoniously completed – each outgoing warden eagerly thrusting the bunch into their successors’ hands and sprinting away from their seats. We wish the incoming wardens well in their new office and the outgoing wardens a bit of space for themselves and their families. Diana and Markus will continue to serve the church in many ways – Diana as deputy warden and Markus as warden on duty on Sundays.
The Annual Meeting of the Vestry
generally over in a matter of minutes, had a rather more substantial item this year concerning the election of trustees. For those not familiar with this system a quick explanation might be in order. Anglican parishes have PCCs made up of a certain number of members depending on the size of the electoral roll. As our roll is always over 200 we can have 15 representatives. But we have trustees as well – 21 as laid down in the Act of 1827; these trustees must live within the “old parish”, the parish as it was in 1827, roughly equivalent to the North Camden Deanery, or all our neighbouring parishes. With deanery synod representatives this brings the PCC to a rather unwieldy size, something the Archdeacon queried the wisdom of at his recent visitation. So far from being more people to do more things it seems as if members don’t have a sense of urgency about attending or getting involved. Another complication is that, apart from living in the “old parish” trustees should be “Freeholders rated for Poor Relief” and that’s a requirement impossible to fulfil today.
So is it Goodbye to Trustees?
Therefore it has been decided to gradually reduce the size of the PCC by not replacing trustees whose term of office has ended or who have decided to step down. I was distracted at this point by the vicar mentioning that we only abolished pew rents 40 years ago and missed the number the PCC would now be but I think it was 27. I remember when I first came to the church being told I couldn’t sit in the pew I’d chosen because it was Dr Watson’s – it certainly didn’t occur to me at the time that Dr Watson actually PAID for it!
The APCM
On to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting and the presentation of
the new electoral roll. The revised figure is 325 but if you missed it the roll re-opens now and names can be added at the next PCC meeting.
The rest of the meeting consisted of presenting the Annual Report and receiving the accounts. All this had been published in advance and there were no shocks, although we did hear that fund-raising for the Windows Appeal is going slowly and no doubt we’ll be hearing more about that over the next few weeks – if not we could come in one day and find our lovely stained glass in a heap on the path.
What kind of church is God calling us to be?
After a break for a quick glass of wine we were invited to return to our seats for a presentation based on the parish survey and the recent series of open meetings. I won’t try to summarise what was said because much more is to come about our plans for the future but I did note that a visit to Kew Gardens was mentioned.
Are you on the parish emailing list?
Do you think you should be but don’t get any emails from the church? Check your spam settings. I’m not sure myself how many emails have been sent out because it was only in January that I discovered they were being filtered out by an overenthusiastic spam setting. Please make sure you have [email protected] as a safe sender – half of all the emails we send don’t get opened!
Annual Parish Meetings