Dear Sisters,
The time has come for us to prepare for the one-day Provincial Assembly that will meet on July 16th this summer to be followed by the Spiritually Conference. You will probably recall that we took care of some voting matters at the meeting last July when we selected new G.A. delegates and voted on changes to our bylaws. Now it is time to select the Steering Committee that will direct the next cycle of our provincial assemblies to begin in 2022. With this letter we are sending the nomination form and the expanded responsibilities of the Steering Committee as revised by the Government Committee and approved by the Provincial Assembly last July. Finally, we spell out the procedures and dates for you to submit nominations. Note that nominations should be sent to Jean Love, jlove@sssf.org by March 15th.
As a reminder, the Government Committee submitted a number of changes which we voted to approve at the July 2020 Provincial Assembly. In their May 26, 2020 letter to the province, they wrote:
Change #1 Consolidate Agenda and Steering Committees into one coordinating Committee of the Provincial Assembly, namely the Steering Committee.
Change #2 Incorporate election committee functions within Steering Committee responsibilities (i.e. functions of the Nomination and election committee for GA Delegates and Nomination and Election Committee for the Provincial Team.)
We voted to accept these changes given the rationale that the committees named carry out well-defined processes and procedures and are ably assisted by the provincial staff. The Government Committee noted that, besides consolidating the agenda and steering committees to streamline these functions, integrating all election functions into one Committee will allow for greater consistency across the election processes and save the expense of multiple groups meeting for similar processes. If the Steering Committee’s workload should become too heavy, Procedure 17a allows them to appoint ad hoc committees to assist in carrying out their functions.
We bring to your attention a timing issue. Our amended bylaws will need to be ratified by the General Assembly that meets in February, 2022. The Government and Steering Committees believe we should function with the understanding that our bylaws will be approved. However, if there are objections from you causing us to wait to select the Steering Committee until after the February 2022 G.A., we ask you to alert us, in writing, by May 1st. If we do receive concerns, we will include a session to discuss the matter on the agenda at our July 16 meeting.
Meanwhile, we can go ahead and nominate sisters for the Steering Committee with the awareness that we will not vote on these nominees until our July meeting in which we can sort out the timing issue if necessary.
The current Steering Committee had hoped we could meet in person this July but the pandemic is still problematic so we will have to continue meeting remotely. You will be receiving more information on our plans for the assembly in the near future.
