Annual Meeting Time
Canon 15 - Sec. 6. “Annual Parish Meeting. The Annual Parish Meeting shall be held during the month of January, or in the month of December immediately preceding the month of January in which the meeting would otherwise be held, at a time and place within the Parish specified by the Rector. All communicants in good standing whose names appear on the Parish register shall be entitled to vote.”
So says the Canons of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona in compliment to the Constitutions and Canons of the whole Episcopal Church. Pandemic or not, the time has come for our Annual Meeting. This year, “the time and place within the Parish specified by the Rector” will be January 31 at Noon in your home by Zoom. We are reminded this year more than ever that “the Parish,” the church, is not a building. It is all of you. From that perspective, I think it is perfectly legal for us to meet in such a fashion.
The agenda for Annual meeting will be similar to Annual Meetings in the past in McBride Hall. We will honor folks who have worked so hard this past year. We will elect new individuals to the Vestry and to Delegates to Diocesan Convention. We will learn about how all of our ministries managed to survive and even thrive in this crazy year. We will talk about finances and how we will continue to grow and live into our mission of Earth Justice - Migrant Justice - Social Justice. We can’t help but talk about how our actions intersected with and affected the entire country. We will talk about our past and dream about our future. All of you will have an opportunity to take part as usual and we look forward to seeing all of you together, even if it has to be on a computer screen. Everyone is invited to Annual Meeting and all of you in good standing, meaning you have been to church three times in the past year (livestream or live) and are a “giver of record” are eligible to vote. You do not need to be an official member of the parish in any other fashion to participate or vote. See you at Noon at https://zoom.us/j/97028991062 on January 31.
In preparation for Annual Meeting, we will have our “Meet the Vestry candidates” session the week before Annual Meeting. Join us on January 24 at Noon to listen to and ask questions of those candidates running for Vestry. We are electing three individuals to Vestry and a new Junior Warden. Each candidate will make an opening and closing statement and all of you will have an opportunity to ask them questions in between. Join us at https://zoom.us/j/97275752622 for the Meet the Candidates forum.
The challenges of 2020 have been beyond what any of us could have possibly imagined and I am so grateful to all of you for creating a new form of this Beloved Community. See you all at livestream church at 10 AM and at Noon on January 24 and January 31.
Blessings and great hope!
Steve+
