1. OPENING – Welcome
With Bishop Michael away at the House of Bishop’s Meetings in Niagara Falls and Dean Peter at the Urban/Suburban Clergy Meeting in Iona, the meeting was chaired by the Chancellor, George Cadman, QC. The Chancellor announced some additions and changes to the agenda. In the Presentation section Archdeacon Lynne McNaughton was added to present information from the recent Council of General Synod meetings. Also there was an addition to Section 8 to look at the recommendations that came from the Archdeaconry Meetings on The White Paper on Diocesan Reorganization, and a report from Assistant Treasurer Jim Stewart on the progress of the property development plans at Holy Trinity Cathedral, New Westminster.
The Venerable Douglas Fenton opened with prayer
2. REGRETS
Among the list of regrets was a resignation by Patrick Donahoe, the North Vancouver Deanery representative who had been hired recently as Director of Student Services in Nanaimo and is moving out of the diocese. As the time for Synod is getting closer there will not be a replacement election, that position will be part of the 2013 Synod elections
3. PRESENTATION
The Venerable Lynne McNaughton spoke about the COGS meeting held March 14-17 and the material processed at those meetings in preparation for Joint Assembly the triennial meeting coming up in July with the ELCiC.
A lot of the COGS business was around restructuring, mostly in an attempt to cut back costs. The Standing Committees are being looked at and a move towards having Task Groups given oversight on various projects in smaller groups that can meet electronically is a current focus.
The Eco-Justice Committee and Partners in Mission had been collapsed into one committee a few years ago but that has not worked well for either group so they will be changed back to two committees.
Lynne reported on the JC-VCC visit to COGS which has been documented in website coverage. Bishop Michael’s apology to the Japanese Canadian Anglicans who had their churches sold off in the mid and late 1940’s was very powerful.
Something that the delegates from d of NW will have to look at is that the proposed restructuring of General Synod is going change the amount of delegates that larger dioceses send. For example New Westminster will send 12 to Joint Assembly but will send 8 in 2016. Small dioceses will continue to send 4 delegates.
Even with decentralizing meetings in the restructuring there is still strong energy to keep a strong core presence as a National Church.
For more details please visit the COGS webpage for the highlights package.
Also, the five delegates have prepared a report for the Eccleciastical Province of BC and Yukon addressed to the Metropolitan, the Most Reverend John Privett. It is available by clicking the link.
4. MINUTES
5. CORRESPONDENCE
Please click to link to the letter from the PRIMATE in gratitude for the Annual Apportionment payment
Please click to link to the letter from the ANGLICAN FOUNDATION announcing the grant to the St. Jude’s Home
6 ACTION – FOR DEBATE
6.1 New Development Guidelines Procedures
Registrar Don Paul gave a brief overview of the procedures.
At the last meeting, Council looked at the process around bestowing GRANTS of $20,000 (up to a total amount of $100,000) or less without having to go to Diocesan Council. However, the legal wording had not been put into place to cover LOANS. There were also some details missing about Standing Committees administrating grants and loans in the regulations. At the March 12, 2013 meeting there was agreement in Council that these kinds of grants from the New Development Fund be connected to the 10 priorities outlined in Plan 2018. The procedures document developed by Don Paul put the priorities in detailed perspective.
The Motion as presented in 6.1 was CARRIED
6.2 2013 Revised Budget and 2014 Vision Budget
Don Paul, the Registrar assembled a memorandum based on questions asked at the March 12 , 2013 meeting about the appropriateness of funding some of the 2013 budget and 2014 vision budget items from the New Development Fund. He summarized his memorandum very briefly by saying that the funding items were looked at and were seen as compatible with the prescribed uses of the New Development Fund.
The Treasurer Ian Robertson thanked Business Administrator Rob Dickson and the Business and Admin staff at the Synod office for taking a closer look at these budget line items and responding to the due diligence encouraged by Council.
The MOTIONS as presented in 6.2 were CARRIED
6.3 Diocesan Privacy Policy
The church in its gathering of data on members does capture a good deal of private information and that information needs to be protected and it is protected by the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). Archivist Melanie Delva is also the Privacy Officer for the Diocese of New Westminster and in the words of the Chancellor she has done some very good work in developing the updated Diocesan Privacy Policy. Upon approval of the updated policy by Diocesan Council the policy will be distributed to all parishes and will be uploaded to the Diocesan website in the Resources – Downloads section for easy access and for a short time in the left hand announcements pane on the diocesan website homepage.
The Chancellor went on to say that we have not had a current policy since 2004.
Prior to the vote there was discussion about the role of parishes in privacy protection and the Chancellor’s response was that parishes are a subset of the diocese so therefore one privacy officer and one Privacy Policy for the diocese is appropriate. The Venerable John Stephens wanted to make sure that there would be adequate follow-up and additional education for the parishes about the Privacy Policy as simple distribution of the policy document may not be sufficient.
The MOTION as presented in 6.3 was CARRIED
The Chancellor asked that thanks to Melanie be reflected in the minutes.
Please click to download the UPDATED POLICY
ADDITIONAL AGENDA ITEMS
a) Recommendations from the White Paper Discussions
A two-sided sheet was distributed containing 14 recommendations from the White Paper Archdeaconry discussions. Executive Archdeacon of the Diocese, the Venerable Douglas Fenton went over some of the points and highlighted various items.
Highlights included the desire to meet in deanery groups and connect regionally. Respondents were also interested in celebrating together, not just getting together for meetings. There is also considerable energy around rethinking the old ways of doing governance. At present the governance structure includes a large Diocesan Council and Standing Committees that require for some, the attendance at multiple meetings every month.
Major changes in restructuring may find approval in Synod but there must be an awareness that those recommendations that do meet with approval will require canonical changes and follow-up implementation teams to ensure that changes are made post Synod.
Douglas said that the Diocesan Legal Team would be extremely important in making sure that these changes get made.
Regional Dean of Westminster and Chair of the Communications Committee, the Reverend Paul Strudwick suggested that issues that have been going on for years like the redrawing of deanery and archdeaconry boundaries get started right away with a Task Force under the direction of the Bishop.
The Chancellor and the Registrar did say that Diocesan Council does have the power to change boundaries.
Rev Paul Strudwick therefore put forward a motion.
MOTION:
Diocesan Council requests that the Bishop establish the task force, contemplated by recommendation 13 from the White Paper on Diocesan Reorganisation, to consider and make changes to deanery and archdeaconry boundaries.
This Motion was CARRIED
b) Building Project at HTC New Westminster
Assistant Treasurer Jim Stewart reported on the progress being made on the proposed property development project at Holy Trinity Cathedral involving a heritage rejuvenation of the church and hall and the building of a high rise tower as a revenue source.
The parish have been working on what to do with their buildings for more than 2 years. On behalf of the diocese, Jim has been working with them.
What the committee proposed to the city of New Westminster planning department has now come full circle. They have received an approval letter from the New Westminster planning department to apply for a permit to begin an heritage revitalization program for the church (the oldest stone church in BC) and to pay for that through the building of a 22 – 24 story tower that will produce revenue. It is unusual for approval to come at the same time for both projects.
Before building permits are granted there is still a great deal of work to be done. There are significant geo-technical challenges and there is likely to be some pushback from the city and the citizens on design. There are very complex legal property issues as well, including air space parcels. It will be necessary to bring an experienced property developer into the project. Jim thinks it will take about 9 months to get to the stage of bringing in a developer and $500,000 to $600,000 in initial costs. If all goes according to schedule, in June, 2013 the HTC people will come to Council to request this amount in bridge financing and approval in principle of the project.
8 ITEM FOR DISCUSSION/INFORMATION
8.2 and 8.3 Korean Ministry at St. Stephen, Burnaby and Filipino Ministry at St. Mary, South Hill.
The Reverend Michael McGee spoke to the two strategic based ministry initiatives and summarized the two documents. Both of these ministry initiatives have gone through the necessary standing committees.
Based on the MAP results of both parishes and the fact that there are strong candidates to be ordained leaders in these communities all indications are positive that this is a good time to begin.
Both initiatives are to be funded from the New Diocesan Growth Fund a grant from the diocese with $225,000 for St. Stephen over five years and $200,000 for St. Mary, South Hill over the same time period.
8.5 Task Force on Christian Camping TOR and Nominations
The Chancellor said that Council should look at the Terms of Reference of the Task Force on Christian Camping. There were many suggestions to change the language of portions of the Approach with the terms changed
The MOTION was carried with changes to the text.
Then Council voted on the MOTION to approve the nominations to the Task Force for Christian Camping in the Diocese and those nominees were approved which satisfied item 9.2 of the agenda
8.1 Episcopal Election Process - Canon 2
With Bishop Michael Ingham’s April 2nd announcement of his upcoming retirement on August 31st, 2013, the Chancellor took some time to explain some elements of Canon 2 and the episcopal election process.
The earliest that a date could be set for an episcopal election would be the Diocesan Council meeting in September, 2013. It will be necessary to connect with the Metropolitan, Archbishop John Privett to find out his availability for an Electoral Synod.
The Dean, the Very Reverend Peter Elliott will be the Administrator of the Diocese after August 31st.
An Electoral Synod must take place within three months of the Diocesan Council meeting when the date is set. It is possible depending on the availability of the Metropolitan that the Electoral Synod may take place in late October or sometime in November.
A Search/Nominations Committee of 10, 5 ordained and 5 laity made up of members of Synod will be elected by Diocesan Council. Those who come together in Synod May 24 and 25 will be the delegates entitled to participate in Electoral Synod.
There will be a subset of the Nominations Committee chosen by the Chancellor consisting of 2 clergy and 2 laity.
All of the Nominations confirmed by the Search/Nominations Committee process go to the Electoral Synod.
The Synod will vote in orders, Lay and Clergy, with a majority in each Order required to elect.
The Chancellor will need to bring back to the May meeting of Council a mechanism for the Search/Nominations Committee to be chosen by Council, with that selection likely taking place at the June meeting of Council. Any ordained person who may think that they will be nominated to run in the episcopal election should not participate in the Search/Nominations Committee as that would preclude them from nomination.The Chancellor asked the chair of the Communications Committee to ready and prepare the Communications Committee to prepare materials to communicate the candidate information when the time comes.
The Chancellor turned the floor over to the Treasurer, Ian Robertson who told Council that he would not be present for the May meeting of Council and that he is not seeking reelection as Treasurer of the diocese. Ian thanked everyone for the great experience he has had over the past four years and in turn received an enthusiastic ovation from council members.
The meeting concluded with The Grace at 10pm. The next meeting will be May 14th, 7:30pm at St. John's, Shaughnessy.
Images: Top and Homepage, Assistant Treasurer Jim Stewart, Treasurer Ian Robertson, Chancellor George Cadman discuss adding agenda items prior to the meeting. Upper right, Business Administrator of the Diocese, Rob Dickson and Archdeacon of Capilano-Kingcome, the Venerable Lynne McNaughton. Middle left, Helen Brown, Chair of the Ministry Resources Committee. Middle right, The Reverend Brian Vickers, the Venerable John Stephens and the Reverend David Price. Lower right, The Executive Archdeacon, the Venerable Douglas Fenton presents the recommendations from the archdeaconry White Paper discussions. Lower left, Coffee Break discussions. Bottom right, many hands make light work, the Rev. Brian Vickers and Kathleen Glynn-Morris get the tables stowed away at the end of intense and productive meeting.
Diocesan Council is the decision making, governing body of the Diocese of New Westminster consisting of: the Diocesan Officers (Bishop, Dean, Executive Archdeacon, Chancellor, Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer)
the Archdeacons of the five Archdeaconriesthe Archdeacon who is the Director of Deacons, two additional Diocesan Legal Officers, (Registrar and Legal Assessor), a Lay Secretary, a Clergy Secretary, the chairs of the Diocesan Standing Committees
There are two Deanery reps either Ordained or Lay. Sometimes Deaneries have two lay reps and sometimes two clergy reps, sometimes one of each. A Deanery is a group of churches, geographically affiliated and the reps are elected at the Annual Synod Meeting.
Synod Staff also attend meetings but are not members of Diocesan Council. They include: Business Administrator, Stewardship and Planned Giving Officer, Comptroller, Youth Coordinator and Communications Officer (and other staff as required).
Diocesan Synod consists of all the active clergy in the Diocese of New Westminster and 2-6 lay people elected from each diocesan parish proportionate to the size of the parish community.
Diocesan Council functions as the Synod between Synods, it is a representation of the large group that meets annually.
Diocesan Council and Diocesan Synod are both chaired by the Bishop.
Diocesan Council meets monthly on the second Tuesday of the month usually at St. Augustine, Marpole at 7:30pm. Diocesan Council is adjourned for the months of July and August.