White Paper Meeting #1 in Fraser

First Meeting
The Reverend Paul Guiton, Rector of St. Dunstan and Regional Dean of Yale welcomed the approximately 2 dozen clergy and laity who were in attendance.
He thanked the group for taking time from their schedules to attend the meeting.
The Reverend Craig Tanksley, Rector of St. Mark’s, Ocean Park and Regional Dean of South Fraser offered a prayer to begin the meeting, a prayer requesting guidance.
The meeting got underway with Director of Mission and Ministry, The Reverend Douglas Fenton giving a brief overview of the mechanics of the meeting.
Assistant Treasurer of the diocese, Jim Stewart who is also a member of the “White Paper” working group was in attendance.
• History of the “White Paper”
• Move to table groups: appoint a recorder
• Read through the document together section by section
• Ask each of the following questions after each section:
o What can we affirm
o What can we not affirm or what amendment would we offer
o What is missing
• What is missing from the “White Paper” that we hoped would be addressed?

Douglas went on to give some background and history of the creation of the White Paper linking it back to the Strategic Plan of the Diocese, Plan 2018. Diocesan restructuring and reorganizing was and remains an identified priority of the Strategic Plan.
In the HOW section of the opening briefing he laid out how the process will unfold and how the information being collected at these Archdeaconry meetings will be collated into a report to Synod 2013.
One of the proposals in the White Paper is an ambitious re-organization of the Standing Committees, those 7 committees that are an instrument of Diocesan Council with Chair’s appointed by the Bishop and members nominated and affirmed by Diocesan Council. The suggestion is that these 7 be folded into 2 Standing Committees. The Reverend Craig Tanksley asked some questions about the Standing Committees as points of clarification in order to supply some cursory but helpful information to those in attendance who may not be familiar with this component of diocesan structure and governance. Douglas spent an informative 10 minutes giving a thumbnail sketch of the committees.
Paul Guiton asked a question about relationships and how the White Paper addresses the relationship of Parishes, to the Governance of the Diocese to the Diocesan Office. Douglas explained that the principal relationship is SYNOD, all the licensed clergy and the elected laity of the diocese who meet annually to make the decisions. That is the key relationship. Douglas pointed out that one of the proposals in the White Paper is that Synod meet every second year with the off year being a diocesan wide gathering for mission and ministry education.

At 10:15am the plenary broke up into three groups and spent the next 90+ minutes in discussion.

The plenary reconvened after the small group discussions and there was a brief feedback session.
Overall, response to the meeting format and the White Paper content was positive.
It was suggested that the organizers of the upcoming meetings may want to look at prioritizing the topics so that every section of proposed reorganization gets covered in the time allotted.
The written notes of each table discussion were delivered to Douglas and that material will be transcribed and combined with the feedback from the other archdeaconry meetings and delivered to the White Paper on Diocesan Reorganization and Restructuring team of: Paul Borthistle, Peter Elliott, Sue Foley-Currie, Jim Stewart, Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles, Marcia Sauder (editor) and Douglas Fenton (staff)

The next meetings are :
October 27th, 9:30am – 12pm,Westminster Archdeaconry at St Catherine, Port Coquitlam
October 27th, 9:30am – 12pm, Burrard Archdeaconry at St. Matthias – St. Luke.
November 3rd, 10:00am-1:00 pm, Capilano Archdeaconry at St Stephen, West Vancouver