Anyone who’s been at Westheights for even a couple of months recognizes that this is a vibrant church of loving people. Wonderful times of worship and relevant learning on Sunday mornings, strong and close relationships formed at house churches, and loving service to the glocal (global+local) community. However, behind the scenes we also have a committed group of leaders who take care of some of the important decision-making details needed for our church to run smoothly and efficiently. The Westheights Church Board meets regularly to responsibly manage the many financial and legal matters that come with any organization. Each year they host what we call our “Annual Congregational Council Meeting” in order to update the church about the activities of the past year, review and present a budget, and approve new leaders to various positions of responsibility. These annual meetings have traditionally happened near the end of January, but this has always presented challenges as it didn’t allow very much time for finalizing the year-end financial accounts and then formulating a realistic budget for the new year.
For many years, the Westheights Church Treasurer was tasked with finalizing the year’s financial accounts within 5-7 days after the end of the year. This was required in order to meet deadlines for the distribution of the council reports two weeks prior to the annual congregational council meeting which was held on/about the last Sunday evening of each January.
This was an unrealistic, hectic schedule involving many late nights and last minute adjustments.
During 2016, the church board reviewed this annual financial cycle and adjusted the schedule to be: (a) more realistic; (b) to incorporate time for an annual financial review of the church’s accounts in February; and (c) for inclusion of the reviewer’s report in the annual council reports to be distributed by mid-March.
The annual congregational council meeting will now be held on/about the last Sunday evening in March each year. This year it will be on Sunday, March 26, 2017 at 6pm.
As a result of this two month shift for the meeting, and since volunteer position vacancies are ratified at the council meeting, the church board also shifted volunteer position start/stop dates to now all end on March 31st and the new incumbents to start on April 1st each year. Previously, terms went until December 31st even though new incumbents were not ratified until the end of January. This provides a better alignment of timing.
The Personnel Committee was informed of these changes last fall and they contacted everyone who had a term ending on December 31, 2016 to ask if they would extend their service until March 31, 2017. We thank these volunteers for their acceptance of this three month extension.
In addition, in accordance with newly suggested terminology from BIC Canada, we will start to call our annual Congregational Council Meeting our “Annual General Meeting” or AGM.
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding any of this information.
Thank you.
Doug Braun
Doug Braun
Chair, Church Board
Feature Image Credit: Hanging Light Bulb by Freepik