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FORMS:
Vestry Election form:  Word Document |  PDF
Mission Committee Election form: Word Document | PDF
Certification of Convention Delegates form: Word Document | PDF
EDOW Convention Website: On Being a Convention Delegate
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON VESTRY
ELECTION AND DELEGATE FORMS (top)
Do I have to fill out these forms by hand?
It is not necessary to complete the forms by hand. To type your responses simply save the
forms on your computer in the format you prefer — Word or Adobe PDF — click
your cursor on a line and start typing.
Can I call with the changes?
No. In the case of wardens and delegates, it's a matter of enfranchising
and disenfrachising people, so changes must be certified.
Why doesn't the new warden receive Church
House News?
It means that we don't have the forms on file. Either the parish office
hasn't sent them in or they were never received. You should have kept
a copy – send us a copy of that.
Who can sign the forms?
According to our canons (church law), only the rector, senior warden or
secretary of the vestry may sign. No, the associate rector may not sign.
No, the parish secretary may not sign, unless that person is also the
secretary of the vestry. Note that the rector doesn't have to fill it
out – only sign it.
If our annual meeting is in January, can the
delegates elected then be seated at the Convention at the end of the month?
No, they must be certified no later than 30 days prior to the Convention.
No, we aren't going to make exceptions to that just because that's when
you hold your meeting – your bylaws have to conform to diocesan canons,
not the other way around. Ask yourself this question – do you really
want to be represented by people who have had absolutely no preliminary
information on which to base their votes for the diocesan budget, various
elective offices, canonical changes, etc.?
Why aren't our alternate delegates receiving
the same information as the delegates?
Delegations need to share information and talk to one another. The practical
reason is that there are not enough resources to maintain that many more
people in the database or to do that many more mailings. More and more
of this information can be found on this website or the EDOW Convention Website – point the alternates
to either of these.
How many delegates do we get, and how do we
get more?
There's a complicated formula applied every year based on average attendance.
See information on delegate apportionment.
Table 3 in the Journal shows that we're only
a few people short of the number needed for an additional delegate. We've
had more people in church, so we get an additional delegate, right?
Maybe. It depends on where your average attendance falls in relationship
to every other congregation in the Diocese. If everyone else has had a
growth spurt, it's not impossible for the number of your delegates to
go down. Remember, this is re-computed every year.
How will we know when the number of delegates
changes?
You can look in Table 3 of the Journal or wait until we send you a letter
the week after Regional Assemblies. Note that the delegate apportionment
does not change until the next Convention – the change does not apply
to that next Regional Assembly.
How many alternate delegates do we get?
Our canons do not address this. If your bylaws don't address it either,
a rough rule of thumb is to have it be an equal number. Just remember
that they have to be certified no less than 30 days before the Convention as well,
so if you only have one delegate, you may wish to certify more than one
alternate, just in case.
ABOUT VESTRY ELECTIONS
(top)
At every annual meeting, a congregation elects members
of the vestry (or in the case of a mission, a mission committee). Depending
on its bylaws, either the congregation or the vestry also elects the wardens
and the convention delegates. This information must be certified and on
file with the Convention and Governance Office at Church House. All forms
connected with this must be dated and signed by the rector, senior warden
or secretary of the vestry.
Once the forms are on file, the master voting list
will be changed at Church House, which, among other things, means that
wardens and delegates will start to receive information about upcoming
events, training sessions, etc. All delegates and and alternate delegates
must be certified no later than 30 days prior to Convention.
Wardens and delegates are all eligible to vote at the
Regional Assemblies in October, and should plan to attend. Only delegates
are eligible to vote at the annual meeting of the Convention. A copy of
"On Being a Convention Delegate" gives information about Regional
Assemblies and Convention, and should be available in every church office
for wardens and delegates.
Vestry Election form: Word Document | PDF
Mission Committee Election form: Word Document | PDF
ABOUT DELEGATES: Delegate
Apportionment – How many Delegates per Congregation (top)
Every congregation is entitled to send 1-5 lay delegates
to the annual meeting of the Diocesan Convention. A chart laying out the
delegate apportionment for the next Convention (Table 3) is computed in
the summer and printed in the back of the Diocesan Journal and Directory.
Our constitution guarantees every congregation one
vote. Our canons then provide for up to four additional delegates for
parishes, separate congregations and organized missions. One of the extra
pages of each congregation's parochial report asks for the attendance
figures for the four Key Sundays in the past year (Advent I, Lent I, Easter
and Pentecost). The median of the average of the last three years attendance
for these four Key Sundays (that's a total of 12 Sundays) is computed,
and a formula is applied. That means that one-half of the congregations
are entitled to one delegate, and the larger congregations are entitled
proportionately to more.
The formula, according to Canon 2, Sec. 2 is:
(c) Parishes, Separate Congregations and Organized
Missions: In addition to the one Lay Delegate authorized under Article
2, Section 4(a), a Parish, Separate Congregation or Organized Mission
shall be entitled to no more than four additional Lay Delegates determined
as follows:
(i) Within one calendar month of the final date for receipt of the Annual
Reports, the Secretary shall average the attendance from the Annual Reports
of each Parish, Separate Congregation and Organized Mission at the following
services for the most recent three year period: (A) Advent I, (B) Lent
I, (C) Easter Day, and (D) Pentecost. If a Parish, Separate Congregation
or Organized Mission has not filed its annual report for the previous
year, the Secretary shall count the attendance for each service in that
year as zero. This shall be the average attendance.
(ii) The Secretary shall determine the median attendance number, to which
the average attendance determined under paragraph (c)(i) above, of each
parish, Separate Congregation or Organized Mission shall be compared and
the number of Lay Delegates of each determined as follows:
The median and less no additional delegate
Over the median to twice the median 1 additional delegate
Over twice the median to three times the median 2 additional delegates
Over three times the median to four times the median 3 additional delegates
Over four times the median 4 additional delegates
Certification of Convention Delegates form: Word Document | PDF
EDOW Convention Website: On Being a Convention Delegate
(top)
Last Update: 05/02/08
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