Best Practice for Church AGMs

I spent two hours at my local church’s annual general meeting yesterday. The experience got me thinking about the factors needed for an effective and inspiring AGM for any local church. I’m working in a Uniting Church setting at a regional level and so I’m interested to see if there if might transferability to the annual general meetings of other councils such as Presbytery, Synod (every 18th months in Queensland) and Assembly (every three years in Australia). I’m also interested in how such meetings can build a congregation’s capacity for discipleship, compassionate community engagement and partnership.

Cartoon by Dave Walker at Cartoon Church

First of all, it’s helpful to work out the potential goals of the meeting.

1. Remind members/partners how all the parts make up the whole, held together by shared vision, values, beliefs and priorities. (cf 1 Corinthians 12)
2. Provide a broad level of accountability, providing a sense of progress and an honest evaluation of effectiveness.
3. Provide encouragement for staff and volunteers.
4. Discern together a response to changes in context, clarifying vision, values, beliefs and priorities.
5. Appoint people to key leadership positions.
6. Provide a historical record through the Annual Report.

It’s helpful to work out what needs to be left to other meetings, including management issues and detailed complaints. Processes of discernment over values and priorities require more time than is allowed in annual general meetings.

It’s also helpful to have a person who is focused on facilitating the AGM, leaving staff and church council leaders free to participate.

Preparation

Advance notice needs to be given, with communication covering the agenda, leadership positions available, who is eligible to participate, and who is eligible to stand for leadership positions. It should be possible to make a date claimer months in advance. Members should be able to submit items for inclusion in the agenda, which of course would be vetted by the chair and secretary.

Reports need to be in the hands of participants two weeks before the meeting, to provide time for thought and response. Participants should be reminded about the need to read reports in advance. I like the idea of including a phone number or email address at the end of each report so that people can ask questions or make suggestions before the meeting. Financial reports should be audited before the meeting.

People should be informed on how they can access relevant parts of the constitution and any other reference material. See the Code of Ethics and Manual for Meetings.

Reports

Why do we have reports? They provide a level of accountability and a historical record for the future. Church Council needs to work out who needs to report to the AGM. Here’s what I’d be expecting to read in the annual report.

1. Overview of shared vision, values, beliefs, priorities.
2. Staff Overview – providing key leadership perspective.
3. Church Council – covering key governance issues. Include a list of Church Council members and their responsibilities.
4. Finance – audited accounts, critical issues around income and expenditure, budget for the coming year/s.
5. Property – critical development and maintenance issues.
6. Key ministry areas. These reports could include information on progress and issues for attention, backed up by stories from groups or individuals, such as age-related groups, action groups, people carrying areas of responsibility.

Context

Will the AGM be connected within a worship service? Will it be run as part of a meal? Have a plan for having members of the congregation being heard – sound system etc. It can be helpful to have time breaks. An hour is long enough at a time for people to be sitting.

Running the Meeting

1. Distribute a written roll of attendance and take apologies.
2. Have a clear start, with an overview of the agenda and process to be used.
3. Approve the minutes of the previous AGM as an accurate record.
4. Any matters arising from the report can be spoken to. It’s useful to work out beforehand what these might be.
3. Let people know that all reports will be taken as read. That’s why they were distributed well beforehand.
4. Have a clear written agenda and timeline available for all participants.
5. Use a clear decision making process. Do we want people to receive and endorse the reports? Will decision making be by consensus? At what point do we need movers, seconders and formal voting? Will that be by show of hands, saying “yes” and “no”, using coloured cards (orange for yes, blue for no for example)? Always give an opportunity for the “no” voice. Will reports be received one by one, or altogether?
6. Have a system in place for electing people to leadership positions. Voting papers, pens and scrutineers. Decide beforehand if it is necessary to have a percentage of votes to be elected.
7. Members are invited to receive the financial report (income, expenditure and balances) and approve the budget for the coming year, as well as approve the auditor for next year’s financial report.
8. Limit the time of speeches to three minutes.
9. Don’t allow people to repeat issues unless new information or insights is being added.
10. Take minutes that can be written up and distributed within the week, to provide enough feedback from participants so they can be ratified at the next general meeting or church council meeting.