How does the Church work?
How are decisions made?
The day-to-day running of the church is in the hands of a committee of 5 or 6 Deacons who are also ex officio trustees of the church as a charity. Deacons are nominated and elected by full church members who have been accorded voting rights. This enables the number of full church meetings to be kept at a manageable number; no more than 6 per annum. Just think, how silly it would be to call a church meeting if we were running low on teaspoons!
Deacons meet monthly except August and are in touch via email the rest of the time for emergencies. It is important to stress here that the minister does not have any extra powers. They have a single vote like all church members. One of the Deacons is Church Secretary, and the Minister is also included on the Diaconate. Deacons consider big questions as well as the day to day, and then a list of proposals is made to the full meeting to be voted on according to the constitution. The meeting’s decision is always final.
Currently we are in the throes of planning a major re-jig of the worship area. We have voted through the removal of pews, replacing them with comfortable chairs, levellingthe floor, and modernisation of the lobby area.
Following a full Access Audit, we realised that we had only made token gestures to the accessibility of the church (to wheelchairs, buggies, wedding couples, gurneys etc) and that a skilled architect was needed to do the best we could. After lots of discussion and a presentation by our architect, we finally decided what we wanted to do as a congregation. In a democracy everything takes time.
Now Paul Hutchings, our architect, is working on how we do it and is preparing our application of planning consent. The mills of God grind slowly…
Currently the Diaconate are:
– Minister Rachael Newman
– Church Secretary Iain Newman
– Ruth Groome
– Joyce Yeomans
– Sara Guy
– Caroline McCleod
– Lizzie Baska McCleod
– and one Vacancy