Restructuring Newsletter - Issue #5

September 29, 2008

Here we are at the end of September already and everything is “full steam ahead”. After a relatively quiet summer the project is once again progressing steadily towards the July 1, 2009 completion date. Welcome back everyone! Hope you had time to relax and spend time with your families during the summer.

Presbytery Commissions

The new Presbytery commissions have been meeting throughout the summer. They are at various stages of:

• Defining a governance structure, including the composition of the Presbytery Executive

• Determining a committee structure that will address personnel, property, program and public witness issues

• Developing nominations policies, including terms of office

• Establishing frequency and times of Presbytery meetings

• Developing a vision for how to be a Presbytery that will be energetic and exciting and will involve doing things in a new way

• Developing a plan for nominating Commissioners to the next General Council

A full meeting of the new Presbyteries will take place on October 25 (originally October 18). Invitations will be sent but here are the meeting locations:

Northeast Presbytery
New Hope United Church
9100 Jane Street
Bldg E.
Concord, ON L4K 0A4
(905) 738-6446
www.newhopevaughan.com

Northwest Presbytery
Central-Westside United Church
310 -10th Street W.
Owen Sound, ON N4K 3R5
(519) 376-8319
www.centralwestside.ca

Southeast Presbytery
Church of the Master
3385 Lawrence Avenue E.
Scarborough, ON M1H 1A8
(416) 431-0333

Southwest Presbytery
Humber Valley United Church
76 Anglesey Blvd.
Etobicoke ON M9A 3C1
(416) 231-2263
http://www.hvuc.ca

More new Presbytery news - a nice touch…

Last week I attended a lovely covenanting service between Reverend Brian Nicholson and his new charge, Kleinburg-Nobleton. The service was presided over by York Presbytery’s chair, Reverend Carol McKinley. In addition, Reverend Shelley Roberts participated in the service. Shelley is on the Presbytery Commission for the new, Northwest Presbytery. Although not in existence yet, Shelley, who is currently in Dufferin-Peel, wanted to welcome the Kleinburg-Nobleton congregations and their new minister into what will be on July 1, 2009, their new Presbytery. (Carol Paniccia)

Assets and Funding Task Group

After issuing its status report in June, the AFTG took some time off over the summer. In the meantime, stakeholders were asked to send feedback to the task group until mid-August. Very few comments were received.

Toronto United Church Council, who had put forward one of the options contained within the status report, sent an extensive list of excellent questions to the task group. These questions were answered and the information was shared with everyone involved in this work. An outcome of this information exchange was that the TUCC board made the decision to withdraw their funding proposal.

On September 12 approximately 50 people attended a day long meeting at New Hope U.C. hosted by the AFTG. Ruth Sirman, a professional facilitator, led the meeting.

All nine of the current Presbyteries, as well as the Toronto West Presbytery Corporation, the Tri Presbytery Corporation, the Cedar Glen committee, the Mission Support Committee, TUCC and the Conference Executive were represented. Needless to say, many of the participants were wearing several hats! Considerable time was spent discussing the other options for the allocation and management of the assets within the Conference. Presentations were made that were informative and helpful to the AFTG with regards to developing their recommendations and final report by the end of October.

So, what’s next?

The AFTG presents its report to the Steering Group in October. After they have done so, their work is done and the task group will disband.

This however, does not mean that this piece of work is complete.

The Steering Group will report to the Conference Executive in November, likely with motions resulting from the AFTG’s recommendations.

Regardless of the outcome – option 1 or 2 or a hybrid of both, there will still be considerable work to be done around the implementation of the recommendations. A new group will be formed to carry out this work. As restructuring nears its completion people are eager to move forward with "the new way of doing things". The remainder of the tasks involving the asset management, administration and funding is extremely important. It is hoped that enthusiastic volunteers throughout the Conference will be prepared to take it to its logical conclusion.

The Communications Task Group

The Communications Task Group managed to meet over the summer and make some headway with the Conference Communications Strategy. Some of the progress the CTG has made is around guiding principals for Conference communication. Each time a communication item or channel or method is decided upon it should be tested against the principles. These include:

• Equal and Inclusive. The Conference will not inappropriately favour one stakeholder over another and will ensure efforts are made to communicate with hard to reach groups.

• Cost-effective. Where possible our communications strategy shall exemplify principles of good stewardship. e.g.: plain text (standard). The Conference will always try to deliver best value.

• Accessible and Timely. The Conference will ensure that information is made available to relevant stakeholders within a timeframe that is useful to them.

• Engaging. The Conference will endeavour to communicate with people about what matters to them, in a way that invites them to engage and captures their attention and imagination.

• Legal. The Conference will, at all times, comply with The Manual and with the polity of The United Church of Canada, as well as with privacy regulations.

• Consistent. The Conference will deliver key messages that are consistent and unambiguous. It will use clear plain language in all its communications.

Commission on the Role of the Executive

The Commission on the Role of the Executive (EC) is meeting again. What follows are some highlights of their work.

The EC is asking "What good are we trying to achieve as the Conference? We’re trying to strengthen congregations/mission units to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Everything we do at the Conference level should have a connection with how our actions will strengthen a congregation/mission unit." The primary role of the Conference is to ensure that compliance and oversight functions are done.

The EC has begun work on a mission statement for the restructured Conference.

The mission of the Toronto Conference Executive is to strengthen congregations and mission units to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

To fulfill that mission, the Executive will:

1. Ensure oversight and compliance within the polity of The United Church of Canada

2. Provide resources in the Presbyteries to promote the work in the following areas – program, property, personnel and public witness, with further support from the executive secretary role.

Policies
The financial policies will be developed initially by the finance and extra appeals committee; these policies will go to the Executive and to the Commission for review.

A Message from the Conference President

So, here we are, far down the road to re-structuring in this Conference. People are gathering again. The Executive Commission has quite a task before them yet, even after working diligently for the last 15 months. Their task is to discern what is the work of Conference in the future? What will that work look like and how will it be done?

There are two over-arching requirements: one is compliance with the United Church Manual and the second is oversight. The Commission members, after careful reading of the Manual tell us that the Conference must have oversight of the spiritual life of the church, that is at Presbytery and congregational level, and that the Conference ensures the appropriate implementation of the policies of the United Church of Canada.

In order to do that task in an effective way and in order to help us be forward thinking, the Conference executive will be using a different model of governance than it is presently. In the future the model we will use is based on the Carver model. This model will be adapted to better suit our needs. The Carver model sounds like a bit of a mouthful, but let me explain a bit.

The Carver model of board governance has been in use in North America over the last twenty years and it is still gaining in popularity. It is primarily used by non-profit organizations and it is already used by many hospital boards in the Toronto area. This model of working shifts the focus of work from tasks to policy. The executive in the future will set the direction the church in Toronto Conference will move. In its policies, it will give a vision for who the church is and what we want it to be in our small place in the world.

What this means for us is that, practically speaking, the executive will be smaller than it presently is. It will be mostly composed of Presbytery representatives and its major function will be to set policy. There is yet much work to be done, but there is great enthusiasm for doing the work of the church a new way. My hope and expectation is that this change in how we function at the Conference level will allow us to be more responsive to the needs of the Conference and more effective and efficient in the way we work.

While we do this work, we also are mindful of the need to put this work into the hands of God to bless what we are doing and to bring God’s enlivening spirit to bear on it. It is only an offering on our part as we try to see where God is leading us.