It is the statutory tradition of the Orthodox Church in America that every parish community hold an Annual Parish Meeting. According to the Statute of the OCA, Article XII, Section 7,
The Parish Assembly, sometimes known as the Parish Meeting, meets annually to consider matters pertaining to the life of the Parish and to conduct necessary elections relating to the Parish as a whole. The Parish Assembly is comprised of the Voting Members of the Parish… The Parish Priest together with the Parish Council may invite additional persons with or without the right to speak but without the right to vote.
The Annual Parish Meeting, under the presidency of the parish priest and assisted by the parish council, is tasked, according to the OCA statute, with several regular functions:
- to receive reports from the various committees and minsitries it has appointed
- to “approve [or reject] the annual operating budget submitted by the Parish Council”
- to “elect members of the Parish Council, the auditing committee, and the lay delegates to the Diocesan Assembly, and to the All-American Council, if the latter is meet during the current year…”
On Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021, our parish community gathered formally in Annual Parish Meeting with strong turnout from our community both in-person and with some casting virtual ballots. The APM begins in the video below, starting at the 1hr. 50 min. mark.
Here are the documents we used for the meeting:
- The Full APM Packet (with APM Agenda, the Warden’s Report, and the many of other ministry reports.) The ministry reports reflect the “lived life” of our parish.
- Dr. Laura Walther’s Full Treasury-Finance Report that includes the Proposed Budget for 2021-22. To better understand this report and proposed budget, you can access a video recording of the Zoomed Financed Report & Budget Presentation here. Dr. Laura’s revised pledge form for 2021-2022 can be found here.
- The revised Child Safety Policy recently approved by the Child Safety Committee and the Parish Council
The results of the 30-minute Annual Parish Meeting, agenda-item-by-agenda-item, included the following:
- The minutes from the previous 2020 APM were approved unanimously.
- The ministry reports in the APM packet were briefly summarized and commended to parish faithful. Fr. Justin gave his priest report. Dr. Laura gave her treasurer report (linked above.)
- Chris Reeves as secretary reported that quorrum for the meeting was met.
- A motion was approved to initate an external audit or review of our financial books (in 2021-22) and a second motion was passed to empanel Dr. Paul Frangedakis, Lisa Powell, Carl Lizak, and Daniel Kozar as our Auditing Committee for 2021-2022.
- Ricky Hutcherson was elected by secret ballot as lay delegate to the October 2021 Diocesan Assembly in Miami and a motion was passed to delay the vote on lay delegate for the summer 2022 AAC in Baltimore.
- A motion to approve the slate of new council members–Vera Foushee and Jason McCord–passed unanimously.
- The Liturgy was then concluded and the new council was formally blessed (with them saying this pledge of service.)
Afterwards pizza and refreshment were offered in the parish hall.
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