Using a Consent Calendar

This year the Board of Directors has used a new process for handling routine Board business. Votes deemed by the Executive Committee to be unlikely to require discussion have been grouped together on a “consent calendar” and presented as a single motion. The process has worked well, streamlining business and allowing your Board of Directors to spend more time focused on the mission and ministries of the Massachusetts Conference.

Every year, the evaluation forms from Annual Meeting indicate that many delegates would like shorter plenary sessions and more opportunities for worship, fellowship and learning. In an effort to respond to these concerns, the Annual Meeting Business Committee is offering a consent calendar of more routine items for consideration by the 207th Annual Meeting. The items included in the vote will include:

1. Election of Honorary Delegates
2. Adoption of the Standing Rules
3. Adoption of the Order of Time and Events
4. Election of members of Boards, Commissions, Committees, and officers, with the exception of the new Conference Minister and President
5. A name change for the Commission for Evangelism and Renewal

Full wording of these votes and any necessary background information will be included in the delegate packets that are distributed at the Annual Meeting.

This new process is not intended to stifle discussion. Any delegate can ask that any item be removed from the consent calendar to be moved and debated individually. However, the Business Committee believes that this process will enable the delegates to Annual Meeting to spend more time in worship, fellowship, and gathering resources for their local congregations, and less time on routine authorizations. Delegates will be given an opportunity to offer feedback about the process on the evaluation sheets distributed in the delegate packets.

A New Resolution Process

Last May, the Board of Directors appointed an Annual Meeting Revisioning Task Team to review all aspects of annual meetings. That group met for several months and surveyed Annual Meeting participants about ways in which the Annual Meeting might be improved. One issue raised consistently was to find a way to change the resolution process to make it more meaningful to our local churches and to allow the Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ to be a more effective voice for justice. The Task Team has recommended the following two-year process for resolutions.

Goals:

• Make resolutions more meaningful
• Provide more information and opportunities for education to local churches
• Create more time for study and reflection of the issues involved
• Develop action items which will address the needs created by the issues involved

The Plan:

• Resolution proposers will be asked to provide resources for the subject of the resolution.
• A block of time will be set aside at Annual Meeting for people interested in the resolution to meet for a sharing of those resources and discussion
• The year following the Annual Meeting will be used as a time for discernment and the development of an action plan through meetings with local churches and perhaps associations.
• The action plan will be brought to the next Annual Meeting for adoption by the delegates.
  The resolution proposers will be responsible for development and distribution of resources, data gathering, publication of findings, and development of action items.
• Resolutions that are of such a timely matter that a year’s study would cause the issue to be moot may be submitted to the Business Committee for action at the current Annual Meeting.

There will be time for discussion of this new resolution process during the hearings at 3:45 PM on Friday afternoon, June 9.