Bylaws amendment proposals
April 27, 2009
At our congregation’s annual meeting on May 17, the congregation will be asked to approve an amendment to our society’s bylaws allowing future annual meetings to be held later in the year.
Currently, the annual meeting must be held by May 31, at which time the congregation approves the following year’s budget. This date presents a problem because in recent years we’ve been unable to find out until just days before the meeting how much money we’ll be getting for the church year from the James Eddy Trust.
The trust’s investments moved to Washington Trust several years ago, and that firm’s quarterly update schedule doesn’t provide updated figures from the investments until mid to late April. Because our bylaws currently require that materials for the annual meeting (which is usually held at least a week before the deadline in case of emergency cancellation) be mailed to members three weeks in advance, the Finance Committee ends up with only about three days to a week between when it learns how much the trust will contribute and when it has to have a complete budget proposal to send to members in the annual meeting packets. The committee usually has to prepare a few different versions of the budget, and then must scramble to adjust the closest one when the information comes.
To allow a more reasonable time frame in which the Finance Committee can develop the budget, the Board recommends moving the deadline for the annual meeting to June 21 and reducing the three weeks’ notice required for societal meeting agendas. An amendment has been drafted and was included in the annual meeting packets provided to members in late April.
~Meredyth Waterman
President-elect
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