The Annual Congregation Meeting for 2012
was held Sunday, January 15.
~~Minutes coming soon~~
Stewardship Report
This report was first offered at the Annual Meeting
- Stewardship ministry for 2011 started w/ the vestry
- We used materials from Angie Emerson, our diocesan stewardship minister
- We adopted a definition of stewardship
- We settled on a theme for the year, “Growing in Gratitude”
- Educated & challenged ourselves to become more “spiritual leaders”:
- Started having “stewardship bible studies” at the beginning of our mtgs.
- Reviewed the stewardship newsletters sent by Angie on how to have an annual commitment program grounded in spirituality
- As individual vestry members, we committed to proportional giving for 2012 and publicly stated that (a precedent for vestries at St. Andrew’s )
- Vestry encouraged the Worship Team to participate in stewardship, hence they came up w/ “ I am thankful for …” board idea for Sunday morning
- Vestry & Worship Team collaborated to plan the annual commitment program
- Worship Team planned the “Festive Eucharist” that included special Prayers of the People and the “Litany for the Saints” who had donated financial gifts to St. A’s in the past. This service was also the occasion of our ingathering of annual commitments (not “pledges”!) for 2012.
- A “Feast of Gratitude” coffee hour was hosted by the vestry on this date
- As part of the restructuring of our financial reporting, the vestry asked Jim Moulton and Nene to collaborate on designing a new bookkeeping system for the offerings. Nene will begin using this new system for the 2012 financial year.
- Also as part of the financial restructuring, the vestry researched the endowment gifts St. A’s has rec’d thru our history. We now have a complete list of these “saints” and the nature of their financial gifts to the church.
- Some the “next steps” for the Vestry beginning in 2012:
- Develop a “legacy gifts policy” based on research done in 2011 on endowments
- Vestry members to attend the Vestry Orientation scheduled in February which will include more stewardship education
- Develop a new stewardship theme for 2012 (should be revised annually) and develop appropriate stewardship activities for the year related to the theme.
Faithfully,
Jocelyn
