Annual Report Part 4

I have not previously complained that the annual report and the Vestry candidate brochure have not appeared on the parish Web site, largely because my expectations of the site have become so low. Yesterday, however, I was told of a former parishioner who still has emotional ties to St. Paul’s and who had hoped to be able to read material for the annual meeting on the Web. He was, of course, disappointed. Of course, The material should have been put on the Web.

Depending on how it was assembled, the annual report may have been difficult to assemble into a form suitable for the Web, but, given St. Paul’s’ pretensions, we ought to have the ability in-house to do such things. Less forgivable is the failure, not only on the Web site but also in the parish e-mail newsletters of both this and last week to even name the candidates for Vestry positions. The e-mail of January 20 mentioned the candidate forums scheduled for the following Sunday. That notice contained this sentence: “We have a talented group of parishioners who are willing to serve, so please come and hear what they have to say so that you are an informed voter on January 30.” Was it too much trouble to name names, were we using suspense to attract a bigger crowd, or were we still twisting arms to get four candidates 10 days before the election? Parishioners need to know their Vestry members, of course, though such knowledge will not be especially useful Sunday, when four people will be competing for four positions. (I think I can predict the winners.)

The e-mail newsletter of two days ago announced the annual meeting, but it did not list candidates and did not contain information about the 2011 budget, which was not reproduced in the annual report. That budget was discussed at the Vestry meeting last Monday, though neither the senior warden nor the treasurer was there to provide explanations.

When I attended Saturday Bible Study this morning, the undercroft was set up for tomorrow’s meeting. At the front table were stacks of various documents, including ballots (which a fellow student thought a waste of paper), a report from the senior warden—John Adam’s report was not in the annual report—and a 2011 budget summary.

Below, I reproduce the budget information. I am offering this before I have had time to analyze it, in the hope that as many people as possible will be prepared to discuss the budget intelligently at the meeting. I will post the senior warden’s report and additional commentary later today.

First, the numbers:



Here is the “mission-budget” analysis to be presented at the meeting and the data on which it is based: